The bad news about our time in Wellington is that the weather was cold, windy and rainy. The good news is that Wellington is home to the recently opened national museum, Te Papa, where it is easy to lose oneself for the entire day. And that is exactly what we did. And it hadn't been the plan, but Wellington turned out to be our last stop in New Zealand.

The museum is state of the art in many dimensions—lots of multimedia, lots of hands-on exhibits, lots of interactive display. It was a great overview of the country – its active geology, Maori history, NZ plants and animals. It would be a great place for the first stop on a journey around NZ. Here are a few of our favorites:

Giant moa reproduction – these went extinct after the Maori arrived, as did the giant eagle you see attacking the moa

Shear the sheep game – see how quickly and accurately you can shear the sheep, by running pseudo-clippers over the sheep's body in a certain order. The clippers are actually a barcode reader, the sheep is covered with barcodes. Scott seems to be enjoying this a bit too much.

Modern Maori marae or meetinghouse – contemporary interpretation of the traditional meeting house.

We spent the late afternoon drinking some fabulous NZ wine with a local reseller and his wife that Scott knew from his working days. No matter how interesting the sights are, the most interesting of all is to talk with someone local to the region.

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