Te Papa Museum in Wellington – Day 75

We are going to New Zealand’s national museum the most famous museum in New Zealand which is the Te Papa Museum.

So we’re going to Te Papa on a Sunday and we parked our campervan in a car park that you know looked fine there was heaps of other campervans parked up next to us yesterday we left it here overnight you know we paid for all that we looked at all the signs to you know just to see what the conditions are. This is what happens. They just made the market around so over there there is a butchery here there is fruit and veg. Next to us there is another veggie place and yeah they just made the market all around the campervan and that doesn’t seem to bother anyone. So that’s convenient for shopping. So it’s really convenient and it doesn’t to bother anyone. They just you know the guys parked next to us were just laughing their ass off and that was pretty much it. Good job we don’t actually have to get out today.

The market is literally happening around our campervan as we speak. If we wanted to get out we couldn’t. We’re just part of the market now. We’ve just merged into the market nothing to see here guys. Nothing to see here.

We pick up some vegetables and some stuff to eat for tonight and then we go to the Te Papa Museum.

First, Laura is really excited to show me secret spot. To be fair it’s not really secret because there is some massive orange and blue signs outside of it. And it’s basically when you’re about to enter the Te Papa Museum just on the side in front of the entrance there is a very small exhibit about quake proofing buildings in New Zealand and especially the quake proofing process of the Te Papa Museum.

The cool thing about Te Papa Museum is that it’s massive and that it’s free entry. And as backpackers, we like the sound of that. So there’s so many different exhibitions here basically we’re just heading for ones we see first and the one see first is Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War. So Gallipoli is a province in Turkey where New Zealand troupes were engaged in war during World War 2. And this is basically the scariest time in New Zealand history.

The first thing we see when we go into this exhibition is this huge human model of a soldier from World War 1 that fought at Gallipoli it is massive and it is so life-like and then in this room we also have the clothing that the World War 1 soldiers of New Zealand used to wear including the equipment they had. Everyhting is so detailed and well presented in such a new way. We’re just like wow, we’re seriously impressed. There is like two soldiers like on a machine gun fighting with another guy on the floor. there is a captain kind of mourning the loss of his soldiers. And all of those ones are gigantic size so we get gigantic size sculptures you go inside the room you learn a little bit more about the stuff you go to another gigantic size sculpture then you go inside the room and you learn that side of the war then you keep on going that way. The last part of this exhibition is you get a red poppy where you write a message before you place it into the sort of fountain that’s in the next room.

So the next exhibition we are going to see is the mountain to sea which is basically all about New Zealand landscape and how it was formed and also all the wildlife in the country as well as sea life which are surrounding New Zealand and one of the main pieces of this exhibition is the colossal squid. So the colossal squid is basically the biggest specimen of a giant squid ever found and preserved and this one has been given to the museum and is preserved perfectly in a weird substance that just keeps it like it is.

Next we are walking into the native New Zealand bush. Ok, it’s not quite like the bush of New Zealand obviously we’ve been to loads of really amazing forests in New Zealand but this is just giving you examples of the landscape all over New Zealand, the plants, the volcanic activity, the fossils, the limestone caves like what we saw in Waitomo. It has all this in an outdoor section of Te Papa Museum. It’s a really cool thing that they have with the Te Papa Museum because it really shows that they are going for every single aspect of New Zealand here including the fucking swing bridges. It’s really cool.

Next we have an exhibition called Passports which is about the settlers in New Zealand that came after the Maori so that’s the European settlers and also there’s you know people from all over the world that now come to live in New Zealand. There’s like some interactive displays like things where you open up little folds you pull out some tables you pull out some draws. There’s like loads of interactive things to do in this exhibition.

the Waitangi Treaty – this another very significant part of New Zealand history because this is the treaty that made New Zealand a nation. It’s the one that united the Maori people with the British.

Then we went to the exhibition called Island Nations I’m not really sure but it’s about all the other nations of Pacific Islanders which live around New Zealand. And also Polynesians which we the first ones to colonise New Zealand. Then become known as the Maoris. this is really cool because obviously loads of really fascinating different cultures from these islands so this is particularly interesting to me at least. And the really cool thing that we love about this exhibition is the music section you can make your own music with these touch pads. As you can tell because I’ve been talking for so long there is a lot to see at the Te Papa Museum. It is an absolute must in Wellington. It was a great day at the Te Papa Museum. We are back at the Trek Global Hostel today. Quick food and going to bed early because it’s Sunday night there is no one that is ready to party anymore.

I will see you tomorrow for a tour of Weta Studios – the place where Lord of the Rings was made!