On Wednesday, the ship docked at Wellington, the capitol city of New Zealand. Our Holland American excursion - Te Papa, City Sights and Mt. Victoria ($92.95 US) - did not start till 12:30, so we had breakfast in the dining room. This tour was in the city of Wellington, and the bus was just about full.
Our first stop was Te Papa, the national museum of New Zealand. This Museum is free to all, and I think today was a school holiday, so quite busy. We had just over an hour here - the Maori had a very good exhibition.
Then we toured the outside of three buildings, including The Beehive, a government building.
And then to old St. Paul's Church - this is a wooden church, no longer being used.
Then we went on a cable car - Wellington is very hilly. There was a cable car museum at the top, and also a cafe here, where we stopped for coffee and scones.
And then the Botanical Gardens - very nice roses, and indoors, a begonia garden and lily pad pond.
Then we went up a steep hill to Mt. Victoria, but unfortunately,
so much fog and rain that we could not take any photos. It was quite rainy out all day, so we enjoyed
just seeing around Wellington in a nice, warm bus. We arrived back at the ship at 6 pm (Tip
$5NZ).
For dinner, I had potato soup with lobster (very
good), roast turkey dinner, and for
dessert, whisky chocolate cake and orange sorbet. I also had a local wheat beer, which was also
very good.
