On our second day in Wellington did more galleries and museums.  Lots of the old ware houses have been converted to restaurants and businesses of some sort.  Gives the place a nice feel.  This one was had been turned into a coffee roasting house.  Beans from all around the world blended by this guy.  The coffee in NZ is so strong that I’ve taken to having watered down Americano’s.

We had a good natter.  I don’t think we were supposed to be here but no one seemed to mind.  The coffee beans are green before they get roasted.  I don’t know why but I didn’t know that.

Some sort of sculpture, reminds me of exhalent and inhalant siphons.  A great doorway.

We went to the Museum of Wellington and Sea which is in an old bond store built in the 1890s.  At last evidence of hobbits…  Unfortunately a prosthetic one.. Didn’t know Pipin had a false foot, not mentioned in the book but there you go.  And an elven wine glass.

These couple of wake (canoes) were in the Te Raukura wharewaka (canoe house).  Scary

The hull of these things come from a single log.  The sides are made of wood carved with figures tied together with ribs and lashed to the hull with (historically) flax.  The various figures have eyes all highligheted with paua shell.  I think it makes them look really creepy.

At the base of the stern post is a figure representing an ancestor, you can just about make it out.  Long feather streamers and tui feathers adorn the stern as well.

The stern of the other canoe was not quite so elaborate. Love this paddle rack.  The paddles, apparently, follow a tradional design – there’s me thinking a paddle was a paddle.  I digress, the paddles make flashes when used canoe practice runs in the water.

This great statutue – Solace in the Wind by Max Patte – was leaning over the edge of the wharf.

A 180 from Civic Square back to the city wharfs.

Chilling out Wellington style.  A great city but it isn’t called windy wellington without reason.  When the wind blew it really did blow.