Friday, February 21
Today began with visiting Zealandia. We had an excellent docent who took us through the park. Zealandia is an urban ecosanctuary that is completely fenced and encompasses 560 acres. There are many native New Zealand animals, trees, and plants that we were able to see. When New Zealand was inhabited by the Europeans in the 1800s, this area that is now the western slope of Zealandia was not good farmland for the settlers so it was left to become a forest again. The eastern slope still has remains of farming and human impact but slowly plant species have returned thanks to the ecosanctuary.
Entrance to Zealandia 
Our docent
Glowworms can be found here. 
A male hihi 
Pied Shag 
takahē 
takahē 
kākā 
Stitchbird 
tuatara 
tuatara 
A class of students on a field trip.
We walked through the Cable Car museum.
Our group leader is demonstrating where he would sit as a kid. 
At lunch we had the opportunity to drink the Taha Tonic drink. Taha is made from natural ginger, manuka honey and pure New Zealand water. It was delicious!
This afternoon we had a guided visit to Te Papa Tongarewa: Museum of New Zealand. On our walk to the museum we saw many sayings and poems along the Wellington Writers Walk along the harbour.
After our tour we had some free time to explore the museum on our own. Below is a slideshow of some of the exhibits that we visited with our guide!
On our own we went into the special exhibit: Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War. It tells the story of the Gallipoli campaign during WWI. It tells the story through eight New Zealanders eyes during this time. The giant sculptures are 2.4 times human size. This exhibit was well done and very emotional.
We also stopped in the Earthquake House to experience a simulation. Where we live, the chance of a high magnitude quake is slim.
We left the museum and walked over to the Wellington Museum.
The Wellington Museum
We didn’t have much time before the museum closed so we focused the majority of our time going through the special exhibit: Suffrage in Stitches. This textile work was created for the 125th anniversary year of the women’s suffrage in New Zealand. Its length is the same as the original petition and it consists of 546 individually fabric panels that were designed and tell the stories of those that signed the petition or relatives that influenced the 546 makers of the panels.
