Day 8, March 23, 2016

Today was a full day in Wellington. Let me just start by saying, I love this city. The people have been much friendlier than those up north were. The city is beautiful and the food has been amazing. Our hotel is right off of the waterfront and within walking distance of most of what we want to see.

We started the morning with the buffet in the hotel. Owyn was thrilled because it was all you can eat, his favorite kind of food. We were not sure how long it would take us to get to Weta, so we left an hour before our tour. It ended up only taking a half hour, even in rush hour traffic. Google Earth has completely revolutionized our travel. It takes all of the navigation stress out of the drive and makes it easy.

She's a ballerina with the Wellington Ballet.

We arrived at Weta with plenty of time to spare so I got some coffee from a local coffee shop. Weta is located right in the middle of a neighborhood. There's a school across the street and houses all around.

The entrance to the Weta Cave.

We wandered around the shop while we waited. There are a couple of exhibits, and this is the only place you can take pictures.

The trolls.

Three gollums, all in a row.

They brought out a prop mace from The Hobbit. It's made of plastic but heavy.

Rhys also wanted to try it out.

We then got to go on the tour. Pictures were not allowed, which was maddening. They had so much cool stuff. Props from the movies, a full sized warthog from Halo. Weapons and armor and the castle from Prince Caspian. Owyn got to drive the goblin king's face, from The Hobbit. We got to put hair into a cast, like for the models. They had a sculptor making pieces for a Labyrinth game.

Weta was wonderful.

We then returned to the hotel, put the car in the valet and walked over to the Te Papa museum.

The entrance to the museum.

Toothless.

The boys were interested in the animal exhibits and the WWI/Gallipoli exhibits.

Weta made these figures. They are three or four times the size of a real person.

Owyn was appalled at the waste and stupidity of war.

We then hit lunch, two for one oysters, anti-pasti and fish and chips.

Yum.

The waterfront has a lot of great restaurants. We sat outside. As has been the case for the whole trip, the weather was overcast but perfect temperature. Walking back we passed this sculpture and a man playing the bagpipes, which Owyn adores and Rhys thinks are meh.

The boys are all about swimming so we took them back to the hotel following lunch. Mama and I took a nap then I took the boys to the pool where we sat in the hot tub and the sauna and swam.

After some more chilling in the room we headed back out for dinner. We sat outside again, right on the water.

As we were leaving a gentleman told us that he had seen a ray under the pier. We found it and watched it slowly swim along until it disappeared under the pier. As soon as we got back to the hotel the boys wanted to swim again, so Mama took them down while I wrapped up the pictures for today.