16 Minutes to Auckland: TO WELLINGTON/EMILY AND LEON HAVE A HOLIDAY!!

Today we are off to Wellington/Nelson for our group holiday. We are at the airport by 9AM. The flight is only 3/4 hr, once again over the ocean in a small turbo prop. While we are waiting for our flight, we sit in the airspresso cafeteria and play "monopoly" (the card game) - wonderful fun - if you have never played it, pick up a pack - it's easy and fun.

The weather is glorious, barely a cloud in the sky. Once we land, we get into a taxi shuttle and head to town, happy as clams. Our room is not ready yet, at the "Astelia" apartment hotel and won't be ready til 2 PM, so we leave our luggage and head to the waterfront which is really close to where we are staying. The shopping here is one of the main attractions! (Emily and I make a pact to spend time on some serious retail therapy tomorrow).

We pop into a deli as we have spied some 'proper pies' and sit outside to eat them - unfortunately we do not have a video of what happens next.
Brian is sitting across from me with his camera - there are seagulls and pigeons hovering around making a huge racket, hoping for some morsels. Leon and Emily throw them a few chips and next thing you know there are 3 times as many of them all making a racket. I do not take part in sharing food with these birds! They spy my pie and one of them flies into my face just as I am taking a bite and my meat pie goes flying into the air and lands on the ground. The birds have a meat pie frenzy and I am left sitting with an empty meat pie bag. Everyone finds this extremely funny. The picture you will see of the gulls shows no meat pie, and that is because it got eaten in 3 seconds.

The harbour here is a glorious sight! The water shimmers with boats of every description. I am including a picture of 2 boats for Dad, one is a very old (1926) (?) not sure what it is called - some type of jack system for loading and unloading. Monstrous. Behind it is the famous Greenpeace "Rainbow Warrior". Not only are there gazillions of boats in every shape and size, but there are people everywhere having a "whale of a time". Greenpeace was doing a demonstration on how to take care of a beached whale - people dressed up as whales in wet suits were pretending to be whales and children were helping to keep them wet with spray bottles and buckets of water - I tried to download the videos I took, but no go. It was interesting to watch all the children spraying the pretend whale and throwing buckets of water on it. Very cute....

There was a very different sort of project going on that encouraged people to take part. Shipping containers (like the one John has) were set up side by side and in each one of them you could enter and take part in whatever was going on. Two of the pics will show the 'airplane' one. I didn't want to smash mine, so I was told to keep it and take good care of it. Each shipping container had a Project that worked on 'the mind'. I will bring my plaster of paris airplane home and Desi can paint it!

The famous Te Papa museum is here and we plan to go and see it tomorrow. (You know I really don't like museums, however I will do this because everyone wants me to go and I can't say no to this one.) There is some reason why I don't like museums and I don't exactly know why. Things that are stuffed and in cases make me feel claustrophobic. I like exhibits and I like history. I'll just focus on the parts I like. (There are 6 floors- gasp!) I will let you know how it goes.

We get to our rooms at about 2 PM, ready for a rest, but unfortunately Leon and Emily (although given a key to their room) find it in a mess! The room is quickly made up and we are given a free wi-fi card for compensation.
I kind of thought wi-fi was part of the deal anyways, but apparently not.
So here again are my (very amateur) pictures. A few come from Emily's camera and are a little more, let us say - creative!

By the way, Wellington is the capital of New Zealand.