Wellington
The day after our cancelled alpine crossing was a travel day, and it was a cloudless beautiful day! As we left Turangi we enjoyed seeing the mountains where we had wanted to hike , including several thermal vents that were steaming strongly. We also stopped for a brief hike in a rain forest that included many giant tree ferns.
In Wellington we stayed 3 nights with parents of a friend we had made in Indonesia. They took us to their church that serves a multicultural community, and afterwards we enjoyed a Sunday dinner with their extended family. With them we also visited a reserve that exists to preserve native plants. On another day we visited the Te Papa museum that houses a lot of Maori items among other things. We also had a tour of Parliament and the historic St Paul’s Cathedral, a unique wooden Gothic structure, that has been replaced by a larger and more modern cathedral.
