Wellington, New Zealand

The scenery is fantastic driving form Auckland to Wellington and the bottom part of the north island of New Zealand. There are miles of rolling hillside:

And of course, New Zealand is famous for their sheep and lamb:

Did you know there's about 8 sheep for every person living here? Yikes! Up until 30 years ago, sheep farming was the most important industry. But since then, dairy farming has earned more money and sheep numbers have fallen. The reason? You make more milking cows than selling lamb chops and wool. So now there's over 1 cow for every Kiwi living here! That's right, 5 million cows.

In Wellington there is a lookout on Mount Victoria that offers a spectacular view of the city:

This mountain was actually used in the first film of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Ring movies where the hobbits hide from the ring wraiths.

We also took in the museum exhibit of the Kiwis contribution during the First World War at Gallipoli. When we were in Turkey, we actually visited the site where so many died when the Allies tried to take over the Dardanelles Straits from the Turks who were fighting with Germany:

In WWI, ten percent of the population of 1.1 million served overseas, of which more than 18,000 died. That's almost one in five that enlisted and quite high percentage wise compared to the British, French and Canadians.

Tomorrow, we're taking the ferry across to the southern island of New Zealand. The terminal was damaged by Monday's earthquake but lucky for us it has been fixed.