We spent the day in Wellington until about 1:30, when we headed up the coast on Hwy 1 to Wanganui, on the west coast of the North Island. Pat went to Zealandia, a wildlife park and sanctuary, while I took the cable car down the mountain to downtown Wellington and the Wellington Museum. Pat'll talk about Zealandia in her Paragraph.
The Cable Car was interesting. In the late ninetheenth century, Wellington was expanding but was hampered by its terrain, very hilly with a small, flat area near the water. Because of the hills surrounding the city (it looks a lot like San Francisco in that respect), it was very difficult to travel outside the "core" part of the city. In 1902, the city opened the Cable Car, which travels up and down one of the steep hills in the city and opened up the area for development. The Cable Cars have been in operation since then, and were only upgraded in the late 1970's. Prior to that, for over 75 years, the original design endured without a single serious injury. The original cable cars looked like this:
The route is about 2,000 feet long, passes through three tunnels, and rises about 400 feet in elevation. The cars take about 4 minutes to reach either end of the line and leave about 10 minutes after arriving. This is the modern car in the bottom terminal:
The Wellington Museum was pretty interesting, with a chronology of the development of the area from the early nineteenth century up to the present day. Wellington is the capital of New Zealand. The city itself has about 200,000 residents and the surrounding area another 200,000 or so. Unfortunately, once again, I was unable to take pictures inside the museum. Grrrrrr....
But, here are a couple street scenes from around the Museum this morning:
We left Wellington and headed up Hwy 1 north along the west coast to Wanganui, about 200 miles from Wellington. The scenery along the coast highway was striking, as you can see from these pics about 50 miles north of Wellington:
Tomorrow, we're headed up to Waitomo for the "Glow Worm Caves" and then on over to Matamata (these are real names...honest) to see some of the sights over there. After that, it's on to Auckland for three nights and then we'll be leaving the afternoon of the 12th for Tahiti. The trip is starting to wind down, but it's been a great experience.
Pat's Paragraph...... I went to Zealandia today while Roger went museuming, is that a real word? Zealandia is the name of the continent New Zealand was part of a million years ago. It's ecosystems are unique and fragile, as are her inhabitants. This preserve has been completely cleared of predators and specially fenced to keep any other predators out. It is inspected daily with a special team using a unique method of detection. The largest number of flightless birds are in NZ. Because there were no predators and plenty of food, birds didn't need to fly. The wings got smaller and the bodies got larger and heavier. The largest flightless bird ever was the Moa, much larger than the ostrich is today, about 15 feet high to the top of his head. These birds went extinct hundreds of years ago. And the largest eagle that ever lived fed on the moa and people! It too went extinct.
One of the things you discovered today was the huge amount of birds that have already gone extinct and the many many species that are on the critically endangered list. As I walked through the preserve, I got to hear bird songs that were written about and described in books printed almost 200 yrs ago. Locally no one in this generation has heard them. These birds exist only on small islands, pockets of nature that hasn't been destroyed. The names look like I spilled scrabble game tiles; kereru, takahe, kaka, hihi, kakariki and the 2 I loved was the tui and the bellbird. Such beautiful songs! I wish I could have recorded them for you.
They also have rare lizards and geckos, ducks, parrots, parakeets and a giant insect that looks like a big grasshopper called a weta. There are some common ones around today but the giants are rare and chiefs used to keep them as pets. It was an amazing experience.
