Have spent today travelling to Gisbourne.
This is 576km or 357miles.
The hills are more undulating and the traffic more plentiful.
Ran out of petrol.
Met some BMX’ers with petrol cans who filled me up and continued on my merry way.
Wellington, Botanical Gardens, New Zealand
Wellington, Botanical Gardens, New Zealand
Wellington, Botanical Gardens, New Zealand
You can take a cable car which takes you from the town centre up to Wellington’s Botanical Gardens.
Then walk down through the gardens.
Here on recommendation from old Kezza.
Had a late lunch in Intercontinental and spent the afternoon in this, New Zealand’s national museum.
Natural History, Arts, Settlers, Maori, Geology.
There are 5 floors. It is modern. I didn’t like some of the plastic displays which were on the lower floors which were full of kids.
As you went up though the kids diminished. There were a couple of good displays. And it was generally a good place to wander round for a few hours.
Here’s a couple of displays.
NZ Arrivals, Te Papa Museum, New Zealand
Shows imported species.
You can look at this whilst it scrolls through species introduced from 1796 up until 2006.
Acclimatisation is the technical phrase for it.
When the settlers first arrived the sheep refused to eat the grass, didn’t like the taste.
Other interesting introductions include trout and salmon in 1897.
Corn Beef Cow, Te Papa Museum, New Zealand
Corn Beef Cow.
Weblinks: Te Papa Museum
Arrived last night by 3 1/2 hour ferry trip.
Located here at the IBIS, the first hotel I came across.
Prices are cheap around $100 p/n.
The cheapest yet in New Zealand.
Here’s a view of the waterfront from Te Papa museum, rock gardens.
Service station. somewhere.
Hanmer Springs.
Today have exchanged bikes.
Have changed the RoadKing, for this Soft-tail.
With this new mobile, I am going to journey toward the North Island.
These are 3 of the most active and largest Glaciers in New Zealand with ice-flows in the region of 4 meters per day.
Spectacular.
Here are some photos to give you an impression.
Helicopter Flight
I have opted to take a helicopter flight. The weather is just good enough for us to take in 3 glaciers, 2 on the west side of Mount Cook and the Tasman on the east.
Franz Josef Glacier
Franz Josef, Takeoff. New Zealand
Franz Josef Glacier, New Zealand
Franz Josef Glacier, New Zealand
Fox Glacier
Fox Glacier, New Zealand
These are the two opposing watersheds West side.
Crevasses
Crevasses, Fox Glacier, New Zealand
Tasman Glacier
This is New Zealand’s longest glacier at 8km long.
Nothing can prepare you for coming round Mt. Cook and looking down from 10,000 feet on this monster, the mountains of the Cook range in the background.
It’s still difficult to believe it took so short a time to get up here.
If you were to climb, the gravity of the mountain, surroundings and views would be once in a lifetime.
But hey, we don’t all have the time and experience to climb 10,000ft mountains, so these photo’s go some way of reminding me how amazing a place this is.
