On to Wellington and Te Papa Museum

December 21, 2014

We woke up early and had breakfast before heading out of Ohakune.   Ohakune was a pretty tiny town..  Unlike our arrival, our departure was nice and sunny,  In fact, we could see the bottom of the mountain called Tongariro as we were driving.  The top was still surrounded in clouds.  This area of New Zealand is just called "National Park" on the road signs.

About fifteen minutes later, the clouds cleared and we could see this beautiful mountain.  We were so happy that we had a chance to see it because we were only in the area the one night.

We drove through all sorts of terrain and the weather turned cloudy and rainy again.  Still, it was so nice to see all of the different types of landscapes.

It was a long four hour drive as the speed limit here is 100 kph, which is only 60 mph.  We also hit a ton of traffic about an hour outside of Wellington, which slowed the drive even more. Still, it was nice to come in along the water (the Tasman Sea)...

However, we still arrived at our hotel before noon and really didn't expect to be able to check in.  The gentleman at the desk was really nice.  He said the room wasn't ready yet, but would be ready in 15 minutes.  So we went to the car and made sandwiches for lunch while we waited.

Once in the room, we got ourselves organized and then headed to the Te Papa Museum, the national museum of New Zealand. It has free entrance and it is a wonderful museum.  It was a 3/4 mile walk from the hotel, and it was nice to get a bit of exercise after being in the car all morning.  We also loved going to the museum. Danika and I are particularly into all of the artwork...

Jason, taking a selfie!

I love this picture that David took because you can see the rest of the museum in the reflection...

We all love the interactive installations...

This is Danika's wall poetry...

This is one of my favorite pieces... would like to make something like it someday... I actually set the alarms off when looking at this piece!  I did not see the white "do not cross" line on the floor, and as I leaned across it to look closely alarms sounded.  No one came to stop me, and I just backed up and the alarms eventually stopped!

This is Ana Rupene and Child, 1878, oil on canvas by Gottfried Lindauer and is one of the most famous paintings in New Zealand.

 The kids were able to sit and draw self portraits as those are mirrors in front of them...

Then we went to Air New Zealand's interactive installation that uses Oculus Rift, the brand new virtual reality technology.  It was so much fun to be on a flight and have your whole surroundings change, as if you were at the beach, or in the mountains.  David said that when the beach scene was showing, he looked down and he was wearing shorts and flip flops!  I laughed out when an Emu came walking down the aisle!  Of course we don't have any pics of what we were seeing, but you can see what we looked like in the process...

Then we went up to the sixth floor deck and got these pictures of Wellington.

On our way out , we just had to get Jason in his brand new Hobbit hat with this Ork attacking!

We spent about 3 hours at the Museum, bought a few things at the gift shop (Jason's Hobbit hat and Mary a pair of New Zealand paua shell earrings), and headed back to our room for a change of jackets.  David and Jason didn't stop, they kept on walking to go to the top of Mt. Victoria, elevation 645 feet.  

This was on the hike up...

 It was more of a climb than I had anticipated, but well worth it when we reached the top.  The 360 degree views were spectacular.  The clouds had cleared a bit and the visibility was so much better. We could see all of Wellington.

This was on the hike back down...

What a lovely way to spend the afternoon!  Before we knew it, two more hours had gone by!  On the walk back we stopped at a little shop to buy some traditional New Zealand meat pies for me and Danika, as the boys were going to finish the curry leftovers from last night.

After dinner, David and I went to fill up the rental car with gas and figure out where we are going tomorrow morning.  We feel much more comfortable now that we know exactly where we have to go to drop off the rental car and catch the ferry.

We came back and the kids were watching a Christmas show called Arthur's Christmas, so we finished watching that with them before getting packed and ready to go.  I made sandwiches for tomorrow, and we tried to use up all of our extra food.  Since we are taking the ferry and leaving the car on the north island, we didn't want to have to shlep everything with us.

So, suitcases are packed and in the car, just our backpacks, water and food left to take with us in the morning.  We are setting an alarm as we have to get up early.  Now it is off to bed!