Jan 4: New Plymouth to Wellington

After our afternoon on the beach, Katie and Mijin thought it would be great to come back to the beach for a quick swim early the next morning.  At 6:30am (it had already been light for almost an hour), we headed back to the beach.  I took some pictures of some rocks and only realized once I had downloaded them how beautiful the morning light was.  The pictures look incredible, and it's all due to the light!  I'll have to get up early in Dunedin and take some early morning light pictures.

Katie and Mijin were a bit chilly, and I told them I had the best idea for how they could warm up - jumping pictures!!  They were immediately on board, and we easily spent the next half hour mastering the jumping picture - the count off, the best jump pose, when to click the camera.  By the time we left the beach, they were experts, and we infused the rest of the trip with masterful jumping pictures.  All of mine are featured in my Facebook photo album, Jumping Around New Zealand (click to view - no need to be a member of Facebook!) 

After grabbing coffee and scones and picking up the rest of the group, we started our journey south to Wellington.  We asked the lead car - Vanessa, Graham, and Todd - to stop if they saw a good place to pull off and take some unobstructed views of Mount Taranaki.  Ask and ye shall receive.  About 20 minutes in, we pulled off the road in front of Inglewood High School and used their ginormous front lawn to take posed, jumping, and handstand pictures in front of the majestic Mount Taranaki.

Vanessa & Graham demonstrating their handstand prowess

From here, it was a long drive to Wellington and we arrived there late afternoon.  Vanessa and Graham split off (after giving Todd back to us) to go and visit Graham's dad for a few days who lives outside Wellington, and the rest of us headed into the city and directly to the Weta Cave.

The Weta Cave is the gift shop/mini-museum of the Weta Workshop.  The Weta Workshop is the company founded by Peter Jackson and others that does everything for movies from computer special effects to puppetry to modeling to making chain mail and armor.  In addition to lots of work on New Zealand TV and films, they worked on Lord of the Rings, Avatar, the Chronicles of Narnia, District 9, Halo3, Master and Commander and more.  I think of it as the New Zealand version of George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic.

We went primarily to see all the Lord of the Rings stuff.  We did the Hobbiton tour, remember?  They had lots of cool stuff on display, including some full size orcs and this statue of Gollum.

  

After checking in at our respective accommodation (the five of us were staying at three different places), we met up again and headed out to Island Bay to meet up with yet another American, Mei-Yen!  Mei-Yen, Katie, and I work together at Maryland, and Mei-Yen and her mom were in Wellington visiting Eboni, who was an exchange student with them back in the day.  Eboni and her husband Jason and their cute as new baby Amokura invited us all over for dinner.  They had an incredible spread of dinner and dessert, and they are an incredibly cool couple.  Eboni works for Huia Publishers, the award-winning New Zealand publisher of books of the Maori perspective.  You should check out their catalog - it's awesome.

Me, Mei-Yen & Katie - reunited!

It was great to see Mei-Yen and her mom and meet Eboni, Jason, and Amokura and their family and to be in a lovely home filled with great people and great conversation.  Thanks Mei-Yen and Eboni!!