I had already decided that I was getting up nice and early this morning so that I could make the most of my full day in Wellington. After I had some breakfast and made myself a wee cheese salad for packed lunch, I set about finding the national museum; Te Papa.
Aided by the map in my NZ guide book, I soon found it, right down by the water front, nice! Luckily for me, the museum is free to visit so I saved myself some pennies. Its pretty huge with 6 floors. The first exhibitons I looked at were about the wildlife thats found around New Zealand. The main attraction here was a tank that preserves their "collosal squid". It has the largest eyeballs in the world, theyre pretty huge, except you cant see them on the display because its moved and shrunk in size since being preserved which is naff.
After a wander round I made my way over to the "Awesome Forces" display and learned all there is to know about volcanoes and earthquakes in New Zealand. The displays are pretty good, theyre made quite livley and there's loads of interactive stuff so you dont get bored of reading. I also had a shot of their earthquake simmulator, basically a modle house that shakes about a bit.
The last display on the floor I was on was "Our Space". I really didn't quite see the point in it, there was a huge map of New Zealand all lighten up on the floor which looked cool but didnt really tell you much. Next to it there was a wall with loads of TV screens and you could take pictures of yourself and put them on the wall and move them around with remotes and stuff.
I headed up the stairs to the "Blood Earth Fire" display. This was all about Maoris and their connection to the earth. Some pretty interesting stuff. There was also a big section on this floor about animals which are native to New Zealand and all the animals which were introduced by other settlers.
The floor above had a huge section all about Moari's and how they lived. This was possibly my favourite part, I've kind of taken an interest in their history and their ways, I liked the Moari display in the Auckland museum I was at too. The next display I checked out was called "Passports" and was about all the people from different countries who came and settled in New Zealand. There was a special section about the Scottish which made me chuffed. I spent plenty of time reading and looking though all the stuff, I was pretty suprised at how much the Scots have had an influence on the way New Zealand is today.
The last 2 floors were rubbish, one was full of paintings which gave me a sore head just walking through it to get to the next floor and the top floor had sculptures, which wernt very impressive either, altho the balcony up here gave a good view of the city. I could quite easily have spent the whole day in the museum if i had took my time around and read everything there was to read but I decided it was time to go and see some more of the city.
After my cheese salad I decided to go over and see the government buildings. They are famous because some architect designed them to look like a beehive after looking at a packet of matches with a beehive on. Again I whipped out my guide book and found my way easily. The buildings here were pretty nice, theres a couple of old fashioned ones next to the behive one and theres a huge kind of courtyard and grassy area in front which was nice to stop and have a sit on. Check out the photo of me standing there, making use of the self timer on my camera with great skill I'm sure youll agree. I think that normally you can go inside the buildings and have a look around but what I didnt realise until I set out, was that today is good Friday. Most of Wellington was dead and all the majority of shops were shut which was a shame.
The cathederal and the national library were just up the road from the government buildings so I thought I may as well check them out while I was here. Nothing special from the outside, I might have went in the library but it was closed for easter.
Another sight I wanted to see was the cable car, and the cable car musuem. Mainly because the cable car takes you up to the Botanical Gardens which might have been alright and also to an Observatory. Here is where my map (or map reading skills) failed me. I spent ages wandering up the street where the cable car was supposed to be. After I decided I had walked way to far along I walked back and then had a look around the empty back streets of Wellington, definately worth checking out if carparks are your thing.
An hour or so later and I was kind of back on track and knew where I was. I was miles away from the cable cars so I couldn't be bothered trying to find them again, especially since they could be shut for Easter, so i took a wander up 2 of the malls. Full of shops which were almost all closed, definitely not a good day to explore the city. I did get stopped by a guy trying to sell me a book about yoga though and was amused by an old guy who stuck a feather headband on and made the worst attempt at singing, with no musical accompaniment, into a microphone, in the middle of street.
I decided to end my sightseeing for the day and headed back to my hostel where I made some phone calls that were in need of making. Ideally I wanted to leave Wellington tomorrow, so that I could get to Nelson quickly and find a job, but tomorrows Kiwi Experience bus is fully booked. Sunday would have been OK but no, they don't have a bus running from here on a Sunday so I have to wait till Monday to leave which is really pushing my time. Hopefully I'll can find work quickly in Nelson.
Tonight I'm making some veggie sausages and chilli beans for tea, gonna be good. Might head out for a walk along the waterfront or something afterward.
