And finally a lie in!!
A later start meant a casual wake up which was greeted with enthusiasm from everyone!
First off today we would be "Te Papa", New Zealands national museum. With a booked tour, we headed on over to the museum expected to take 2 and a half days to explore and understand fully!!
Our tour guide was fantastic, teaching us about the native "Bush" in new Zealand and its uses - primarily for the Maori people - shelter, food, medicine etc. we went on to view the only colossal squid on display in the world, a Pygmy blue whale skeleton, Maori carvings, and a Maori meeting house. It was a fantastic tour and ended with mall lunch providing traditional Maori foods - mussels, kumara (sweet potato) manuka honey - amongst many other things. Some members of the group seems uncertain, but I thought it was delicious!
After this we had our first free afternoon. A couple of us decided to head out to Wellington Zoo - primarily to see the Kiwis!! (As they are nocturnal and VERY rare to spot in the wild). And then back to the museum if we had time to see some of the things we had missed.
It was an interesting zoo in terms of animal variation, and the arrival of baby spider monkeys and pygmy marmosets in the past 2 weeks was a great surprise! Going to a tour, we got to see and pet, a Tuatara (closest living relative to the dinosaurs) and a kiwi!! We were also lucky to see the sun bears being fed - with sticks coated in honey and jam. Amongst this I also saw lions, various birds, spider monkeys, baboons, cheetahs, giraffes, apes, meerkats, as I wondered around by myself for the first time in two weeks. Although a little run down, with some enclosures a little crowded I thought, they are working hard to expand and do up the zoo and I would like to come back in the future to see the improvements.
We caught the bus back to town and had just over an hour to see the rest of the museum - that we could in SUCH a short time!! I spent this looking at past Maori culture and tribe information, and also looking at the tectonic activity of New Zealand - including a hit built to show the experience of a Richter 5 earthquake. It was great to get a look.
We all then met back up at the hostel, going to a "Thai Express" the food for the price was absolutely fantastic!! Providing a main meal including rice/noodles for around $11NZ. About £7. It was incredibly good value and tasty - although I chose an option that was rather hot and suffered a runny nose and fired mouth the rest of the evening!
After this our last event of the day, booked spontaneously as an optional extra - seeing "Batman - The Dark Knight Rises" at the Reading theatre, viewing at 9:15pm. The film was rather good, although with some unexplained substories, and a great twist!! But after it had finished I was absolutely shattered! Worth it to watch it before a large portion of the world though, and my first cinema experience out of The UK.
I must sleep now as we have to catch the ferry bright and early tomorrow morning, to get to South Island and Nelson in preparation for our next volunteer week commencing Monday. Night all.
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