Wellington

Kapiti Coast and Wellington

April 21, 2024 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The day we traveled from Taupo to Wellington started out cold and rainy. About halfway through our travels that day, however, the sun came out and by the time we got to the Kapiti Coast, just north of Wellington on the Tasman Sea, the weather was delightful. We stopped for a little while at a carpark facing Kapiti Island and had fun exploring the rocks.

Miss Joy had great fun collecting shells!

Mr. Imagination was just glad to be out of the van. Notice all the action in the next few shots!

We noticed a commuter train going along the cliff towards Wellington.

Bluebottles were washed up along the shore.

Lots of seagulls around!

That evening we went shopping for a few ingredients for our dinner and the next morning’s breakfast. I notice dragon fruit at the supermarket, so we bought one just to see what they were like. We all enjoyed it!

The next day we went to church with some friends in Wellington. When we left the hall to go to their house for lunch, the van wouldn’t start. The battery was flat. They came to our rescue, and after lunch the men and boys went back to work on the van. It turned out that some tiny piece of rubber had perished, making the brake light stay on all the time, draining the battery! A clothespin took care of that problem. We ended up spending all afternoon with our friends, and going back to their church for the evening service. In between, some of us drove to a windmill up the hill from their house and had a good view of Wellington from that vantage point.

And that’s the end of the pictures from our big trip! Now I’ll try to catch up with the other pictures we’ve taken so far this year. It’s been a very busy summer and not likely to slow down for a few more weeks.

Wellington Zoo

February 21, 2024 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

After we crossed Cook Strait on the ferry, we picked Elijah up at the airport. He had spent the week at a youth camp in Dunedin. After that, we went to the zoo.

Gayle treated the children to ice creams and ice blocks. While Miss Joy ate hers, she climbed through a lizard’s throat! It was a slide.

There were a lot of sculptures scattered through the zoo. She loved sitting on them!

Otters

An agouti. The next picture shows an exhibit designed to illustrate the agouti’s habit of hoarding stashes of food!

The red panda was perched directly above our path on a high branch.

The sun bear was fed while we were there. We were amused at the way it used its foot as a table!

Miss Joy’s favorite spot was the chimpanzee enclosure. She and her daddy stayed there for a long time. She was enthralled with the baby, who was climbing around and checking everything out.

I had never seen a capybara before! We have a book about one, titled Capyboppy, so it was delightful to actually see one–although it did nothing except sleep.

The ring-tailed lemurs were fun to watch! When they walk through tall grass, all you can see is the waving tails, which stand nearly straight up.

The squirrel monkeys were a lot of fun to watch, too. We found a bench beside them, and stayed there for awhile. They were quite active.

I really liked the Wellington Zoo. It is small, but laid out in such a way that it feels quite spacious. The enclosures are fairly natural, and the animals seemed reasonably happy.

Crossing Cook Strait

February 18, 2024 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

On the second day of our trip, we got up early at our campground in Picton and went to catch the ferry. We sailed on the Bluebridge line, and our ferry was to leave at 7:45, so we needed to check in by 6:45. We made sure to be there early, and took our breakfast along with us. Some ate in the van while we waited, after we had our family worship time, and some ate on the ferry later. We had a pretty smooth sailing. There was enough rolling when we were on the open ocean that my head felt very dizzy, but it wasn’t too bad. The scenery was gorgeous while we were going through the Marlborough Sounds!

This was soon after we left Picton. We had spent the night at a campground near the bay to the left of this picture where the marina is; Picton harbor is to the right of the point of land in the middle.

One of the Interislander ferries. We followed it all the way to Picton, and passed two others going the opposite direction.

This was likely a mussel or oyster farm. There are a lot of them in the Sounds.

Reaching the open ocean! The Interislander is out of the Sounds in this picture.

We spent a little while on the viewing platform at the bow of the ship, but it was so windy that we went inside after awhile.

Nearing Wellington. There are a lot of windmills around to generate electricity!

I think this is the Baring Head lighthouse at the entrance to Wellington Harbour.

Wellington

Here is a video I put together of clips from that trip, including driving onto the ferry.

This next group of pictures are from our return trip, a week and a half later. We traveled on the Bluebridge line again, but on their other ship. Again, we caught a morning sailing, arriving at the docks just before sunrise.

While we were waiting to board, we could see the Beehive, our country’s Parliament building.

Our last view of Wellington! After this, we stayed inside most of the time. This boat didn’t have the nice viewing decks that the other one did, and the wind was fierce.

We passed this cruise ship as we were leaving Wellington Harbour. Two tugboats were on the way to guide it to the dock.

There was one viewing deck that was pretty sheltered, so I spent time there with the little girls at various times. The wave the ship made cutting through the water was fascinating!