Wellington & last kiwi days @ Auckland

Wellington
After an intense & active week, I have an afternoon and evening in Wellington, South of the North Island, to discover the capital of New-Zealand.

While it was somehow interesting to see the capital, nothing really exciting to relate here... With few others from the group, we walked a bit in the city, took the famous old cable-car up to the Botanic garden, had views on the city & the bay, crossed the garden quickly, checked the industrial waterfront / port, spent a bit of time in the nice Te Papa museum... but after 2h30, just headed for few beers to relax and prepare we hoped a busy evening. I am posting few pics below of the above description.  

Wellington cosy center

The cable-car

City & bay view

Botanic garden

Parliament house 

Waterfront / port

The Te Papa museum, about New-Zealand history, is nice and worth visiting. It exhibits well some contemporary art, but mostly shows NZ history and the Maori culture. 

The crazy pic below, shows how humans "invade" the land they occupy, even before our industrial development:

- the 1st pic on the left shows that before the Maori arrived on the NZ island, about 85% of the surface was covered with forests, 

- the 2nd pic describes how in the 1800 years, after 500-600 years of occupation, the land had changed. Only 55% of forest left!

- after Europeans settled down in the XIXth century, today's map on the left shows that forest coverage is down to 25%, with all low-lands used for agriculture. 

Few other pics from the museum on Maori's art: I could not spend enough time to understand what it means, and describe correctly, but the culture has a real depth that would be worth exploring more. 

Last days in New-Zealand @Auckland

Inside the bus view... not as much km as in Africa, 

but still about 1,700 km drove through the North Island. 

Another 9h bus drive to ride back North up to Auckland, and I'll be spending another week-end there before to close this Asia/Pacific time of my world tour. A bit sad! I would have liked to spend more time here, see the South Island, meet more people... Ok, I'll have to come back ;-)








These 2 days in Auckland go very fast... despite the weather is not as great as 10 days ago, it still enjoyable to walk in the city, with views on the tower, victorian buildings and/or the bay.











 Auckland mixes modern and old buildings in a great way, very good urbanization plan here.

 Of course I also meet again my friend Pierre-Jean from my previous time here, and a friend's local friend, Ben, who brings us to a nice place to watch the 2nd rugby game All-Blacks vs. France, then a good bar/club. Good times :-) (even if we lost again the game, big time)

Also, great to find the 2nd night some great beers... i have to say a Leffe tastes like champagne after months of light & without much taste beers in Africa, Asia and Australia ;-)

Tasting real beers