Having made it to the beehive, one of the three stops on my list here in wellington, i'm sadly still no closer to getting rid of these three ancient maori flax baskets. i'm not too worried though... yet.
with two more stops to make today, and the kete o te wananga causing all sorts of weird magic things to go on around me, like bringing statues to life or firing dismantled cannons into downtown, i was feeling optimistic about them finally leaving my possession!
my second stop of the day was the city and sea museum. located on the east end of the harbour front, this was a museum dedicated to wellington itself, and i was about to learn a lot about the capital (to the point i know almost more about it than my new "hometown" dunedin).
entering the museum you're greeted by a cool recreation of the old time wellington harbour. complete with dank sound effects and lighting. though not as big as the old town in christchurch this one was just as cool.
its so detailed that it even has a fake basement... unless the baskets had time travelled me into old time wellington, and none of this was fake...
wandering between the three floors i was struck by the open lobby, and the great vantage point for watching the whole museum. if i had ended up working here as a security guard i would patrol here a lot like at the otago museum. standing in the open stair well and watching key access points of all the galleries.
my favourite of the floors was the second, and thus the photo focus on it. the first floor was educational, and i learned a ton about wellington, but the displays weren't as fun looking. it was a lot of reading (which is still a good thing... just not good photo-wise).
the second floor being about the harbour. so they've got lots of boats and ships.
ships in bottles...
ships in cases...ships in a puter... seriously don't miss the tug simulator if you visit. way cool! you get to play a training game driving a tug boat into the harbour and pulling a ship into port. it also has cool educational interviews with actual wellington tug drivers and portmasters who tell you how to drive the tug!!! it doesn't have a flash (kiwinese for fancy or pretty) set up so you might miss it. so make sure to ask where it is!!!
the best of the ships being inside the museum is the inside of a ship... which is inside the museum with a ship's inside inside itself that is inside the inside of the... AHHHHHHH!
there's a replica ship's cabin inside. its cool, check it out okay!
the third floor has a slightly sadder theme than ships inside a museum, and that is the sinking of the ferry wahine.
in 1968 a really bad storm hit wellington... the worst new zealand has ever experienced on record. a bunch of bad decisions and timing led to the main transport ferry TEV wahine getting stuck in the middle of the somewhat dangerous wellington harbour.
you see under normal conditions like i sailed here under the harbour has a really safe route to enter by. however if you miss that route or getting blown off it, by oh say a mega storm, than you're in big trouble!!!
the wahine got swept into one of the many natural ship hazards present in the harbour. in this case the barrett reef, which i saw when i sailed into wellington yesterday.
sadly a lot of people died. rather than tell the sad story here, and make my blog sad just read it here (told probably much smarter too ;p ).
adding to the sadness. i didn't get rid of any baskets here.
next i was going to the apex museum of all new zealand... te papa!!!
to be continued...
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