Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Rivendell & Masterton


"What?! You want to go to Mordor???"

On our way out of Wellington, we passed by Rivendell (film location from Lord of the Rings). Continuing north, we decided to spend the night in Masterton. We stopped at a motel where we took the last available room...because all of the other rooms are taken by Aussies who are in town to compete in the Golden Shears sheep shearing competition! Unfortunately the competition doesn't start until Thursday, so we will have to settle for streaming it online (https://www.goldenshears.co.nz). The finals are supposed to be quite dramatic - 6 finalists, 20 sheep each, shearing for both time and quality. How exciting!

Onwards!

With 2 weeks left and all of the North Island (beyond Wellington) left to see, this 2007 Nissan Wingroad is our ticket to making the most of the rest of our trip. Goodbye Wellington, hello...something on the way to Napier!

Monday, February 27, 2017

Australian magpie

It would appear our campsite's mystery tuxedo bird is an Australian magpie. We thought it might be a tui bird, which is a bird native to New Zealand and nowhere else, but it does not appear to be so. According to wikipedia, the Australian magpie is an introduced species that is now considered to be a pest.

Sunday, February 26, 2017

Mikado

What to do in New Zealand's capital city? See a British opera set in Japan, of course! Well anyway, it should be good and we can't wait for the show to begin!

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Busy tourists

As Neil's gps tracing of our day indicates, we busy tourists today. We secured a rental car that we will return to the Auckland airport (and as Neil noted, this means we can start buying souvenirs!). Over the course of the day we visited two markets (the underground market which is quite literally an underground car park turned into a craft/food market), and the Wellington night market. We visited parliament (the executive wing of parliament is the "beehive" building from the earlier post) and two museums - Te Papa, the national museum of New Zealand, and Space Place, the planetarium. We only had one hour prior to Te Papa's closing; we will return tomorrow. The planetarium provided us with an overview of stargazing from the southern hemisphere. Fun fact: place one hand on the tip of the southern cross, place another hand over the bright star Achernar, clap your hands and now you've found due South! We rode the historic cable car up to the planetarium and roamed all around the waterfront and the central business district. We'll be back in town tomorrow or Monday, for more of Te Papa, Queen Victoria lookout and some of Wellington's famous coffee :)