Another fun filled day in Wellington. We had a ferry trip planned and wanted to get the noon ferry. So we hightailed it along the waterfront. We made it to the ferry with time to spare so we took a bit of a stroll. We met up with a street ambassador team. Daniel G. made a comment about my camera and we started talking. He was part of a two person team and they are ready to respond to any crisis. Lucky for us because we had 15 minutes to wile away. We were first in line for the ferry and got to sit right up front on the top deck. We rode out to Some's Island to let off most of the other passengers. These were the families with kids. Our ferry then continued to Days Bay. We had our picnic lunch and walked around for a bit. A bit is all there was to walk around and the wind off the bay was strong and chilly. Rather than wait two plus hours for the return ferry we jumped on a bus and rode all along the water back to Wellington. We saw the town that we considered staying a month in, South Hutt. we are very glad that we did not end up in that tiny suburb. When we got back to Wellington we went to the New Zealand Portrait Gallery. Here there was a retrospective of Selwyn Muru. Of course we chatted up Joanne and Sophia, as we tend to like to chat with people. We may have some tea with Joanne when we are in South Hampton in the UK. After the museum we wandered into a Māori Art Gallery / Store. The prices were rock bottom and I got a greenstone pendant and Leslie got a scarf with the turquoise colors we saw in all of the Selwyn Muru paintings. Then we stopped by the store for the eggs and tzatziki sauce we forgot the day earlier. We picked up a bottle of Navy Strength Gin at the Big Barrel Liquor store. Yummy lamb chops for dinner!
One giant mural
Funny street crossing sign
Go go go
The golden hippo
A cool church up on the hill
Naked man sculpture
One big anchor
The waterfront is packed with art
The locks on this bridge are not holding up well in the salty air
A tree fern person chimera
The red dog!
Nice tile work
The travel ambassador, here to help or just chat. Daniel G. was willing to help us spend 15 spare minutes with a chat
Cool looking toilets
This is the interislander ferry that we will be taking in a few days
This is the ferry we will be taking today to Somes Island annd then Days Beach
All aboard!
Wellington waterfront
Everybody gets a view
Some's Island a former prison and now a day trip for families
The lighthouse has a ladder on the top of the dome
Not much of a docking area
A Māori welcome gate
Biosecurity inspections are mandatory
A mall beach for the die hards
Off we go
Looking back at Wellington
Out to the end of the bay
Day's Bay ahead
The wharf where we will land
Lots of kids waiting for the return ferry
The beach at Days Bay
Those Tonga Folks are proud of their heritage! We saw similar car decorations in Brisbane
This tree was massive
The bay behind us
On the bus and driving along the coast
Funny Bunny
We are at the top of the bay
We have noticed a plethora of theaters
The river at the head of the bay
On a crowded bus there are a multitude of untold stories
One of the older buildings in Lower Hut
Historic Jail
Looking back at Somes Island
The main exhibit it the gallery
A Ruru Morepork spirit owl by Selywn Muru
The gallery roof top
What a great quote
The left eye of this owl was made of leather and could open by pulling a string in the back. We were not allowed to use the string
Sophia and Joanne were great company in the Portrait Gallery
Some very cool pencil drawings
Leslie noticed that a specific shade of turquoise could be found in most of his paintings
The chevron on the figure to the right may be a commentary of how war inflames peoples spirits
What a great slab of poetry
I had to buy a pendant at this Maori shop
Lots of jumping in the clear waters of the bay
We walked up this random staircase / art instalation
A hodgepodge of art and wooden structures
A suspended sphere
A giant 10 foot hand on top of a building
A sign post of sorts
A cool way to inject literary works into the surroundings
Funky sea creature
A platform built to jump off into the water
Oragami penguin
Oragami baboon
The newest mural is still in progress
Very Rousseau like
This series of sharks spanned an entire building
Some very funny sharks and a cat
Hammer head shark
Its a shark eat shark world
A diamond shark and a four eyed shark
Two sets of glasses and a school of fish shark
X-Rays of the sharks where the window is
No rain so far
This is why you should not feed the pigeons
Loved this sign
Hail to the queen!
Walked home a new way
The short cut was not so pretty
Our neighbors have a drinking problem. We got a free "recycling truck alarm clock" in the morning
