Back to the North Island

We took the ferry back to Wellington, the country’s capital - and the world’s windiest (capital) - where we just spent 2 nights before moving on. We visited Te Papa (The Museum of New Zealand). It is massive, and we managed to get through 2 of 4 stories before my back and legs screamed for a break. We’d highly recommend anyone visiting Wellington to visit this free museum (shout out to my sister who recommended it to us!).

We also walked through the Wellington Botanic Garden, where I got some pictures of a Tui, another endemic bird. It’s beautiful!

You might need to enlarge that picture to see the variety of brilliant colors on its wing and back, and to better see the interesting tuft of feathers under his neck. On the nape of his neck, he had a gorgeous “mane” -

I was going to upload the audio of his call, but I came to my senses figuring that I was getting too deep in the weeds for most of you. ;)

Since I didn’t get many pictures in Wellington, I’ll move on…

… sharing the early signs of autumn we were seeing, as well as the surrounding countryside -

It was hard to get a good picture of the expansive pastures filled with dairy cattle, and extending to the ocean. We were continually amazed by the number of dairy herds we saw.

Some interesting stats - in New Zealand, there are about 6 million dairy cattle, 3.75 million beef cattle, 5 million people, and 25 million sheep!

We were heading NW out of Wellington, aiming for Mt. Taranaki…

… which rose suddenly out of the plains surrounding it, to stand as the second tallest mountain on the North Island. There was a technical (read mountaineering) hike to its peak, but that’s beyond our skill level, so we were quite happy to find there was a road to a viewing platform. As we started out that morning, it looked like a spectacular day…

… but clouds quickly moved in, causing a peek-a-boo game as we got closer -

My patience at the viewpoint…

… was finally rewarded -

As waterfalls have been my goal on many hikes here, we just had to check out Dawson Falls…

… where we enjoyed our lunch -

We also enjoyed a walk through the “Goblin Forest” in Egmont National Park (where Mt. Taranaki is located)…

… where the layers of growing things on top of others was quite profuse -

We stayed in New Plymouth, which is on the SW corner of the North Island, and spent quite a few hours wandering in Pukekura Park…

… which gave me some beautiful subjects…

… as well as a surprise photobomb -

I was so focused on capturing the reflection of the bridge above, that I didn’t even notice Mt. Taranaki peeking in!

My last picture reminded me of the spring y’all are enjoying (and that I’m somewhat sorry to be missing) -