Wellington is the capital of NZ and quite a contrast to the small village of Picton that the ferry left from.

We parked by Te Papa - a museum, more of which later, and walked into the city centre. It was very quiet, like there was half the number of people that you'd expect to be there. The shops were not that exciting but there were some nice bits of architecture and older buildings. The parliament building, fondly known as the beehive, was not among them though being an ugly concrete building.

We took a ride on the cable car, which wasn't quite what we expected. Although it did go up a hill, we expected a gondola hanging below a cable but found a tram car pulled by a cable. It was not a very picturesque trip going, as it did, through 5 tunnels and through university grounds. At the top there were good views across the city and an interesting museum about the cable car. Initially it was built to provide access to a new suburb that was built at the top of the hill.

We ate lunch of Pam chook sandwiches on the harbour front before visiting Te Papa. This is the relatively new national museum of NZ and the guide books cannot use enough superlatives to describe it, so we had high expectations. They were met. There were displays of stuffed native fauna (maybe they should have stuffed less of it and left more of it running around alive and free), the geology of the country, volcanos and earth quakes, and the history of the country. We found out the country as we know it today was developed as a South Pacific version of Britain and wanted its own 'empire'. It succeeded in getting the Cook Isles but none of the other islands that it wanted to possess. There were two main highlights: the carved Maori hall and the pickled colossal squid (yes James, you read that correctly!).

The Maori carvings were very impressive. There was a large temple-type building intricately decorated along the eves and inside with statues and knot work. The statues eyes were decorated with Paua shells making them glow against the dark wood. It was interesting to see how similar the knot work was to Celtic artwork. There was also a beautiful canoe carved from the trunk of a single tree. It was very ornately decorated and showed impressive craftsmanship, although it looked like it would be a bit of a handful to paddle!

The colossal squid is the only example of its kind in any museum in the world! It was caught a few years back when a boat reeled in its deep sea fishing lines. Attached to one was a fish and a huge squid that was trying to eat said fish. It was still alive when it surfaced and the fishermen, realising that they'd got something very unique, decided to freeze it whole. It took two hours to get it from the sea into a freezer. They took it back to land and gave it to the museum and after devising a plan on how to preserve it; it was slowly defrosted then quickly examined before being soaked in formaldehyde and placed in a glass container for everyone to see. It was really interesting to see and as an animal up there with salt water crocs for impressiveness :-)

After a very pleasant cup of tea in the museum cafe and an obligatory visit to the gift shop we picked up some dinner at the supermarket then drove over yet another twisty turny road to our campsite.