Wallaceville House Wellington

... br><br>Thanks to my appointments being several hours apart I ended making too journeys into the centre of Wellington but they were both positive and worth the effort. It would appear that the job market is not as completely dormant as I had believed and there are potential roles up for grabs. This of course could be good news for my brother as I may never be back and he can stay holed up at Fordy towers for a bit longer ...

Weather: we've backtracked a bit...overcast, windy, generally cold<br>Mood: Meh. It's a sad day.<br><br>Yesterday was chill and at home, so today I decided to venture forth and take the train into Wellington for some exploratory wandering. Not wanting to battle any work-bound commuters, I took my time about getting up and around, and so efficiently timed my arrival to coincide nicely with a lunch break for Ange. She met me at Wellington Station and took me for ...

... on our itinerary, the Weta cave animation studio museum. 'Weta' are responsible for the visual effects in the Lord of the Rings trilogy as well as other productions such as King Kong and X-Men. There wasn't a lot to explain how they do it (I guess computer generated imigary is too complex for most) but the models on display were incredible.<br><br>11/8<br>Goodbye to the north isle.<br>We checked in at the quay side for ...

... Te Papa, the national museum. Surprisingly admission was free! We also took a tour through their Parliament buildings... NZ just went through a big budget release so we weren't allowed into some areas because of the big hush hush over the budget. In November they just elected in the Labour party, which is a different government than the past 15 years or something crazy, so the budget was something of a big deal. <br><br>On a random side note, I've been ...

... Chinese Terracotta Army. They had shipped in 60 of the statues, obviously replicates, but perfectly realisticly created by some Chinese conservationists. It was very interesting reading up on the Chinese dynasties and seeing the statues was cool. Would love to go to China to see the real thing ;-} After that, we ended up doing a few hours in what is possibly Wellingtons best museum (our NZ's?), Te Papa. A totally interactive museum telling the NZ story of everything ...

Today was a fun day.  I don't know how Chris managed to do it but he went for a two hour kayaking trip yesterday and had Dragon Boat racing today at the 21st annual Dragon Boat Festival.  They were defending their title but this year a lot of teams had improved and they came in an undeserving eighth place, they should have been in about fourth but because the way the heat were set up even though they were faster then some of the boats they still ended up ...

... featuring the only colossal squid on display in the world! It was a little dusgusting! Then we went up the cable car, which wasnt quite what we expected, more a little train and not that high up! but we did it and walked back down thru the botanical gardens, also not what we expected, not half as nice as sydney or melbourne! Anyhoo! that was pretty much Wellington, hmmm...... yep thats it!!

... We got to the airport at about 12.30pm so it's a good job we didn't set off any later. Got a quick sandwich at the airport and then it was time to board the plane. The flight wasn't very long so you just got a choice of crisps a biscuit or a packet of sweet flowed by a glass of water (thank god for the sandwich earlier). The weather was a bit wet and grey again when we got back ...

... ancient china. But after a brief tour of christchurch we were off to Lake Ohau which was our first overnight stay. Along the way we stopped at a place called lake tekapo. the place was amazing the water was a beautiful bluish green colour surrounded by mountains. Apparently what makes the water that colour is the water that feeds from the glaciers hitting the limestone from the mountains releasing a certain powder. But ...

... s zijn hart en zijn huid. Een paar weken geleden was er sprake van dat het hart van Phar Lap ter ere van de start van de grote races hier in NZ, weer terug zou komen en voor het eerst sinds zijn overlijden zouden zijn skelet en zijn hart zich dan weer onder 1 dak bevinden. Maar het mocht niet zo zijn. Toen de Australiers het hart wilden inpakken, ontdekten ze er een schreurtje in een van de kleppen zat en zolang dat niet gemaakt is, is het hart te ...