Natalie blown away!

We arrived in Wellington and found out that we are staying in a one hundred year old house that is right across from the beach. Later that day we decided to go to downtown Wellington.We drove there in our car, Tina. Then the car doors whammed open and all the stuff in Tina blew away along with Mom's hat. Mom was scared that I was going to blow away! We asked the locals if it was always so windy and they said yes.

After we walked around, went to 2 playgrounds, climbed to the top of a climbing wall, and ate some cheesy, fried empanadas we went to this art musem called Te Papa. Te Papa had this Dreamworks exhibit that showed how the Dreamworks movies were made and let you draw and animate your own charecters. Dad and I animated our own 10 second movie of a ninja penguin battling a kitty cat! We had a great day in Wellington!

Wellington, the windy city!

The first playground we went to.

Climbing wall!

Me hanging out with the penguins at Te Papa.

Gloria has a big bottom!

Dad and I anamating stuff.

The Glowworm Caves

The other day, me and my parents drove to some glowworm caves. The first cave didn't have many glowworms but had lots of cool cave formations like stalagmites and stalactites. The second cave had a river that we went through on a boat. In the boat we saw thousands of glow worms (which are actually larvae that turn into flies and get eaten by other glowworms)! The glowworms are a bright shade of blue and look like a bunch of stars! After the glowworms we drove to Taumarunui and stayed at a motel called The Forgotton World Motel. Now we are staying in Wellington for the next 2 weeks.

Glowworms!

Elephant Ear cave formation!

The Forgotten World Motel.

The famous drip castle of awesomeness

Yesterday my family went to the beach and my dad decided to make a drip castle. I thought it was a great idea so me and dad teamed up. My dad made the castle and I made the protective wall around the castle. Soon we were finished and the drip castle looked super awesome. It had a main castle, a smaller castle, 2 bathrooms, an outdoor bath, a cold swimming pool, a hot tub, a protective wall, and a moat. While me and my dad were trying to play frisbee in the wind a bunch of people came over and started taking pictures of our drip castle plus a ton of dogs peed on it. At the beach there were a lot of kite surfers and kite fishers (I mean they actually fish from a kite!) and land sailboats that went crazy in the wind. It was an awesome beach day for making drip castles!

The land sailboat.

Us building the drip castle with a kite surfer in the background.

The finished product!

OH NO IT'S A BIRD!!!!!!!!!!!

New Zealand has a lot of really cool looking birds. When we were in Auckland we had a small patio at our hotel. We liked to keep the patio door open because we liked to look at the view outside. But sometimes a sparrow (the most popular New Zealand bird) would fly into our house and Mom would scream, "OH NO IT'S A BIRD!!!!!!!!" Now we're in Muriwai and we're staying at a beach house that is open for all birds to fly into our house. So far no birds have come but we listen to their chirping all night long. In Muriwai they have a lot of parakeets which are like parrots only a lot smaller. Unlike most birds they only come out at 8:00 at night. We also see a colony of gannets on a cliff at the beach. Gannets are super cool because they mate for life. Dad spotted this other bird that we thought was a parakeet but up close it looks like a giant woodpecker. That is the end of my New Zealand bird tour.

The awesome rainbow parakeet!

First time at the beach!

Gannets!

Preening Gannet mates.

Cool shades dude!

Awesome selfie of the beach (taken by Dad)

Pretty sunset!

New Years Day pub crawl

OK, lets just say that last night was awesome. Mom woke me up at 11:30 and dragged me out of bed.Then we walked all the way to Albert park where we had a really good view of the skytower. Then everybody counted down the new year. When we got to zero the skytower lit up in rainbows and a bunch of fireworks went off. Later that day my parents went on a pub crawl. First we went to this Belgian Beer place that served really awesome calamari, really awesome mussels, and pretty awesome fries. Then we went to this other place and my parents ordered fruity beers that weren't that good but were pretty cheap. That's what you call a new years day pub crawl.

Me at the pub crawl (but not actually drinking beer).

 

Waiheke, an island that is really hard to pronounce

Waffles and gelato! Yum!

Just arrived at Waiheke!

Hiking up the super huge mountain.

Beautiful view!

The Waiheke beach sign.

The awesomely awesome Waiheke beach!

Lets play frisbee Mom!