New Zealand Airport Door

2/7/12 (Tuesday):  We left Los Angeles on 2/3 (my sister's birthday!) and arrived in Wellington, New Zealand, on 2/5 (you lose a day when you cross the International Dateline).  It's been so great to be with my family again, although it is sad that we cannot be with Wiley's family as we grieve his father's passing.

Interisland Ferry

Mark and his family live in a small town called Seatoun (pronounced "sea toon") on the south end of the North Island near the capitol of New Zealand, Wellington.  As I mentioned in my last blog, our first afternoon here, we walked to the Seatoun pier.










There's a gorgeous view from the pier across Worser Bay.  We saw lots of Interislander ferries.  Commuters use them to get to Wellington like we'd use a bus.  There was a bit of fog, so it was difficult to get a good picture of them.

Kids Jumping from Seatoun Pier

The kids were jumping off the pier.  Austin did, too.













  

Sculpture in Park at Seatoun Pier

There's a little park with a cool sculpture.
 

Mark and Heather's Fireplace

We fell in love with Mark and Heather's home.  There are gorgeous wide plank wood floors, lots of big windows and a great layout.  This fireplace is really neat.  We slept very well and have not noticed much jet lag (thanks for allowing us to use your space, Austin).







Later that afternoon, Austin took me by his school, which is only a few blocks from home.  He rides his Rip Stik to school (for all the other grandparents out there, it' a Rip Stik is like a skateboard that flexes in the middle -- very popular in the U.S. and over here).







The weather is just lovely, with warm days and cool nights.  Lots of flowers are in bloom.  It was a holiday celebrating New Zealand's admission to the British Commonwealth, so lots of people were out enjoying picnics and concerts, much like our 4th of July.

In the afternoon, Mark and Hudson took us to the Wellington botanic garden.  You ride a really neat cable car up the hill to get there.

As you can imagine, there are lots of plants that look very different to our American eyes!

This is a tree fern -- very big!

This is called a Te Kouka or Cabbage Tree.  The Maori used every part of this tree and it is very special to them.

I'm doing a lot of quizzing of Mark and Heather as they drive us around on the left side of the road.  Even walking requires some concentration for us, because you have to remember to look right-left-right before you cross the road.

On our walk, we passed the Maori school.  It's an effort to keep the culture and language alive.  It's strictly voluntary and admissions are limited to those who can prove their Maori ancestry.  The public schools, like the one Austin goes to, include some lessons on Maori language and culture.

Seatoun is an upscale community.  Lots of Weta employees like Mark live here.  We saw lots of art and beautiful gardens on our walk.  And, of course, the views are just stunning.

Wiley's walker/wheelchair has been really handy, but the botanic garden's hills proved too steep even for Mark to handle, so we just did a couple of the fairly flat places.  Wiley is getting stronger and stronger, though, and we're hopeful that we'll be able to do some walking on the South Island.

We haven't seen much wildlife.  There are some really neat birds, like the magpie, and we saw this moth (butterfly?) on a flax plant.  We suspect there will be more wildlife on the South Island, which is less developed.

So that's it for now.  We're having a good time and building memories.  As the Maori say, E noho rā (goodbye).