Road Trip Day 21 – Wellington, the Middle of Middle Earth

Starting Point: Wellington
Ending Point: Wellington
Kilometers traveled: 32

This morning we did a bit of trip planning and virtual housekeeping. We booked our tickets for the Interislander. We say farewell to the North Island on Sunday morning and head across to the South Island. We did some birthday shopping and shipped some presents to the states for a very important upcoming birthday.

And then we headed into Wellington to spend the rest of the day at Te Papa, the national museum. We got there at 11 am and stayed until about 4:30, with a brief break for a picnic lunch. The Te Papa doesn’t really allow photography of its exhibits, so there are not really a lot of photos from today. But we did get a good shot of the Marae (meeting house) at Te Papa and some good shots of the outside.

The Te Papa tells the story of New Zealand…how it came to be, what sorts of animals and plants live and lived here, and how it became populated. And then it tells the stories of its people, from all backgrounds. We didn’t manage to see it all…we’ll be back again on Saturday, but we learned a lot today and had a lot of fun in the process.

After that our feet were so tired from standing all day, so we decided a walk was in order. So we wandered over to the Embassy Theatre. The Embassy is the only custom built 1920’s theater to still be in use in New Zealand. It’s also where Peter Jackson & New Line will hold the world premiere of the Hobbit on November 28th. In honor of The Hobbit, Wellington has renamed itself, “The Middle of Middle Earth” and everyone in NZ is so excited for the movie to come out.

We thought it might be fun to see another movie there (since we can’t get tickets to the Red Carpet Premiere), so we popped in to see if there were any movies showing that we wanted to see. But there really weren’t. They were showing a special sneak preview of Skyfall (which doesn’t come out in NZ until 22 November), but you had to be someone important at BNZ (The Bank of New Zealand) in order to get in. So we just took a few photos and were on our way to dinner.

Kyle really wanted Thai food for his birthday. And we found a fantastic Thai restaurant for dinner. Pad Thai for him (of course!) and I had a dish called 3 Alcoholics. Super yummy, although the three referred to three types of meat rather than booze.

Then it was on to a bit of grocery shopping…we’re having risotto tomorrow for dinner and needed arborio rice. And now we’re holed up sampling yet another new type of Cadbury chocolate bar. Tonight’s Pick: Dairy Milk Marvelous Creations – Jelly, Popping Candy, & Beanies coated in Delicious Dairy Milk Chocolate. Who knew jelly beans and pop rocks and the UK version of M&Ms would taste so good all mixed up together in a chocolate bar?

Cheers! Tomorrow is a trip to Zealandia for hiking, and hopefully lots of creature sightings, as we explore some of the animals that were part of Zealandia when it broke off from Gondwanaland and became isolated. Lots of cool prehistoric stuff!