NZ Day 19 - Wellington

Last day in Wellington :-( I didn't do much today. Some shopping, some coffee, then visited Te Papa - the museum of NZ. It's a fantastic museum - reminds me a lot of Melbourne Museum with it's interactive exhibits.

I spied this sculpture from a walkway inside - as you can see from the weather, I wasn't about to venture outside to get a better photo.

The Maori exhibits are particularly good - I learnt a lot today.

But my absolute favourite exhibit was Golden Days - a junk shop that comes to life to show us 100 years of NZ history. It's awesome - really well done.

Goodbye Windy Welly. I've had an awesome time. I'm sorry that I can never live here, but your weather is too extreme for me.

And goodbye for now NZ - I'll be back soon.

NZ Day 19 - Wellington

The weather has been pretty horrendous since I arrived in Wellington (it's even made the news - apparently that's quite an event!). So, I took full advantage of a sunny morning to go for a run.

I'm staying with friends in Miramar, so decided to head around the water away from the city, towards Shelly Bay. I can't believe this is only 8km from the city.

The (infamous?) All Blacks Hollywood sign.

After treating myself to a morning of spa treatments at East Day Spa (highly recommend it), I wandered through the city. Couldn't resist a photo of the Beehive & Parliament House.

Later in the day we went for a stroll through the Botanic Gardens. This is the Puriri Tree - which had leaves growing right out of the large branches.

The rose garden.

A couple of very cute ducks. Have I mentioned how much I love ducks before? I love ducks :-)

The Wellington Cable Car. We didn't ride it this time, preferring to walk instead.

There it goes.

The evening finished at a bar I knew I had to try as soon as I heard about it - The Library.

Don't worry, there were real books inside :-)

NZ Day 18 - Wellington

It was really nice to be back in Wellington. Back to bars and cafes and restaurants and cool shopping. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved the south island and had a ball. But right now, I'm pretty much a city girl. And Wellington is a cool city.

After a leisurely breakfast we stopped off at the Weta Cave. Cool! I used to be a massive LOTR nerd, though admittedly, I have let my knowledge slip in the last few years.

Here is Gollum, thinking 'what the hell is this girl looking at...'

The orc Lurtz guarding the entrance.

After dropping the bro at the airport, friend A & I headed up to the Mount Victoria lookout to check out its 360 degree views. Pretty nice.

Then we decided to go even higher & find the wind farm. On the way we passed Brooklyn Library - a Wellington City Library branch.

The wind turbine was cool. I've never seen one up this close. They're pretty big. I'm that black spec you can see at the bottom of the tower.

They look cool from below as well.

Plus, the views up there were fantastic - a lot higher than Mount Vic, though not 360.

Then it was back into town for a wander around. We found ourselves in the civic district. The City Gallery is on the right, Wellington City Centre library on the left. With a random flying object in the middle (or is that unidentified flying object?).

The library has a really funky, industrial vibe. I have hung out there a couple of times over the last few days & have enjoyed every minute.

View across the civic square from the library steps.

Some sculptures that caught my eye. Wellington is full of sculpture and public art, it's one of the things that gives the city such a great character.

NZ Day 17 - Nelson to Picton

Day 17 didn't involve much photography, because most of it consisted of a ferry trip back to Wellington.

But, I did go for a run in Nelson that morning. And I did take some photos. This time of the Japanese Gardens at the edge of town. They were small, but pretty.

The drive from Nelson to Picton has some really nice views over Queen Charlotte Sound

Timber waiting to be shipped from Picton. An eye-opening reminder of what happens to all those beautiful pine forests we had been driving through for the last 2 weeks (yes, I know they're plantation, but I still think they look nice).

NZ Day 16 - Westport to Nelson

We stayed in Westport the previous night. It wasn't the most picturesque town (though it did have some nice cafes & restaurants) so I didn't take my camera with me on my morning run. We hit the road early & before I had even had time to have a coffee we had hopped out of the van & headed off to check out the Lyell Walkway. We weren't planning to do the whole loop, just up to the Dray Road. But first we reached the creepiest cemetery ever.

It was totally Stephen King.

The forest had taken over most of the graves.

From the cemetery we continued on & the track became quite difficult, climbing & winding & being generally slippery & unsteady underfoot. The bro commented just before we got to the top "this had better be worth it". I'll let you be the judge - here is Dray Road. It's just a sign.

Having almost frozen to death that morning on the Lyell Walkway, it was a strange experience to emerge from the wilderness into the glorious sunshine of Golden Bay. What a truly magnificent place. We had lunch at the Shoreline Cafe in Kaiteriteri. This is the view from our table. We could have been on the north coast of NSW.

Continuing into Golden Bay, we started the original & best long and winding road - 25km of switchbacks, winding road and crazy horseshoe bends over Takaka Hill. Though the driving was difficult, it made for some nice views over the bay.

Shortly after reaching the bottom of the hill is Te Waikoropupu Springs (Pupu Springs for short). These are some special springs. Here are the stats:

• NZs largest freshwater springs (90th in the world)
  
• Reputedly the clearest water in the world
  
• 14,000 litres of water discharged per second
  
• They also have massive spiritual significance to the Maori

The water flows very fast, but you can still see how clear it is.

Here you can just see the small whirlpools being created on the surface from the water surging up from below.

They are a beautiful aquamarine blue colour - it makes you want to dive in for a swim. But that would be silly, because there are signs everywhere telling you not to touch the water or even go near it.

The smaller Fish Springs nearby are equally as clear.

Our final stop for the day was the remote Wharariki Beach. The beach is at the end of a 6km unsealed road, then a 20min walk over private farmland. Right away we stuffed up, taking a wrong turn & missing the short 20min track to the beach & taking the 3km route instead. As it turned out, we would have missed some pretty cool scenery if we had taken the shorter track. Like this lonesome tree.

And this second lonesome tree. Considering that we were perched on the edge of NZ, the wind was predictably crazy. As you can tell by the 2nd lonesome tree almost being blown away.

Finally we reached a sign. It seemed wrong to me that there could be a beach within 5 minutes of this rolling farmland.

But, we climbed the hill, and there it was.

About 10-15mins later (we got a little bit lost again), we reached the wildest beach I had ever seen.

I loved the massive rock formations.

And this massive cave.

And the generally wild feel about the place.

Look, you can tell how much I love it. Right after this photo was taken my hair did a great impression of a mosh pit by flying into my face.

On the walk back I couldn't stop marvelling at the juxtaposition of the tamed farmland with the wild coast.

These sheep have a pretty awesome view.

Although I generally prefer wild environments, manmade ones can be just as nice sometimes.

Sheep!

Look at this little dude. He's all like "who are you?". "What do you want?". "You want to cut my beautiful wool off?". "You want to strip my skin & wear it as a boot?". "You want to eat me?". "WTF?". Then he ran away. I would too, if I knew what humans were thinking about doing to me. That's why I'm vegan.