We were up earlish today to head towards the zoo. The parking was around the zoo was terrible but Tom did some amazing parking and before we knew it we were in the zoo. We were all paying to get into the zoo when the guy announced that Rob could get in for free as he was the 110th visitor today. We thought this was a joke but it turns out it is their 110th Birthday this year. We wanted to get to the Kea talk so we made a quick detour up to their. The Kea talk was interesting and it was amazing watching the Kea play and explore their enrichment toys. They are so smart and the keepers were explaining that the need to make new puzzles often to keep them thinking. We spent a fair bit of time watching them. These birds are only found on the South Island of New Zealand now.
After the kea we went up to watch the tiger talk. The tiger was beautiful but sadly there are only 300 Sumatran tigers left in the wild. We had a good talk to the lady who looked after the tigers and she was telling us about the breeding program the zoo is involved in. This lady worked with the tigers and sun bears and was telling us how they are both trained to follow instructions.
The rest of the time at the zoo was spent seeing a variety of different animals. We had issues in the Australian section where an emu wanted pats and was getting way to close to us. I find emus terrifying at the best of times and when 2 of them started fighting to be near Rob I was out of there real fast. The zoo was a very nice way to spend the morning. We decided to head out of the zoo to get burgers at Edin Burgers.
Burgers were fantastic and we enjoyed a slow lunch sitting outside at the burger truck. Our next step was a drive up to Mt Victoria to see the views. It was pretty and worth the drive up. We read some interesting facts about the Wellington fault line and how it runs straight through Wellington. It was cold up the top so we didn’t hang around for too long.
Our last part of the evening was spent taking the cable car up to the botanical gardens. We did some walks and then it got too dark and we were left walking in the pitch black. It was very pretty and about 25 minutes later we found our way back to the cable car and down to dinner. Wellington restaurants close early and we had difficulties finding somewhere to eat. At about 10:30pm we also felt an earthquake properly for the first time. It has been a nice day in Wellington.
