National Aquarium of New Zealand

Checked out of our hotel this morning and went to the National Aquarium before hitting the road again. We arrived just in time to see the penguins being fed (no decent pictures though, I'm afraid), and then also to see the kiwis at their feeding time.

As we came out of the kiwi enclosure, we saw the man that had sold us our tickets and chatted to us on our way in. He was talking to us about the kiwis and the size of egg the females lay (about a third of their own size - the equivalent of a human giving birth to a 6 or 7 year old child. Ow!), and he ducked back into the room behind the kiwi enclosure and came back out with a real kiwi egg for us to hold! It was an unfertilised egg, so no baby kiwi inside, but it still gave us a feel for the phenomenal weight and size of it. Those poor poor lady kiwis!

Drove on to Wellington, checked in to a hotel there and then went back out to visit the excellent Te Papa museum. Carried on out for dinner afterwards, and had a delicious curry on Cuba Street, before retiring to our room for the night (via the hotel bar) :)