New Zealand: day 7 - Te Papa & Botanical Gardens

We all crashed early and hard last night, but were up and at 'em this morning.  We grabbed a quick breakfast at a cafe on the way to the waterfront, where we passed some lovely civic art along the wharf.  It was a beautiful sunny and breezy Saturday, so the whole city was out and about!

 

H provided the I.

A sculpture about solace? A chance to fake pushing someone in?  Also yes.

We made our way to Te Papa, the national museum, which had a bunch of wonderful exhibits.  One was on Maori carving:

One was on nature and climate change.  It explored the intersection of reducing harm and adapting to the impacts.  I never knew about this innovation!

The nature exhibit also had a section called Nest, which had photos of scores of birds, each with an egg-shaped button.  If you pressed the egg, you got to read a little about the bird and also hear its call.  The kicker was that some of the birds had gone extinct, and so when you pressed the button, you heard nothing.  Quietly powerful.

There were other interesting exhibits as well, including a modern art wing (H & S watched an entire 40-minute video art piece), a section on white migratory stories, and a section on the treaties between the British and the Maori that led to New Zealand's independence. 

But the most interesting exhibit by far was called Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War, which took a deep dive into the 8-month siege of Gallipoli during WWI, in which the NZ army played a major role (the Americans weren't really involved, so it's not something that S or I were really familiar with).  The campaign was tragic, and the exhibit told its story from multiple perspectives and more or less in chronologic order.  Each chapter of the exhibit started with a huge sculpture of one or more people involved in the campaign, from soldiers to officers to nurses.  The sculptures were lifelike but huge, and they helped to convey the scale of the experience and the greatness of the participants without removing the complexities of the individuals like a marble statue would.  

In one early section, I noticed a reproduction of a British enlistment campaign image, and got to have a talk with H (who is currently playing Mufasa in The Lion King) about how images are passed down and reappropriated through generations:

We had been thinking of skipping Te Papa for time, but Richard Taylor of Weta suggested yesterday that we not miss it.  S and I are both glad that we took the time.  I think H is too, but she'd never admit it.

After seeing the museum, we grabbed a mediocre lunch at the museum cafe and then walked our way over to the lower end of the cable car.  We rode it up the hill, and there was a lightshow in the tunnels!

At the top of the cable car is a stunning view of Wellington, a space museum/planetarium/observatory, and a botanic garden.  We walked our way down the hill, ending up at The Beehive (NZ's capitol)

After that, we went into mellow mode.  We found some yarn for H to finger knit with, headed back to the airbnb, and ordered Thai food delivery.  The sun was low and the clouds were out, so I walked to the beach for a few photos.

This is our last night in the North Island.  Tomorrow we get up early to get to the airport to fly to Christchurch!