Wellington

First of all – thanks to all who’ve sent their best wishes regarding the possibility of any effects of the terrible earthquake in Japan reaching us here in NZ. We’re ok and I understand that warnings for the region are now lifted. Having met a number of displaced families from the Christchurch Earthquake our hearts go out to all the people affected by this new one, 8,000 times stronger.

We left our accommodation around 8:30am and headed for the Te Papa museum to park our car. We knew it wouldn’t be open but we figured it might have reasonably priced parking for the day and it did. We left the car there and headed for the tram up to the botanic gardens.

Realizing the botanical gardens spread all the way down the hill we bought one way tickets to the top. We wanted to visit the observatory there but it too was not expected to be open until 10am so we walked the gardens for a while to make up the time.

We watched a good show in the planetarium and among other things learned how to use the southern cross and other stars to find polar south. As we’re in the southern hemisphere for the next few years this will remain handy.

After reviewing the rest of the astronomy museum which was very well put together we made our way down through the gardens. As autumn is now approaching the gardens were past their best but nice all the same.

After finding lunch we returned to the Te Papa museum and spent a couple of hours there. It was one of the most impressive museums we’ve seen with incredibly well put together sections covering geology, biology and the history of New Zealand.

Wanting to make some mileage north we left Wellington late afternoon taking a back route out for a change of scenery. It may not have been the best idea as it did take longer to get out of town and may have worsened the effect of traffic jams out of town that we ran into.

We spent some time calling around various motels, etc. and eventually found a room in a roadside motel in Otaki which had the bonus of free internet.

We settled down for the evening. After having dinner we watched a bit of TV which was soon taken over by the breaking news of the horrific earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Although there were some early warnings raised for New Zealand we didn’t feel too threatened. Although we’re only 4km from the coast we have a bit of elevation and we’re not in any bay that may amplify any small waves that would reach this far. Nothing we can do about the boat so that is out of our hands.

I managed to upload recent photos so most are now on the blog.

Today we’ll head towards Whanganui and perhaps onto the area around Egmont National Park. At least that’s our plan.