Semester Break 2

I could talk a little more about our three days in Wellington. At our hostel, we met Adam. We met Adam due to our lack of skill at pool. Neither of us could make a shot, and he began to give us pointers. It did little good, but he was a friendly guy and we continued talking to him after we gave up on pool. Adam was born near Wellington, but had just returned from England where he had taught kindergarten. Now he was working in a vineyard, but it seemed he wanted to get back to traveling after a few months back home. Here is a photo of Adam and Kim.

The next day, Adam offered to take us on a mini-tour of Wellington. We stopped at a cafe on the beach for coffee (cola for me), drove to a lookout over Wellington, and visited an awesome yard of scrap metal sculptures. These were big pieces of junk-art. A VW Beetle had been used as the body for a giant spider overlooking the property. Spiders seemed to be one of the man's favorites, and I was able to get some decent photos.

One of our days in Wellington was spent almost entirely inside of Te Papa, the premier museum in New Zealand. There were floors and floors of Maori artifacts, nature exhibits, and art. I was surprised to see a picture of The Beatles wearing huge Maori necklaces in a parade presumably in NZ. They really were everywhere. Te Papa's main claim to fame is the giant squid exhibit. It is the only one of its kind on display, and the video chronicling the discovery and preservation of the squid was interesting. Below is the front of the squid.

From Wellington it was a short flight to Christchurch. From what I saw of Christchurch, I was sad I didn't have more time to spend there. The city has a nice central square and some neat old architecture. The rental car experience was a different story, but everything was smoothed out somewhat shortly.

Ryan with the Bridge of Remembrance

We met Ryan, Andrew, and Sam in Christchurch and departed for Mt. Cook the next morning. The weather was fantastic, and I wanted to climb a short way up the mountain and back for a nice day hike. As we closed in on the mountains, we drove past the bluest lakes I have ever seen. I had read the color was due to minerals glaciers had crushed in the lake. The minerals reflect a high amount of light, so on clear days, the lakes are as blue as the sky.

Lake Tekapo

The weather seems nice in this picture right? Well, after driving little more than an hour from the lake to the base of Mt. Cook, we were in heavy rain. A park ranger told me the rain was expected to hang around for a few days, so I wasn't able to get a look at the highest peak in NZ. While that was a bummer, it gave us more time to spend in Queenstown, where I jumped off a bridge. (Cliffhanger)