Colossal Squid, Glowworms, And Eels

Today's big adventure started with a train down from Chris' place to downtown Wellington. From there we walked along the streets. I spotted this statue of John Plimmer and his dog Fritz. (It was the dog that got me to stop. Looked a bit like Scooter.)

We took care of some boring things that needed to be handled. But as soon as that was all finished, this procession happened along. Turns out we were on the streets of Wellington on graduation day. And apparently part of graduation includes having all the graduates march down the streets of Wellington lead by a troop of bagpipers. Everyone in the procession wore a silly looking hat. The higher the degree, the sillier the hat.

The rest of our afternoon was spent at the Te Papa museum, which houses the only specimen of Colossal Squid. The whole museum is pretty neat and worth spending time at. But this was the main reason I wanted to visit. The Colossal Squid lives up to its namesake. I spread my arms apart to see how long it was, and I hardly could reach the length of its body, let alone the arms. Let's just say that I wouldn't want to meet one in the wild. 

After the museum we headed home for dinner before departing on another adventure. This time to go look at some glowworms. Chris recommended a new spot to check out the glowworms. It was only after we reached the shifty looking car park that Chris let us in on a secret: he'd never been there before. So we got out of the car (meanwhile we spotted a large, but apparently friendly dog) and headed into the darkness. It didn't take long before we found them. Never mind that we had to climb up a steep hill off of the trail in order to get a good picture. That is what adventures with Chris are all about.

Our second stop was more familiar to Owen and Chris. We descended down a million steps and eventually found another group of glowworms. For those of you not in the know, glowworms are the larval form of a fly that attract potential meals with their glowing bottoms. If prey comes too close to the glow, they are trapped in sticky lines of web.

But those of us bigger than an insect can just enjoy the show.

After the glowworms, Chris lead us down to a stream where we spotted an eel. There is no picture of the eel because despite Chris saying, "Don't worry, the eel is coming to the other side of the bridge," the eel decided instead to headbutt a rock until it had burrowed under it. And so ended the magical day of Colossal Squid, Glowworms, and Eels.