Wellington

The morning was spent planning out our forthcoming adventures on New Zealand's South Island, to which we depart tomorrow. After this, some lunch and laundry we visited Wellington's Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa.

Entry is free to the museum, which covers five large floors of exhibits on art, nature, history and culture related to New Zealand that we roamed through. There were exhibits including an enormous whale skeleton and a preserved giant squid; a house that simulated an earthquake and furniture made from the recent earthquake in Christchurch; a preserved Waka (Maori canoe) and Wharemoe (sleeping house), similar to that which we slept in at Tamaki.

The most emotive exhibit was that to the centenary since Gallipoli. The exhibit included over-sized but incredibly lifelike models of those who were at Gallipoli, accompanied by their stories. The last of these figures waded through a pool of paper poppies left by visitors. There was healthy reference to the Maori, who, following fierce debate to allow them, fought and died alongside European New Zealanders.

The museum also exhibited the ambiguous Watangi treaty as well as how the famous Haka has been commercialised and imitated without Maori consent and required legal action to rectify.

The museum stays open until 9:00pm but by 6:00pm hunger and tiredness lead us to the exit. We stopped off at the supermarket for a large portion of cooked chicken and rice (bargain at only $4) before heading back to our hostel. It would be an early night as tomorrow we were back on the road and over the water to the South Island.Read more