Oh my gosh, I do love Wellington!!!! I don't know why I'm liking it so much, but I just do! I think it's because there are so many Art Noveau/Deco buildings mixed in with the new! And I just like it. I don't know how to describe it.
I really am going to miss New Zealand. It's been such an amazing few weeks, and thinking about it, now I wish I HAD booked it longer! I thought 6 weeks was too long, but I should have gone for it! But that's okay, I'll just come back again in a few years (after money saving). I think I need to come back again in the winter, and then again in the summer. So watch out NZ! I hope to be back at least twice more!! :D (I'm going to have to find a really well-paid job. Or become an expert on NZ music.)

Which coming to that...I haven't really done that much studying of the music/books that I was going to. I just haven't had time to since those first couple of weeks! But I might try and get to SouNZ or the New Zealand School of Music (now I know where they are) in the next few days, so I can do some quick quickness!

Today I was going to go on a film spots/around Wellington tour, but as the weather was forecast to be bad, I decided to go to Wellington Zoo instead. I woke up at half 7 today, just to see what the weather was like, and actually it was clear, sunny, but very very cold! I definitely made a good choice with the thermal layer, though I was still fairly cold!

So I went just across the street (on Bunny Road (Excellent name)) to the Railway Station which is an AMAZING building and asked where to get the Number 10 bus from. The guy at the desk took a phone call while I was there about transporting medicines to the hospital on the other side of the hill (can't remember which one) because the only way to transport the medicines they needed was by train now that they've closed the road! In Wellington itself, the snow isn't settling, but on the hills surrounding it, and further out into the countryside it is. All the locals are like whhhhaaaaa? because this hasn't happened in such a long time! I suppose it is quite unusual, especially how close to the coast they are.

Anyway, so the bus took me right out to Newtoun (Newtown) where the zoo is. And it only cost me $3.50 which was pretty good really! I said I wanted an adult ticket, and the guy behind the counter was like, are you a student? I and I said yes, and showed him my Bangor NUS and he was like okay that's $15 (instead of $20!) Hoorah for student discount again!
It still wasn't raining or snowing, but was still RIDICULOUSLY cold, but I got there just in time to see the vets at The Nest (The clinic type thing on the site) check to see how a keruru (NZ wood pigeon, but it's REALLY pretty) was doing after it had surgery on its leg. It had some metal pins in it and they were checking to see if it had healed enough to take them out. It was pretty cool as I was the only visitor who was there to see it so they said I could come inside! So I had a close up of all the action, and I had to get out of the room when they xrayed it and things. The people were really lovely and answered my questions, and told me all sorts of cool things. I was there an hour overall, so I missed the Meerkat feeding! But it was really amazing, and I got to stroke it when it woke up! Supposedly they can't tell whether it's male or female unless they do DNA testing, because there's no colour difference or anything. Crazy! They also had a large amount of birds (that begin with P, can't remember their name) come in a few weeks ago because a tornado came through their nest/the sea where they were, so about 800 of these birds got swept up and dumped on the shore. Many of them have died because they were too badly injured, or couldn't get used to not being in the sea which is sad, but they still have a few, though many of them have crooked necks now.
The Nest is also where Happy Feet, the emperor penguin that got washed up on the NZ shore a while back, lives. He didn't come out into the pool today, but I did get to see him on the penguin camera and he looked fairly comfortable :)

So after my encounter with The Nest and all their things, I went up to see the Chimpanzees being fed, and got to feed them myself! (It only involved throwing apples and kiwis, but still, pretty good!) They were really cute, and the males where amusing! I got talking to the guy who was feeding them and we had a chat about chimpanzees, music things, snow in Wellington, Britain, what I want to do with my life. As you do with zookeepers!
I then went up to the giraffe enclosure where it was time for Their feeding! There were 3 all together, the oldest being 20, youngest was 4. It was pretty awesome feeding them. I've now had my hand licked by a giraffe! The zookeeper there was from Portland, Oregon, and she was really lovely, and we also had a chat about things! So then I went for lunch at the cafe at the bottom of the hill (at the entrance) and after that I saw some Spider Monkeys, and some other things, and went into a scary hut place where I saw two kiwis! And then I saw two sunbears, and the weather started to turn, it started raining (still very cold) by the time I reached the tiger. I then headed up to the baboons who were LOUD and also just being fed. (Very cute baby baboons) And by this time it was proper raining, but I still saw emus, dingos, African wild dogs, kangaroos, wallabies, porcupines and the chimpanzees again!
Then it was back round to near the tigerenclosure to see The Roost, where they had the CUTEST bird ever: a baby Morepork. It was really cute!! And I got talking to the zookeeper in charge of the birds, who was from North London, and he said that another zookeeper was from Birmingham and had done a music degree as well!

I then decided that it was raining WAY too much, and it was time to get out the cold and wet and into the dry! So I had a cup of tea (proper tea, very impressed) and some ginger loaf at the cafe. And then when I decided to head off the guy at the front desk was like, are you okay for transport? Do you want us to ring a taxi? And I was like nono! I will wait for the bus :) So all in all, Wellington Zoo is a really lovely place, full of lovely and friendly staff!

So I got on the bus literally a minute after getting to the bus stop, and was the only one on the bus so had a chat with the bus driver. And he said that they called off all the bus services after 19.00 yesterday because they couldn't deal with the weather conditions! Crazy days in Wellington! (And NZ)

Now I'm back at the backpackers, drinking blackcurrant lemonade (tasted like real blackcurrants and lemons!), and just waiting for Sarah to get here later!