Wellington

After the Quaker summer gathering we made a last minute change of plans and decided to make our next stop Wellington. This way we can explore the North Island in a clockwise manner and feel like we are proceeding forward through time.
At first we stayed with a friend we met at the summer gathering. Alex was nice enough to let us use his floor for a few days while we worked out another arrangement. We contacted a few Help Exchange places and got in touch with one very nice woman named Diana. Last week we moved into her home in a neighborhood called Brooklyn. Wellington is very much like Dunedin and they are both a bit like San Francisco in that they are built on natural harbors and are hilly as can be. One advantage to how Wellington is situated is that it the city center (and main harbor) are at the bottom and most of the homes are in the surrounding hills. As a result everyone is either located right in the heart of town or else has a great view. The place we have been staying is no exception. Here's a picture of a sunset over Wellington as seen from our back deck.

***Editor's note***
We had great internet at our home in Wellington but for some reason uploading of pictures to the blog was hard to do. As a result my momentum for posting this entry was squashed. This post was supposed to be up last week and now we have moved on (see my next post) but I'm trying to catch everyone up.
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We spent our time in Wellington exploring the city. It is a good city for walking around and there are lots of neat nooks and crannies to explore. Wellington has the New Zealand National Museum (called Te Papa) which we visited at least 5 times. It is huge and there are lots and lots of great exhibits to check out. Here's a few pictures from inside Te Papa.

This is an example of a kiwi skeleton (the bird not the people). Check out how huge the egg is inside of the bird. Kiwis lay the largest eggs relative to their body size.

This is taken from the top level of the museum looking back down to the first floor. It is a very large museum.
During our stay in Wellington we also took two days and explored the area to the East of Wellington. If you look at Google Earth it is the area around 41°28'19.03"S, 175°16'58.35"E. We did some geocaches and went down to cape Palisar which is the southernmost point on the North Island. There was a geocache there near a great old lighthouse.

We said goodbye to Wellington on Thursday last and are now further North. I'll post again after lunch and describe our current happenings.
Sorry to our loyal fans that our blogging took a break there. I'm really going to try to be back on top of it better now. We love it that you guys are still checking in!

Matt