Wellington...a ferry nice place

    We stopped in Pukaha/Mount Bruce on the drive down to Wellington; it might be the only place we see live kiwi birds, which are now very rare and are also nocturnal. We saw several other endangered birds there, kiwi chicks being hand fed, and one pure white kiwi, a very significant bird to the Maoris. We also watched six foot long-finned eels being fed, which was a first for us. 

    We are staying with Jeanie Prince, née Gilchrist. This Jeanie is Isabel's sister, another descendant of the Lesmahagow Gilchrists, and she is the third of three Jeanie Gilchrists in her family, the first of which was the missionary from Scotland who preceded Sid in Angola at Bihé, Camundongo and places like that by thirty years. She died there, and there is a published diary of her experiences, yet we didn't know about her until I discovered her while googling Gilchrists about fifteen years ago.  Sid must have heard about her from the older Angolans in those towns, but never mentioned her as far as I'm aware.  Dad has her biography in his office, which he ordered online when I told him about her.  

    I have come to think of Jeanie, Isabel, David and Narelle as part of my "iwi"...that's the Maori word for "tribe". We've been eating pavlova that Jeanie made - Australians and New Zealanders are each convinced that they invented this dessert, but according to Wikipedia, the Kiwis were first. 

    We're in what might be thought of as the Hollywood of New Zealand right now. We're surrounded by studios, some of them looking like private homes. They even wanted to put up a "Wellywood" sign, but there was a community backlash and they turned it into an All Blacks sign (in honour of rugby in New Zealand). We're in Miramar. 

    At the foot of our street is the Weta Cave. Weta Digital is the company who helped make Lord of the Rings, the recent King Kong, Avatar, and many other films: 123 major projects, including many of the biggest recent block-busters.  They have 3,000 employees, did $4 billion in revenue last year, and have won 48 Academy Awards for their work.  They're the number 2 special effects company in the world, after Pixar. 

    We also stopped at the Roxy Cinema, two minutes from the Cave, which is a splendid art deco venue for the films that Weta works on.

    We went for a walk in the rain on Wednesday morning with Jeanie and her two "spoodles", Bridey and Finnegan. We needed our "wellies", but we didn't have room for them in our luggage. 

    We enjoyed the Te Papa museum on Thursday, which has several great exhibits including a dissected Colossal Squid. The very beautiful Marae appears in my Wellington 2012 photo album, plus a wharenui and a storehouse for treasured items.   

    We'll have blue cod for supper, and be off very early in the a.m. to catch the first ferry to the south island. The weather promises to be clear - keeping our fingers crossed.

Next post: Ferry to South Island