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Published: November 5th 2007
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Hello my faithful subscribers. I should start a religion 😊 I have not had a good example of an Australian speaker yet to compare to the Kiwi's yet Uncle Barry. But I will in about a month so I will get back to you on the difference between the accents, but I would describe the Kiwi's accents as British with a twist, if that helps at all. It's hard to describe really.
So we left our gracious WWOOF hosts in Tokomaru Bay a couple days ago and headed down to Wellington. The drive was ridiculoulsy long! 10 1/2 hours in total. That is including an 1 1/2 stop in Napier though, which was a very rich touristy beach town. But we got some good use out of the ipod adapter, so that kept us sane.
We arrived in Wellington and have been staying with Bridget, who used to work for a Paul's parents when she lived in California. She has been a very generous host and we have enjoyed talking with her and her house mates.
Yesterday Paul and I checked out the town. We went to the local museum called Te Papa, which is one of
the better museums I have been to in my time. There are 6 floors with exhibits on the formation of New Zealand, animals and plants brought to New Zealand, Maori, and the European immigration. Plus there is anever changing contemporary art exhibit which is a nice change from the usual museumy stuff.
One thing that I learned that I thought was way cool was that the Weta, an indigenous insect that looks like a grasshoper with no wings and bigger, lives in the higher elevations where it freezes at night and then reanimates during the day when the sun warms it. That is a nice little evolutionary adaptation I would say. Plus there are eels that are born off the coast of Australia and swim with the currents to New Zealand, up streams into the mountain areas to live for 30 years, before making the trek back to Australia to lay eggs and die. Not as smart, but still interesting.
We checked out an art museum as well in town which had contemporary stuff. However, I was not very impressed, but more confused. I will say that there was interesting stuff that I had never seen before which
I respect because it shows the person being able to push art forms in new unthought of directions, but if the viewer doesn't quite get what the artist is trying to say or trying to make you feel, then I have difficulty appreciating it. For example, one room had a bunch of trash in it that was piled in a way that you would pile trash. When you walk in the room it seems like it is under construction because there is trash lying around, but after reading the description on the wall you find that the person who strewn the trash around was making art. Now I appreciate art greatly. I love movie, music, renaissance paintings, but piling trash around? I don't buy it.
That was a tangent. So, that night we went to Bridget's parents house and had a fantastic dinner of potatoes and chicken. They live on the coast in a very cool multilayerd house that they added onto over the 30 years they have lived there. I walked through about 3 layers of house and about 8 different rooms and that was probably 70% of the house. The rooms weren't very big though, not like
the a house in the states. More like a Frank Lloyd Wright house, where the rooms were smaller, but with a very efficient use of space and a flowing feel to them. Cool stuff.
Today we headed out to the east of Wellington to see the coast. We got to check out some pinnacles finally. When we did the hike in Thames we didn't actually get to see them. I posted a couple pictures so that you can see.
We walked along a river bed for a bout 2 hours, through a large area of these pinnacles. They look very brittle, as if they are made out of gravel and some large rocks. I couldn't imagine them standing for much longer, but they make for some very cool landscape.
We are back in Wellington now, and are about to go check out some fireworks because it is November 5th! Guy Fawkes day! The only reason I know about him is because of V for Vendetta. Thank you Allen Moore!
Daniel
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MOM
non-member comment
Wellington coast, etc.
I sent you a public comment but am not sure it made it through because of some message from TravelBlog that I got and blah, blah, blah. So, only choose one of this one or that one to include on blog. I love your photograph of the gorgeous Wellington coastline and I am wondering if the road I see in the photo is the main road on the coast (similar to our Highway 1). Also, I am fascinated by the eel living such a long life. I read on Wikipedia that the male Longfin eel of New Zealand can live up to 34 years and the female can live up to 47 years. I was also interested in your telling us the eels live up in the mountain areas. Wikipedia: "The larvae drift on the ocean currents and eventually reach coastal waters, where they metamorphose into elvers (tiny, semi-transparent eels). From there, they migrate upstream, traversing numerous obstacles if necessary, leaving the water and travelling short distances over moist ground. They are well fitted to this task, being able to absorb 50% of the oxygen they need through the skin. Eventually, they take up residence in a lake, swamp, dam or river, typically occupying a home range of about 400 m in length, where they remain until they reach maturity ... remarkably hardy: they can tolerate high water temperatures and low oxygen concentrations, endure long periods without food, and bury themselves in mud or sand and enter an energy-saving torpor when the water temperature drops below 10 °C. New Zealand longfin eels make excellent eating. For the M?ori people of New Zealand, starved of protein after the extinction of New Zealand megafauna, the New Zealand longfin eel was a significant food resource. Present-day recreational anglers catch and eat them regularly, and New Zealand has a well-established commercial eel fishery." You and Paul have adapted to this life of opening your minds to learn about the nature of the physical world and that of other cultures. I hope this becomes a habit for your lifetime and you work to help the world be a healthy place to live for everyone. We love your blogs and check often to follow you. Love, Mom