Weekend in Wellington

We had a perfect day in Wellington on Saturday!  Sunny, virtually no wind and compared to the prior weekend's "weather bomb" unbeatable!   We are all so happy that we postponed our trip one week.  The weather was greatly improved and a friend here gave me dramamine!  It worked beautifully and Abigail had a nice ride!  We did a tour on a bus - John's Hop on, Hop off Tour, to see the major attractions in Wellington.  We were able to be at each stop for as few as 10 minutes or as much as an hour - plenty of time to identify what we wanted to see more of the following day and during future trips.  The drivers - we were on two separate buses after stops - were knowledgeable and told us a lot that we would not have known otherwise.  They were happy to be interviewed so Mama would be proud - I am a chip off the old block, as is Abigail by the way.

                     Wellington Harbor and St Paul's Cathedral                          

So our - Adrian's - new obsession is a personal cable car.  In Wellington, there is the bay and there is a cliff.  If you are a property owner of a piece of the cliff you own the upper portion and the lower portion - so the garage and the cable car garage are either above or below the home so one MUST have a personal cable car to get to the other end.  Really amazing.  One of our drivers told us a friend of his just had one installed to the tune of $60,000.  We also learned that the low end, bad neighborhood real estate goes for $400,000 and the average real estate price is $500-600,000.  We figure the cable car is peanuts really...

We visited the Weta Cave.  Apparently Weta is second only to Pixar in terms of being the leader in animation for film and tv.  They did the Hobbit movies, Lord of the Rings, Avatar, to name just a few. from the weta cave website  In our mini-museum, you come face to face with some of the characters, props and displays from your favourite movies. Read the stories of how they were brought to life and learn about the artists who created them.
We really enjoyed that.

 

We also walked through the Botanical Gardens - lovely and witnessed the arrival of bride and party for an afternoon wedding - perfect day for that. We spent lots of time on Saturday and Sunday at Te Papa - the museum that is really one of the best any of us have seen.  We saw the City Choir perform in a sort of impromptu gathering with ukelele's and xylophones - we were very lucky with that!  We will go back to Te Papa!

Grace is going off to camp where she will do some caving, rock climbing and lots of water fun!  All of this is a part of school so learning is happening on lots of levels here.  I am trying to get used to not having homework but am having a bit of trouble so have started doing some home schooling in math and grammar.  I am liking the time together and they are not seeming to mind too much.

We went for an after dinner walk on the beach at Foxton last night.  It was very nice and the drive there is about 20 minutes.

We are so excited to move to a larger home - better neighborhood, more bathrooms, playroom - in the early part of April before we go to the South Island for a few weeks.  We have felt like we were in a campground and have not been quite settled here as it is a bit small without the necessary accoutrements for our family.  We will get moved and then head out for our South Island adventure.  We are still making the arrangements for accommodations.  We are very excited to have company coming when we get back. Life long friends are coming and we cannot wait!  Whether you are lifelong friends or new friends we would welcome your visit - we want to share the lovely land with all the folks we know.  Come on if you can!