01/2/2017 - Cousins and a colossal squid

Day of week: Monday

Cities visited: Wellington, Levin, Whanganui

Lodging: AirBnb on the outskirts of Whanganui

On Monday Zach felt a bunch better, which was nice, and so fortified they came out into the day. Their first stop was Te Papa, the National Museum and Art Gallery located in Wellington. Our cousin on Zach's side, Alex Barnett, connected us with his sister Jess and her family, who were kind enough to spend the morning with us. There was Jess, her male partner Tig, and their 2 and 4 yr old kids Isabel and Jarvis. Everyone was friendly and fun and we hope to see them again another day.

Isabel insisted we all see the only preserved colossal squid exhibited anywhere, which was really cool and looked like the inspiration for the aliens from Independence Day. She also introduced Zach to a Fluffy drink, which is steamed milk with a bit of chocolate powder. As someone who doesn't drink coffee ever, Zach was thrilled to have his own non-water drink to ask for like all of the NZ'ers with their cool-sounding "flat white" and "long black" drink names. Jess' family went off exploring on their own after a couple of hours, and we did our own thing for the rest of the time.

Colossal squid at Te Papa

The museum had lots of interesting Maori exhibits and local NZ arts, to be expected. There was also a very cool bug exhibit in partnership with WETA workshop (of Lord of the Rings fame). Seeing human-sized models of a hornet invading a nest and fighting with bees is something else!

This was also the laundry day of our trip, coming just in time to save Zach from wearing his underwear inside out :). We ate leftovers for lunch, and swapped our rental car for a new one as the last ramification of the popped tire.

Then it was on to Whanganui for our evening stay. Much of the drive was along the water, our first water on the west side of the islands. On the road to Whanganui, at our AirBnB host's suggestion, we stopped in Levin for an early dinner. We ended up at Rangoli, an Indian restaurant with some inspired Indo-Chinese specials that left us totally satisfied.

Clouds + mountains + water picture of the day

The AirBnB was a good example of how nice they can be - the host had thought of so many big and small touches, and also had a fiber internet connection that was super fast and the host encouraged us to "use as much data as we'd like". We relaxed in the evening and got to bed early.