(no subject)
Friday was fairly nice, we went for a great hike in the morning, around a small lake near Lake Taupo, and saw some cool stuff out there - birds and some beautiful ferns. We had a really long drive to Wellington, where we went on the Karori Nature Sanctuary's night hike. We heard kiwis and the morpork owl calling out in the forest, though we didn't see any. I DID, however, see kakas (a native parrot), tuatara (a native and endangered lizard) and glow worms! If you can get over the fact that they are basically maggots/fly larvae, and that it is actually their urine that is glowing, they are freakin cool. I also saw some wetas in various locations around the park, including a small cave weta on my head. I was a bit surprised by that one. Saturday, we went to Te Papa, the national museum of NZ, which had a lot of really amazing things to look at. We took a cable car and wandered around some botanical gardens, and then I made a pilgrimage to the Weta Caves. For those of you who have not heard of Weta, they are a prop and effect production company that has worked on a few films you may or may not have heard of... Lord of the Rings 1, 2 and 3, King Kong, Chronicles of Narnia... so basically, this company is amazing. I want to work for them. Badly. I will be applying when I get home. This morning, we hopped on the ferry to the south island. The ferry ride itself was pretty amazing, and went through Marlborough Sounds. We went to a very cute little aquarium in Picton when we got there, and then started heading south towards Kaikoura, our destination for the evening. We saw some seals on the way, and went for a short walk up to a few lookouts, and enjoyed a lovely sunset. Good few days, I am looking forward to the rest!