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We had a long lazy morning before checking out, as we were leaving we stopped once more in the reception to see if there was anything we might want to do in Wellington. The staff seemed shocked and disappointed that we weren't interested in going to Te-Papa museum so I asked them more about it and they said it wasn't like an ordinary museum that you walk around, apparently there were different themed floors and most of the time there are shows put on. To be honest the leaflet did look interesting and the two of them made it sound really good, it was free to enter so we decided to give it a go. We jumped back into our camper van and drove straight down there. When we arrived the car park was already full with cars and a couple of camper vans. One camper van was wedged in between a few cars, they had no chance of getting out!
We drove around the car park once and could see we weren't going to find a space, our only option was to park in the coach and bus lane. Chris ended up driving in the wrong way and couldn't turn around, he had to reverse through the lane and mind that he didn't knock anyone over behind him! I thought it was very funny the way people looked at us as they walked by, you knew they were all thinking the same thing, but only I could say it to him, Chris you bloody idiot lol.
I waited for Chris while he ran into the museum to check it was ok to leave the van in the lane, the last thing we wanted was a fine or a clamp. He returned and luckily it was ok.
We went into the museum and up to a guy at the information desk. He said we should start at the top floor and get the boring stuff out the way first and work our way down to the interesting stuff, so we did just that. It turned out he was right, the top floor was very boring! I like art but seriously, what is the point of a black canvas with a small orange cross in the middle??!! The only stuff I liked up there were a collection of close up photos of a toddlers lips. They looked really cute and funny and I thought it was a clever way of the artist capturing her child's expressions. The old wood carvings by the Moari people were also interesting but the rest of it was crap, we left after just ten minutes.
The next floor was ok, some interesting exhibits about different times in New Zealands history. We decided to go to the next level after only half hour there though. The bottom two floors were a lot better, lots of animals to look at and skeletons of different sea creatures including whales. There was also an earth quake house we could stand in while it rocked and shook to give us the sensation of an earth quake happening. The highlight of our visit was we got to see the only giant squid on show in any museum around the world. Fisherman caught the squid which was already dying and donated it to the museum, they found out as much as they could then preserved it in a special glass tank before it deteriorated too much. It was six meters long and weighed 495 kilograms, which is small compared to a fully grown one. Afterwards we watched a 3D video on giant squids, it was interesting but the best part was watching the young kids at the front reach out for the fish and move away screaming when the squid came out at them.
Some of the museum was interesting to us but to be honest we wouldn't recommend it unless you really like museums. We left at 2pm and got back on the road and headed to Lake Taupo. Most of the drive was along busy motor ways, nothing like the scenic drives in the South Island. By late afternoon we had only made it to Taihape so decided to stop there for the night at Taihape River View Holiday Park.
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