i made it too the first official non dunedin city of the itinerary provided by my boss ms. rhonwyn. here in the southren most city of new zealand i hope to get rid of some of these boring baskets which my boss claims are among the most important of artifacts in the country...
whether it's true or not, i don't really care at moment. waiting for my promotion has so been worth it. not only is work paying for me to travel around new zealand, giving me enter rights into all sorts of cool museums and historic sites, but their also paying for lodging!!!
best of all, my room has a great view of one of invercargill's most iconic landmarks. the water tower. which came as a surprise to me. not the building itself, but the fact that such nice architecture is a water tower?!? drumheller 's was just a big bulb on top of a big pole...
the only snag is that i arrived in town after the open hours of the museum... which is what i'm here to see... so i had some time to kill before tomorrow.
venturing just across the street from my hotel i found the outer edge of the invercargill botanic garden... cool i thought... while i had the time i should check out what my life would have been like had i settled in invercargill instead of dunedin (cause after all i did end up settling in the dunedin botanic garden)...
so to start off with they had a green house... or sorry in kiwinese glass house... just like dunedin
one thing i quickly found is that just like the rest of invercargill, this garden was VERY flat, and it made it hard to navigate or decide where to go. dunedin's garden was grown on the side of a big hill so you can see a lot of it no matter where you are, and even than just based on how high up the hill you can sort of peg where you are...
it had nicer paths than dunedin's though. i suspect building nice brick pathways like this on a hill would be hard. still these were nice in comparison.
hitting a common area i spotted over the shrubs something interesting looking. a giant cage.
i certainly had to check that out!
the only problem is that the cage compound,was surrounded by a shrub wall. i ended up circling nearly 3/4 of the rectangular barrier before i finally found the way in...
a bridge... one that connected to rather impressive looking compound indeed.
crossing a GIANT pond... i'd almost venture lake... to one side you saw this lovely statue and watery expanse...
to the other the compound... which i realized was an aviary!
so thus far the only difference between the two gardens was the elevation of ground they were on.
well okay and this one had nicer paths, and i regret to have to admit a nicer aviary. though ours in dunedin isn't that bad, this one with it's moat and greenery wall, beautiful water front effect, and bigger more impressive cage setup takes the cake i'm afraid... though how an aviary can take a cake is beyond me come to think of it?
well if the facilities were a bit nicer were the birds themselves nicer than ours?
now granted my method of checking this isn't perfect. if anything i need more practise, but yes people of the innerweb. i tried once again to talk to the birds!
my first few efforts fell through, much like my initial try in dunedin.
when i found the parrot cage though housed a suitable conversation companion. sort of.
you have to recall people of the web wide world my vocabulary in modern bird isn't so great. i'm 65 million years behind the modern dialect. though i've been able to take my coelurosaurian language base and sort of grasp basic bird conventions.
this kākā was not as friendly as the kea hine back in dunedin though. he said hi, but when i couldn't say a proper sentence afterwards he rudely went away.
so thus far dunedin and inercargill are equally each other in botanic gardens.
i finished off looking at the birds. unable to get any more conversations out of them. i'm going to have to practise with the friendly birds in dunedin more!
with the sun close to setting i figured i should finish up my exploration. so i checked out all the cool art and statues around the place.
one i really liked was a maori inspired statue called mother octopus. if only fossils of octopuses were preserved as good as this geologic cephelopod...
than my eyes caught the clincher in the invercargill/dunedin garden competition. i spotted this garden's tyrannosaur...
now don't get me wrong. it's nice of the people down here in invercargill to want their park to have a t-rex (especially after all the negative news coverage in new zealand during my cousin larry's visit). however they might want to reference an anatomy book or something.
we tyrannosaurs don't have giant noses, horns, or clown feet! that and theirs looks like he hasn't eaten in forever. you can see his ribs and spine... ewwwwww
heading back towards the motel as the sun fell below the horizon i bumped into another set of enclosures towards the road. it was a mini zoo.
what should be by the fence but a kangaroo. neato!
i couldn't dawdle too much though, as due to the flatness i'd get lost in here pretty quick once it was dark.
returning to the watertower just as the sun was going, going, gone i was "home" for the night.
the plan was hit the museum first thing in the morning so that i could push on in my trip. as much fun as invercargill was i wanted to see more of the country as soon as possible.
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