Day 35 (part2) – Monday 12th December – Sydney gad about

So on this day – we managed to go and do a last minute booking of a tour round the Opera house

Should you get the opportunity, you should do this

some of the shapes inside are fabulous, however without paying yet more money to wordpress, i’ve run out of storage space. 

So for now we’ll have to call it day despite the fact I had other photos to post of Sydney they will have to wait. 

All in all Sydney is a pretty good destination for a hard days rambling, taking in the tower with panoramic views across Sydney, as well as more exploration in the Botanic gardens and then supper in ‘The Rocks’ and the walk back along the coast to Darling harbour. 

All in a pretty Splendid day and sunshine throughout, ye Ha.

Then it was finally on our way back to chilly old blighty and time for Christmas with jet lag

Great holiday

Day 35 – Monday 12th December – one day Sydney gad about

Monday 12th, we had one day to enjoy what sydney has to offer. The tube fares were more expensive and as we were here for a day we didnt get a card – but walked out from Darling Harbour to take in the sites

when we got down to the main harbour there was a huge cruise ship just parked up. This fella was just huge

for a one day trip Syndey has got a bunch of famous sites to take in

and the walk across to the Botanic gardens, with Bondi hidden away in the distance

you’ll also find lots of White Ibis in the botanic gardens

Day 34 – Sunday 11th December – last day before jetting off for Sydney

Day 33 10th December was one of our wet rain days so nothing to report other than we stayed in and watched some strictly !

This was a quite day as we had to get off for our flight to Syndney in the afternoon. So we walked up to Victoria peak again for some last shots over Wellington. Another sunny day !

and out to the airport

An fitting end to our New Zealand mainstay of marians birthday

Day 33 – Friday 9th December – Downtown shopping

Had a quiter day for Friday, and went downtime shopping. Bearing in mind how close to Chritmas, it was quite hard to spot much noise like youd see in the UK, this was about it. A Christmas tree made of traffic cones and some street flags

we also popped back to see the Te Papa underpinnings to protect it from earthquakes

and finished of at a Chaat restaurant ( great) and and icecream parlour on Cuba street – well worth the visit

Day 32 – Thursday 8th December – Zealandia

Thursday we set out by bus for Zealandia which is a consveration area, within the city, and fenced in to try and keep the rats, possums, cats and other nasties that have a go at the native fauna.

This is a big area and lots of treks within its borders

Well worth the time to go see it. Of course we had it on a good day, with practically no wind, so how lucky were we.

The bird noise with the sanctaury is really loud and gives you a small taste of what it must all have been like back in a day …

amazing ferns all over

lakes

and more ferns !

and tuatara basking in there doubly protected space

And some saddlebacks

we even got to see the Takahe flightless who seemed very relaxed on his walkabout

yet another fabulous day out and then back to family for the eveing supper

As you can see Wellington is ver well spread out across lots of hills

Sam And Erins house for supper overlooking the airport

Day 31 – Wednesday 7th December – Weta Workshops

So if youve stared at the statues in Te papa, watched Lord of the Rings and other such shows and admired the characters, we need to go visit the Weka workshops. This is small band of people who got famous when peter jackson contracted them for the Lord of the Rings.

Its a great day out and amazing to see the stuff they do – but you cant use the camera for most of that

these are all made with tin foil from the kitchen

Thee work and creativity in some of these items is amazing and the Sword making is great. Amazing stuff

yet another fine day in the calender as well

These from from short walks we did around strathmore park on the scenic way to Weta

Day 30 – Tuesday 6th December – Te Papa and going walkabouts

Wellington is built on a large number of steep hills, so getting about can be a tad strenuous. It can also be pretty windy to boot, so yet again getting your clothing just right can somewhat tricky. to get about the bus service is about the best, but you need to get the timings on various buses just so. There is of course a app to help you go about this and the Snapper card (bit like the Oyster card if your from the UK)

This first morning we didnt have the snapper card so we walked down from the victoria peak where our house was don to central Wellington

In central wellington the cultural museum is an obvios must visit, and alot of it is free. if you get a mo its really worth going around the Gallipoli (2nd world war) show. Like most things in war you cant really imagine just how bad these things can get. 

however to help you the Weta workshops teams jumped in and have done some just amazing very large statues that just look super realistic – these figures are about 3 times real life but the details are just staggering

The details on these figures is just extraordinary and gives you a very moving sense of the drama on what was a very difficult engagement in the second world war

Having failed to get a good shot of the kiwi on our lawn in Stewart island, i did the next best thing and took a snap of the stuff one that can be found in other parts of te papa

There is a lot to take in and you can easily blow a couple of hours going around the exhibits.

After Te papa, we wnt to the funiculiar railway and took that up to the botanic gardens ( you can no longer use youe snapper card for this and have to pay the fare)

We have done pretty well with botanical gardens of this trip and this was no exception, albeit not being be as fabulous as the one in Chistchurch.

There is a lot of areas on quite steep slopes of the hill but well worth the effort to do the walk about.

We then got the bus back through wellington for a well earned rest

Day 29 – Tuesday 5th December – day traveling to Wellington

This was a quiet day as we left Stewart island and spen the better part of the day getting the plane from Invercargil upto wellington.

We just got a couple of shots of victoria peak looking out across the hills of Wellington

and finally the view from our little house

Day 28 – Monday 4th December – Ackers Point, and Harolds bay

This was our last day, and as we had the use o fthe owners car, we went across town to Ackers point, which is a bit of awindy road but as usual there is hardly anyone about so relatively safe

and upto ackers point

and then walk back past harolds bay

harolds bay is just great, and there is the remains of a house that Harold build for him and his family back in the days as a boat builder

this is whats left of Lewis Ackers house

colours of the rock and sea were just great - the views looking out are to die for

we were the only ones on the beach to enjoy it all

chilling out on the driftwood

and little about Lewis Acker

Having done all that we went upto the lookout (pretty steep drive) and looked out over golden bay, and Ulva island in the distance

And then finally a drive over to the garden by bathing beach bay

yet another great day out

Day 27 – Sunday 3rd December – Rakiura Track

on day 3 we wnt across to the start of the Rakioura track stright up from horseshoe bay where our house was and did a good shout at the start of the track

The weather was a mixture of some cloud, cool, and then sunny so you are for forever whipping clothes on and off

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

We think we did about 16km on this first 1/4 of the track.