Zealandia

It was the birthday girls chance to suggest what we did and so on the last day before work began (and after a couple of days of gardening, cleaning up and going to movies - Tin Tin, We bought a Zoo, Fall of a City (weather was a bit wet and stormy) we decided to go to Zealandia for the day.  On the web it was described as A paradise that took 80 million years to evolve and was almost destroyed in the last few hundred...We had a long walk around the lake and up onto the hills with stops to admire the takahe, saddleback, kakas and tuis.  A good day out - but a tad expensive for the average local to go often.

We also had a little detour to see one of the oldest homesteads in Wellington. A cute little house, where we wandered the garden - but it was closed so we couldn't go in (every time I pass it - it is closed!!). It is the city's oldest building - built in 1858 by William and Catherine Wallis - recently married - what a way to spend a honeymoon - seventeen weeks on a ship with lots of other immigrants. They liked the Nairn Street site (saw before buying which apparently was quite unusual I think) because there was a stream - they'd heard about the earthquake in the Wairarapa three years early which had created tidal waves that swamped Wellington town's water supply causing pollution and the spread of typhoid.