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| Harbor front of Wellington |
On Christmas Day we drove south to New
Zealand’s capital, Wellington.
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| Promotional prop for the DreamWorks Animation Exhibit in the Entry Hall of the Te Papa Museum |
We visited the excellent Te Papa museum,
which was just about the only place open on Christmas Day. The museum was excellent, and made more
than up for the shortcomings of Auckland’s War Memorial museum. We finally learned what we wanted to know
about immigration to New Zealand starting with the Maori in 1280 CE (much later
than I had thought) and the different waves of immigration from Europe and Asia
in recent centuries. Chance would have
it that Te Papa also housed a special feature exhibition about DreamWorks
Animation. Cora and Julian
were positively delighted.
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| We have seen this one before ... many, many moons ago ... some things never change :-) |
Almost all restaurants were closed on
Christmas Day and the only one that we found to be open was a sub-par
restaurant at a 1970s hotel that had since missed out on all renovations. The food on offer was a traditional
English Christmas dinner with turkey or ham, accompanied by soft-boiled
vegetables and mashed potatoes with floury gravy. Christmas crackers and colorful paper crowns
inclusive. It wasn’t exactly what we had
in mind but it was nonetheless interesting to see how old traditions fondly
survive.
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| How to kiss a full moon |
An evening stroll along the marvelous waterfront
with the sun setting beneath the mountains at our back and a full moon rising
out at sea put us quickly back into holiday mood.
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| "Thy Lips Full of Moon" (can be sung to the melody of "A Heart Full of Love" from Les Mis) |
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| A full moon rose over Wellington Harbor as the sun set behind the hills at our back |
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