Wednesday, 12.02., A Day in Wellington

A Day in Wellington - what do we want to see? Definitely the Te Papa Museum, the National Museum of New Zealand! It is said to be one of the best museums in the world and shows a lot of information about New Zealand's history, Maori culture, settlement history, nature and volcanism, etc. Then we want to take the Cable-Car up the mountain and visit the botanical garden, and finally eat mussels at Crab-Shack.

But first, we have breakfast on the terrace of our 4-bedroom, 3-bathroom townhouse, with kitchen, washing machine, and dryer!

Then we head towards Wellington Waterfront. Right in front of our hotel, the St. Mary of the Angels Church is reflected in the glass front of the Majestic Centre! And here too, large-scale paintings in the i-Site of Wellington. At the waterfront, there is a monument in honor of the first Polynesians who discovered New Zealand around 1280.

The blue containers that we find lined up at the waterfront and right in front of the museum house small shops, pop-up stores.

Arriving at Te Papa (admission is free!), we can start with a one-hour orientation tour that gives us a good overview. After that, we need a delicious coffee and a warm raisin scone with butter and discuss what else we want to see.

From the huge selection, we have chosen 'The world of Maori, Immigrant's stories, and Nature'. We continue to 3 Maori houses, one of which is a tribal house. These tribal houses are set up in the museum in rotation with explanations, interviews, and films. The immediately adjacent 'Immigrant's Stories' section reminds us of the Toitu Otago Settlers Museum in Dunedin, where you can learn about the settlement and the settlers. And we see a very typical Maori boat (catamaran = canoes connected by two crossbars already used by the Polynesians in 1500 BC) and a film about the history is projected onto the boat model - simply brilliantly done. In this museum, many things are explained in the simplest way and there are several places just for children to try things out. Finally, we go to the Nature section, where there is a section - The Nest - where the birds of New Zealand are depicted and you can listen to their sounds or chirping. Now we also know that we often hear the Tui bird, which can make very different sounds. In the sub-section 'Active Land', we are in a recreated dining room and watch a film with a mother and her son experiencing an earthquake - and then our whole model room shakes so that you can understand a mild earthquake. We take this with us for the conclusion and head to our next program point, the Cable-Car.

The ride with the Cable-Car up to the Botanical Garden is also an experience. Here we realize how hilly Wellington is. Once we arrive at the top, we take a walk, have beautiful views, find out some things about trees, and ride back downhill. The tunnels we pass through blink in colorful lights - like Christmas!

Back at the waterfront, we stroll towards The Crab-Shack, a recommendation from our travel guide. And then we enjoy it!!!!

On the way home, we pass by the monument for the All Blacks and a statue sitting on the library.