A morning stroll at Oriental Bay to start the day. Back in Auckland in my coastal engineering course, we talked about how the white sand of this beach is not natural and originally came from ships that dropped their balasts in the bay during the 1800s. Over the years, this sand has washed away, meaning Wellingtonians had to find creative alternatives to maintain this non-native beach. But today the sand is still pale as ever!
Next I headed to Te Papa, New Zealand's best museum.
I started at the Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War exhibition. Created by the Weta Workshop (a design and special effects group who helped create sets and costumes for the Lord of the Rings), this exhibit takes you through a labyrinth of larger than life sculptures followed by extremely detailed letters, photos, and journal entries from those same people. Interspersed are miniature dioramas, artifacts, illustrations, and murals to help show and explain the impact of the war.
Below is a video of Adam Savage walking through the exhibit. I had a lot of similar reactions to the sculptures. This exhibit was almost uncomfortably intimate because of the level of detail, the complex emotional expressions, and the sheer size of the sculptures. This was truly one of the highlights of my experience abroad.
The making of the sculptures:
Te Papa also had many Pacific and Maori culture exhibits, including this gorgeous marae.
I also enjoyed the colorful art installations, especially this one by Toi which was basically a room full of confetti suspended on fishing wire.
Some other highlights from the museum included the replica of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the founding document of New Zealand), a preserved giant squid, and the building's base isolators (Base isolators protect the building from damage during an earthquake. I learned about them in my structural dynamics class this semester).
Even though I could probably spend my whole three days in Wellington looking at the exhibits, I decided to grab dinner at a lovely Italian place, crepes for dessert, then hike up Mount Victoria for Sunset.
