Wellington with Heidi

We were anxious to finally see Heidi.  It had been a year since we had seen her, and we had been in New Zealand for five days.  We left Leigh’s very comfortable home and she insisted we take a cooler, sandwiches, fresh vegetables, cake, granola bars, candy bars, and water.  She wanted to make sure we wouldn’t starve along the way.  We had a good trip down to Wellington.  The GPS took us on the scenic route past the west side of  Lake Taupo. 

Tongariro National Forest

Our car is a Nissan Sunny.  Never heard of that, have you?  Neither had we, but it is an automatic, has AC, and is roomy enough for our suitcases, etc.  We rented a GPS with the car, and that has been so worth it!  It has saved us a lot of time and fuel, as well as arguments.  Choosing the absolute shortest routes, it sometimes leads us on roads that we would not normally have taken, which is probably a good thing.  We tend to want to stay on main highways.  It gets us off the beaten track, but safely to our destination.

While traveling through the interior of the North Island, it was not as green.  They had not had rain for a month, which was unusual for New Zealand, and it is the end of the summer, like August in the northern hemisphere.  It was dry and brown.  

 

 I know some of you might think this is rather green.  But for New Zealand, it's brown.
 





This is pretty brown.


In one of our journeys, we passed a lookout point. We pulled off, but couldn’t see anywhere to look at the view. I decided to get out and see if we were missing anything. When I turned around, this is what I saw:

Waitui Lookout
Now that’s a lookout! And this was the view:

Tongariro National Park from Lookout

Mt. Ngauruhoe

We stopped at another unusual lookout on the South Island. We climbed ladders to get to the top.    This country has some clever ideas!  

 


 

It was worth it.  Look at the lagoon and sand dunes:

 

 

This is the Tasman Sea, between New Zealand and Australia.

There are three major mountains in the Tongariro National Park:  Mt. Tongariro, Mt. Ngauruhoe, and Mt. Ruapehu.  They are impressive!  On one of the mountains, we saw some smoke.  I took pictures, and noticed there were no airplanes or helicopters dropping flame retardant on it.  There was no one visible on the mountain.  We thought maybe they were just going to let it burn.  It wasn’t until we talked to Heidi that we realized it was an active volcano! 

A few miles before we got to Wellington, we saw the coast!  WOW!  It was so pretty.  The water is very clear here. 

These two pics are from the internet.  Mine didn't turn out.

 

We drove to the house where we were staying in Karori, about 10 minutes from Heidi's.  The streets going up the mountain were very narrow, with hairpin turns.  I kept thinking we were going to lose the passenger side mirror by side-swiping a mirror on a parked car, but ours was still intact when we arrived at the home of the Cherian family.

Lyndi is from Wyoming.  Her husband, Genesh is from New Zealand.  They have five sons, and live in an amazing home with a deck off the kitchen.  We ate out there, with their family and two gals from Wyoming who flew in just after we arrived.  That poor family!  They were bombarded with visitors, but they were very gracious and made us feel more than welcome.  They got fish and chips for all of us so we could eat a traditional New Zealand tea (dinner)!  What a treat! 

Heidi came over and we went to her apartment just to see where she lived.  We dropped her off and got some sleep after a long day. 

The next morning, we had breakfast with Lyndi and her other guests.  Their traditional breakfast is Weet Bix.  You put the biscuit (kind of like Shredded Wheat without the crunch) in a bowl and pour a little milk over it.  Then it goes in the microwave for a minute.  They put a little brown sugar on it to sweeten it.  What a great opportunity to try something different!


We visited with the gals from Wyoming and found out they are returned missionaries. 

Diane (dark hair) went to the Navajo Mission and served as a counselor in the LDS Social Services there.  Sally went to Australia and served for 18 months as a proselyting missionary.  The two of them are staying with the Cherian’s for six weeks and will be in the South Island the same time we are.  We don’t expect our paths to cross, however.  Sally is into alternative medicine, and tried a “treatment” on Jerry’s neck that seemed to help.  Diane showed him a “tapping” exercise that also seemed to help.  She also had a book on her Kindle by Louise Hays that said Jerry’s stiff neck was an indication that he was stubborn and bullheaded.  Do you think?  We’ve been laughing about that ever since.

The four of us went to the Te Papa National Museum in downtown Wellington and enjoyed the second floor exhibits. We will return to see the exhibits on the other floors.

 



Kiwi Exhibit at the Museum
Kiwi birds do not fly.  Their wings are just stubs. 
They live on the forest floor.



 



High five for the Orks
in the lobby of the Te Papa Museum

 

The observation deck on the sixth level had a wonderful view of Wellington Harbor! 

 

 

We went to lunch downtown, took the two ladies back to the Cherian’s and went to meet Heidi after work.  We texted her twice that day, and it took 45 minutes for her to get the texts.  That was disappointing.  We figure it has to go to the USA first then back.  Oh well...It was a nice thought. 

We stayed with Heidi over the weekend.  Her roommate (flat mate), Tara, went to see her folks a few hours north of Wellington, so we could use her bedroom.  It was very kind of her.   We enjoyed visiting Heidi.  Here are some highlights:
 

We went to Island Bay and ate lunch on the jetty. 



 

 

 

We went to a Maori park and hiked up to the top of the hill. 

At times, the trees were overhanging the path.  Beautiful!!

 

 

 

At the top of the hill, we had a nice view of the area:

 

 

We went to Mt. Victoria (AKA Mt. Vic) and hiked to the top. The mountain is in the city, somewhat similar to Central Park. The city is right next to this beautiful natural reserve. 

View from the Summit

 

This is the Hobbit's Hideaway when they were running away from the Orks.  For the movie, they enlarged the hole under the roots, so the Hobbits could fit under it.

The Path

The Hideaway

 

We had a great day, but we were tired.We went back to Heidi's apartment and crashed.