Today the archives was closed for New Zealand's Labour Day so the McVey's and us decided to see what New Zealand looked like outside of Wellington. It is very beautiful. We took Highway 2 and saw the following sights.
Te Marua Water Treatment Plant. They have a lake there where they process the drinking water for the area. One lake is empty and the other one is full. This is the full lake and the empty one is just left of this one.
We went past the towns of Featherston and Martinbough - They are very small quaint towns with green rolling hills full of sheep and sometimes cows.
Cape Palliser - This is on the southern most tip of the North Island. It has a lighthouse on it and to get to the lighthouse you have to climb 249 stairs. At this point is where the Cook Strait Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet. The road actually ends at this point.
Seal Colony - Not far from the lighthouse is a seal colony. There were a lot of seals. They just lay on the rocks and then the adventurous ones swim in the ocean. We got pretty close to them but if they feel threatened at all they will go after you. However, they move so slow I'm not sure they could catch us. One of them was nursing her baby and when we got near she growled at us. We knew not to go any closer.
This is an anchor from a ship that wrecked in 1903. The nameplate called the ship the Borque Ben Avon.
Ngawi - This is a small town by the ocean. The boats come in and they have tractors that then pull the boats out of the ocean. The pink one if named Babe and it was our favorite tractor.
Pinnacles - This is located in the Aorange Forest Park. Part of the Lord of the Rings movie was filmed here. He hiked about 3 miles round trip to see them. The map said the hike was easy but it was down a river bed with rocks and we had to cross a large stream a couple of times. Don only fell in once. It looks a lot different than the rest of New Zealand. We were thankful the weather was warm and nice.
Since rugby is such a big sport in New Zealand they thought everyone even the sheep should have a chance to practice. When we saw them they were having a game with the sheep against the cows.
Last Sunday the New Zealand Rugby Team (All Blacks) won the World Cup Rugby. The score was 8 to 7 against France so they just barely won. New Zealand was very excited. In fact Wednesday they had a parade down Lambton Quay and 100,000 people showed up. It was the most people for a parade in the history of New Zealand. We didn't go see them on the street but we could see the crowd from the stairwell at work. It was a sea of people and a lot of school children who should have been in school. You can tell the school children because they all wear uniforms.
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