From rainy Taupo we hit the road for the capitol city of Wellington. The day was long and started out rainy, but my decision to don full jeans was folly as the day grew hot and humid.
We left Lauren, Howard, and Luis in National Park, so my second group of travel companions dissolved all at once as well.
However, a couple of brief conversations at National Park led me to meet Curtis from Edmonton and two English lasses, Lucy and Thea.
In Wellington we were all fairly spread out in the hostel department, and I took advantage of the YHA membership card in my pocket to save some bucks, but this also left me apart from the Stray crew entirely.
I was relieved to find friendly staff and lockers in the hostel, and the girl behind the desk was quick to reccommend some local theatre, which was not hard to find in the country's cultural epicentre.
I got the tip to check out a show called "Heat" at the Circa Theatre - a show about featuring a man playing a penguin. Theatre and penguins? Yes, please!
After check in I swung by the Base hostel to arrange transport to the ferry in the morning and met up with Curtis and his band of misfits en route to Te Papa - the national museum.
Being that New Zealand is awesome, almost all museums and galleries here are free. This left some dough for the reasonably priced production of Heat that was to take place right next door to the museum.
We had arranged to meet Thea and Lucy at the museum, and an aerobic four jaunts up and down the various levels of the six-storey museum yielded no sign of them. I haven't seen them since, and as they are on a more flexible travel schedule than I am, I doubt I will, but safe travels to them both.
The others from Base, however, were as intrigued by the museum as I was and the walks through the natural elements exhibit, local flora and fauna, Biosecurity interactive display, and Kakapo breeding wall allowed me plenty of time to acquaint myself with Curtis, Davin (a stage manager from Blackpool), Astrid (from Ontario), and Anika (from Italy). The ladies went through the fashion exhibit while the lads closed the trip with a gallery of Brian Brake's photographs. Sadly there were no Kakapos in the gift shop (the search continues).
After the museum we had time to munch on butter chicken from an Indian restaurant before a quick trip to the ATM to fill up on cash. So much for my budget.
After that I headed out in search of the theatre, and for the first time on my trip I felt uneasy about my surroundings. Perhaps it was the gloomy weather, the big city, the wad of cash on my person or the echoed words of Uncle Boy from Maketu, but being at the theatre ridiculously early sounded far preferable to exploring the streets on my own in the evening.
While waiting for the performance to begin I read up a bit on what I was about to see. The show "Heat" was a three-hander about a man and a woman in an Antarctic observatory for six months and how a rejected emperor penguin (played by a nude man covered in elaborate body paint) serves as a metaphor for the marital troubles arising from the loss of the couple's young son. The show featured the head of the Victoria University (NZ) theatre department, and was touted as the world's first solar and wind-powered theatrical production. The lights and sound equipment were all powered by generators stored in a modified shipping container beneath solar panels and wind instruments located behind the building.
Overall the production was a success. The acting was a little hard to get into at first, perhaps due to the cultural differences, but the portrayal of Bob the Penguin was marvellous and the climactic scene was handled sensitively where it could have easily been overdone. Sidenote- I've noticed from this show and conversations with fellow travellers how much more prudish we are in North America in terms of nudity, at least in terms of popular theatre and daytime TV.
I met a nice elderly gentleman called Graham at the show who happened to be visiting from Auckland and staying in the same hostel. We had a pleasant conversation about the arts on our tandem stroll back to the YHA.
After that it was time to grab some money and head to the backpacker bar for refreshments, mingling, and watching my fellow travellers stray from conventional behaviour (har har).
Had some drinks with Curry, Davin, and Curtis before calling it an early night.
We had an early departure the next morning on the Bluebridge Ferry.
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