Day 2 From Chasing Kiwis to Stargazing

Woke up late this morning close to 10am. Thank God the running nose is gone so I was able to start the day pretty fresh. The children were very cooperative and got ready within the hour, all dressed and breakfast done. We left for the zoo at exactly 11am, an hour later than planned. Thank God for Theo’s parents who ensured that we had food and looked after the children when we were busy charting next steps.

First stop was Wellington Zoo. Though it’s pretty small by standard, the steep hills and pushing Ephraim along got me all tired out pretty fast. Nonetheless we managed to get up close and personal with the otters, kiwi (mission checked), golden lion tamarind, a family of ducks, kune kune (some kind of long haired pigs) and sheep. The kiwi is nocturnal animal, flightless with super small wings and survives with its long beak which it uses to peck at bugs and sniff around. Its body to egg ratio is 3:1, making it the largest of the bird family. To date there are only couple of thousands of kiwi in the wild and the zoo is helping to breed and release them to the wild. We had a quick picnic lunch at the zoo from yesterday’s leftovers, confectionery and fruits.

Since we still had a bit of daylight left, we decided to cramp Mt Victoria within today’s itinerary so we could afford to leave later tomorrow. Mt Victoria is a typical lookout point offering panoramic views of the city below but still worth a visit for first timers to the city. Thus far Wellington given off a very old town feel and it is hard to imagine this is the capital of NZ.

The last item on our itinerary for the day was to go stargazing at the NZ version of Stonehenge, and hope for the odd chance of getting to get the southern aurora. It started with a 1.5hr drive out of Wellington to Greytown. First part was quite a bit of heavy traffic leaving the city during peak period. Then it was windy roads up and down the scenic mountain range before arriving at the farmlands of the lower Hutt Valley.

The first town we arrived at was Featherton then Greytown. By the time we arrived it was close to 7pm so most of the town looked pretty dead hence we headed further north towards Masterton the most populous town in these parts. We had dinner at McDonald’s before turning back to Carterton for the diversion to the Stonehenge. Unfortunately the skies were still too bright for stars at 930pm so we whiled for 30mins. Between the bright moonlight and cloudy skies, I didn’t quite get the chance to see the stars so we decided to make the trip back to Wellington. Oh well, I guess it wasn’t meant to be.