Te Papa

Unfortunately I didn't get to see much of Wellington today because of the awful weather. I almost got thrown into the road last night walking back home when the wind sent two giant refuse recepticles straight at me. I did the whole good citizen thing by gathering up all the glass on the street and trying to reposition the garbage cans but I'm sure it was hopeless...the wind must've taken them all the way down the street.

I spent my entire day in Te Papa--Maori for "Our Place." It's a great museum with tons of interactive exhibitions and educational information about New Zealand. I of course went nuts over the parts that showed the environment before and after human beings showed up here, and ways that people are reintroducing sustainable living back into society. Honestly, I felt quite proud to be a part of that movement in this country and I hope that upon my return here I can work more in areas of conservation. There was a pretty emotional memorial to all the birds, plants, amphibians and invertibrates that have gone extict here, and much information about current species that are threatened.

The place was pretty well designed, but being from America I have a tendency to go to the right instead of the left and sometimes get stuck in opposite traffic flow. I don't know what happened to all the pictures I took today (somehow dissapeared off the camera) but here is one below of species introduced to New Zealand after colonization.





Heading to the South Island tomorrow on ferry via the Cook Strait. It's about a 3 hour ride so hopefully the sea will be friendly in the morning. I'm most likely camping in Abel Tasman National park for 2 nights after that so I don't know when I'll get back to email, but I'll be sure to post asap.