Day 11 NZ Thurs April 14

Funny faced telescope.   

Going up in the world this morning. First to the top of the cable car run at Wellington’s Botanical Gardens. 

Wellington's cable car.

After a brief photo op we moved onto even higher ground, namely Mt. Victoria. A walk of 150 steps took us to the top. (These are actual steps taken not the number of stairs.) You have a 360 degree view and with a clear day it is spectacular. (See the video!)

On top of Mt Victoria.

Back on lower ground we passed a café called ‘The Recovery Room…’ across the street from a hospital. I’m fascinated by the Belisha Beacons, not only in Wellington but in many of the cites and towns we’ve visited. They are not like the original golden globes on poles to indicate pedestrian crossings, most of them are flat orange discs placed on or near the top of the black and white pole. Wellington had examples of both the flat and the global (albeit more modern looking) kind. Photo in a later blog.



Next stop is Te Papa, Wellington’s wonderful museum. Our driver told us Te Papa means ‘our place’ but the literal translation is ‘the land.’ We had only just over an hour which is nowhere near enough. I only got to see the Awesome Forces exhibition, all about earthquakes and volcanos. Models illustrate the forces at work, and you get to feel a facsimile of an earthquake, very interesting. I’d like to go back and spend more time. It is airy and well set out.

Te Papa.  

Moving on…making our way North with a stop at Levin (with the emphasis on the last syllable) for lunch. Kit and I found another Tip Top ice cream outlet, I tried orange and chocolate chip, she had a ‘gold rush,’ vanilla ice cream with bits of crunchy bar in it. All delicious.

Not far out of Levin we saw NZ’s biggest wind farm whirring away on the hills. The Danes settled in one hamlet (Dannevirke) near here and the Norwegians another (Norsewood) a few kms north.

New Zealanders have a few expressions I haven’t heard before:

pit fruit – (plum, peaches etc., what we call stone fruit.

‘orcharding’ for orchard farming

‘trim milk’ for skim milk

Otherwise, apart from the accent we can understand each other pretty well. I’ve enjoyed ‘fush and chups’ (mind you I’d never heard of gurnard before but it’s delicious); got up at half past ‘sex’; asked for the ‘bull’ after a meal…and many more expressions we Aussies poke fun at.

Our bed for the night was at the Quality Inn Napier. I knew as soon as I saw it, it was trouble. First, the coach driver had to back into a very narrow space. Next no porterage, some of our travellers are pretty old and a bit infirm. Luckily most, if not all have luggage on wheels. Still it didn’t look good, watching the poor old bodies lugging their luggage, trying to read the room numbers and figure out the floors.

Rooms were so so but the showers were spacious. Food was largely proportioned, too much for most of us. Internet connection was the cheapest, $7.50 for 2 hours.

The earth's crust.