Hi everyone! Today is our 3rd day in Wellington.  So far it has been amazing.  Yesterday, I went for a nice run through the Botanic Gardens (more on that later) while Mike was visiting Weta (animation studio).  When he returned, we went on a proper walk through the city.  Our hotel is situated nicely in the heart of the city in between Parliament and the HUGE botanic garden.

Here is a picture of “The Beehive.”  This is the common name for the Executive Wing of the New Zealand Parliament Buildings, also featured below to the left.  These were just a few steps outside of our hotel.  Very cool architecture.

The Beehive and Parliament Buildings

Later in the evening, we met up with one of Mike’s former students, Francois and his wife Ellie.  What a great couple!  We had a nice dinner and they explained some other ‘need to knows’ about New Zealand, like there are no letter ‘F’s in New Zealand (they use “wh”??) and we should definitely check out the meat pies before we leave.

We did a little better than the previous night and stayed up until about 9:30PM.  We were up at 5AM but still, this was an improvement on yesterday. hehe.

This morning, we woke up, made breakfast in the room, and then headed out to really dig into the Botanic Garden.  On the way, we walked through The Bolton Street Memorial Park, a cemetery built into the hillsides behind our hotel. SO beautiful.  Here are a few pics from the park.

As we continued up the path, we came upon the Lady Norwood Rose Garden.  SO many roses!  It reminded me of my Nana Rose.   There was also a beautiful waterfall.  Ducks galore!  Such a peaceful place.

Here are some shots from the rose garden:

From here, we walked inside the Begonia exhibit, an indoor greenhouse filled with some of the most beautiful and strange plants I have ever seen.

This was a really weird plant....eeek

We walked further and finally reached the botanic garden.  I know!  We hadn’t even reached it yet!

I am going to upload a video of a crazy bird in the park.  First we only had the sound and then the thing flew right over our heads.  Jen – you will love this. I am totally Patreeeesha-ing out!  Just call me Mrs. Evans.  I think it was a Tui bird.

Here is the link to the  bird noises, hehe, I am such a nerd.  http://youtu.be/13xQI9EFQz8

Below is the view from one of the lookouts in the garden.

Something great about the botanic garden is that once you get to the top, there is a Cable Car that will take you back home!  You can also take the cable car up and walk down through the garden but we thought we could get some good exercise in by walking up to the top!  We were pretty knackered by the time we got up there.  So down we went!

This is Mike riding down!

We are heading out to meet Mike’s friend Brandon, who is going to show us around some.  Cheers!

When we got back to the hotel, we had some time to relax before Mike’s friend Brandon picked us up for more sightseeing. Brandon is an LA native who works at Weta.  He and his wife have been here for about a year so he had some good insight from the American perspective.  He brought us down town to see the happening stuff at Courtney Place and then to some Weta buildings in Miramar, including the Weta Cave, a small touristy place that has a small museum of all the movies Weta has worked on. It was pretty cool.  Life-sized Orcs and Avatar stuff and many other films I didn’t even know Weta was involved in.  We also drove nearby one of the sets for filming “The Hobbit.”  It was pretty cool to see.  We didn’t get pics of this because we were a little far away but we could see that they had built actual “hobbity” buildings and set up HUGE 4 or 5 story green screens behind them for filming. It was intense!

From here, Brandon took us to a cafe near the beautiful seaside in Miramar.  As we pulled up to the beach, surfers were enjoying the calm waves but Brandon told us that this particular inlet could see huge 15 foot waves at times.  It is pretty amazing since there are homes and buildings all around and nothing gets damaged.

Here is a pic of the inside of the cafe. It was a very funky place that served up some very tasty items. We had some midday pancakes and bacon with bananas and maple syrup.  They were delicious and really hit the spot.  I am starting to realize also that people don’t just order “coffee” in New Zealand.  I think everything is made from espresso so you need to order a “latte” (lots of foam) or “flat-white” (minimal foam), or  “flat black” (black). It seems complicated to us who typically just order regular and decaf.  Mike is really throwing everyone the decaf curve-ball. hehe.

A big thank you to Brandon for showing us around and giving us more tips on how to fit in here!

We relaxed the rest of the day but it was definitely a good one.  This place just gets better and better!  Stay tuned for our next venture to Te Papa – museum of New Zealand.