A cablecar view

No trip to Wellington would be complete without a trip to the botanic Gardens via the cable car.

Some of my earliest memories of Wellington revolve around these "institutions".

 My grandmother, always a lady of resouces(!) would come equpipped with gloves. Not for her the short type that finished at the wrist, but those that buttoned up to the elbow. 















And although I never saw her doing it I know that family history has it written that these gloves worked well to carry small cuttings from the gardens home in.

To be fair everything my grandmother put in the ground grew and because she was such an avid gardener(President of the Wellington Horticultural Society) I don't see her ever doing anything to harm a plant, except perhaps prune it just the littlest bit!! 

And surely the gloves were the forerunner to the cloth bags we all use in an environmentally friendly way now.

But I digress. 












This particular trip involved another grandmother and my grandmother's daughter in law. 

Ds enjoyed walking through the gardens, spotting all the succulents

and spending time with his grandmother. And so out of another trip to these beautiful gardens another piece of family history was made.

Wellington: a city of art and space

 I know this post has quite  a lot of images but we found these structures and windows to then too fascinating not to want to share!

 What a cool window. Each time you look through it you see something you hadn't noticed before!

 just the right sort of shelf for a rest!

 More great spaces...

 and more city scapes!

 Somewhere in the sky see something round...

 Not sure what this was, but it was great to climb on!!

 Somewhere else to look.

 Looking back to the waterfront

 see something round again..

 In the picture is a boy, above his head  see something round!

 art is great when it also provides interaction for you!

 stepping out to catch some air

 Just contemplating the day!

Wellington is great!

 What can I say, I'm a Wellingtonian by birth and...I love the place! From its dry summers(no humidity yeh!) to its blustery winters , well I'm just a sucker for all of it. However  even if you are a little cautious about visiting New zealand's capitol city let me tell you, you will be very impressed with its shoreline.

 We left Dunedin on a subzero, black- frost -morning. The airport had ice on the runway, and they had to wash the planes down so they could fly!When we finally took off. the view of hills and more hills was pretty awesome, but landing in Wellington, flying in over its beautiful harbour,  is incredible! After dumping our bags we were off to "see the sights"

 It was perfect Wellington weather, warm with not a hint of wind(truely!)

 I wanted to show L. the harbour 'from the ground so we headed for the shoreline and found...

 so much to see, so much going on. We plan to come back with more family and try one of these cycles...you can get bigger ones too.

Wellington Wow !

 Not much to say about this "scrapbook of pictures" But hopefully more reasons to make you curious

 and want to visit yourself

 There was such variety of buildings and art and shapes and sizes.Everywhere you look there is something to catch your interest(and no I'm not getting paid to say any of this)

Outside Te Papa

 Outside Te Papa is a bush walk complete with a cave including glow-worms and stalagmites and stalegtites.

 we wandered over a swing bridge,

 investigated some rock and fossil formations,

 explored a cave or two! We walked amongst preschoolers from a Te Kōhanga Reo. It was wonderful to hear the little ones chatting(and even giving cheek to their supervisors!) in their own language.

 Te Kōhanga Reo is a total immersion Māori language family programme for young children from birth to six years of age.It was begun in 1981 by the Department of Māori Affairs in response to Māori concern to ensure the continuing survival of the Mäori language.At Kohanga Reo all education and instruction is delivered in te reo maori.
 

 Later in our New Zealand visit we were privileged to stay with a couple whose grandson is attending one of these maori language nests."More than half of the world's 7,000 languages are expected to die out by the end of the century, often taking with them irreplaceable knowledge about the natural world, Harrison said."Harrison and Gregory Anderson""Most of what we know about species and ecosystems is not written down anywhere, it's only in people's heads"Harrison and Gregory Anderson.When a language is lost, centuries of human thinking about animals, plants, mathematics, and time may be lost with it.(ref:http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/09/070918-languages-extinct_2.html)