22nd June - South Island - Motueka

Yesterday spent walking around Wellington. Hotel very close to the main quay so set off along the quay in beautiful sunshine. Vast difference to the day before, mostly rain and wind. Pleasant walk to Wellington railway terminus, very striking building both internal and external. Put photos on F/B yesterday.

From there I went to the Parliament building, or should I say 3 buildings as you have the restored original building flanked on the left by the "Beehive", a very modern structure; and on the left by a victorian building housing all the library documents. Able to have a guided tour of all three, for some reason the guide decided I came from California and kept stressing the differences between NZ (based on British) system - especially over the abolition of the upper chamber - wanted to be totally democratic - and the American system! She did have a little dig several times against the British so I nodded wisely.

From there I walked back to the city centre and did a little souvenir shopping. Not as numerous as in the UK but some interesting Maori art, just wished the suitcase was bigger. Took the cable car up to the botanical gardens, get a lovely view of the harbour. Started to rain so walked down amongst the plants. Walked through the australian garden, succulent and fern gardens. Rain quite heavy by now so made my way back to the hotel to dry off.

Close by the hotel is a museum called Te Papa. My goodness what a place, spent a full afternoon there plus another hour this morning and I reckon I only saw half of it. The first part was titled mountains to sea. Explained 6 different ecosystems with examples of just about everything, fish, animals, birds, shells, flora and fauna. Exhibits all about you including the complete skeleton of a small blue whale - hanging in the roof space. along with loads of birds.
Moved on then into Awesome forces and earthquake house. They go into some detail about plate tectonics as NZ sits directly on the edge of a big plate and suffers a number of quakes per year. Earthquake house is good as you are subjected to the effects of a quake with video commentary.

In one of the areas they have a state of the art 14 metre map of NZ on the floor and depends where you walk, images and comments are flashed up either side on wall panels. Great for the kids.

That's all for now as I have no more Internet time - more tomorrow on the boat trip etc.