On my first day in Wellington I decided to heed the advice of several other travellers and visit the Te Papa museum. I'm not a museum fanatic and usually avoid visiting them but this museum was so highly regarded by other travellers that I decided to give it a go. For a free entrance you get 6 floors of exhibitions to roam around. To give you an idea of the size of the place I spent a whole day walking around and only managed to visit the first four floors.

The first floor is about New Zealand's flora and fauna. Most of the exhibitions concentrate on endemic or endangered animals emphasising the uniqueness and adaptation of birds living in a mammal free environment. There's also a section about the geology of the country, information on plate movements and other geological activities. The second floor hosts and exhibition of Fire, Water and Earth as well as Oceania and the forth floor is all about Maori culture.

The presentations in the exhibitions are very high tech. The traditional museum displays are usually supplemented by interactive games on touch screen monitors, sounds and video presentations. There are even specially designed exhibition rooms for the younger ones. The name of the museum "Te Papa" means "our" in Maori and it's something many people in Wellington are understandably proud of. I highly recommend a visit to this museum even if you're not the museum going type, after all there's nothing to lose by visiting.

The next activity of the day was a night tour to the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in search of the kiwi bird. The tour started at 5pm and I was the only one on the tour so I had a personalised tour with Manito, the guide for the night. After a short drive from the city centre to the Sanctuary we went for a walk looking for some commonly sighted animals like the tuatara (the reptile I didn't see in Invercargill). I wasn’t lucky with the ancient reptile this time either, however we spotted some Tui (the bird not the beer), fan tails (the bird not the card game), the black teal (the bird not the colour) and the kaka (the bird not the Milan player). By the time we arrived at the Kaka feeding place it was already getting dark so it wasn't easy to discern the bright colours on the bird's feathers. The kaka is a nectar feeding bird and is one of the three birds that are artificially fed by the Sanctuary's helpers.

As soon as it turned dark we started our kiwi search by listening attentively for the male call. It didn't take long to hear the bird and after a while we even managed to see one foraging. I had an ass view of the kiwi which looks very similar to a hedgehog from behind. Unfortunately I didn't have time to snap a picture, even though I wouldn't have attempted the shot anyways to avoid startling the bird. This was the highlight of the trip and of the day. On our return we heard another kiwi call close by but we didn't manage to locate him.

While we where heading back to Wellington Manito explained how the Karori Sanctuary isn't controlled by the department of conservation (DOC) which means that there aren't government funds to help. On the positive side however this cuts on the bureaucracy of having to spend months to get approvals and to take decisions, so things can progress faster.

The sanctuary has been open for 7 years and the plan is laid out on 500 years. Two new species are introduced yearly and when a new species is being introduced a formal welcome ceremony is held by the Maori Chief. This illustrates the extent of the say the Maori still have in today's New Zealand.

On the way back to Base Backpackers I stopped at a Malaysian Restaurant and ordered two main plates Mee Goreng and Stir Fried Seafood. This was the end of my first day in Wellington.

The following day I started by checking out the 'famous' café scene so I had breakfast in a café instead of the hostel as usual. I lazed about in bed and arrived at café Arabica, (opposite the Intercontinental Hotel) at 11am. Despite the late time it was full of businessman (and women) and I was sitting in the middle of the café bombarded by 20 simultaneous conversations. It felt rather surreal.

After finishing my cappuccino and muffin I walked towards the cable car to visit the botanical gardens. This walk was particularly memorable because I remember myself walking towards the cable car reading the newspaper headlines on the boards proclaiming that Steve Irwin was killed by a sting ray. This added to the surrealism of the day.

The view from the top of the cable car was more or less what you'd expect and what you're seeing in the picture. When I arrived to the botanical gardens I decided to go and visit the rose garden. This was probably the worst decision of the holiday because after an hour walking I found the rose garden but it took me about 5 minutes to realise that I had found it. The reason being that there wasn't a single rose in sight because it being winter and everything. At least there was the orchid enclosure which is becoming a symbolic aspect of my holidays, because I always end up in an orchid place, willingly or not.

From the botanical garden I walked towards the centre and since I had some time to spare I went for the 2pm tour in the Parliament. This was the only activity where there where more New Zealanders than tourists visiting. The tour only consisted of a description of the building.

This ended my day in Wellington and at 7pm I got the night bus to Rotorua.

View the complete Wellington Gallery here

Coming next: Rotorua