Right. So I left you in Wellington, fresh off the ferry, almost a week ago with the promise that we were “catching our breath in Wellington,” and that I’d have “more to report in a few days.” Failed on both accounts.

There’ve been more miles under our wheels than I can easily do justice in a single post. Since our last little chat, Devon and I have sampled Wellington’s delights, driven halfway across the island to check out bird sanctuaries and the National Aquarium, strolled NZ’s “art deco town” (Napier), adrenaline capital (Rotorua), cave capital (Waitomo) and gone on a wild goose chase in search of an apparently itinerant statue honoring Riff Raff (Richard O’Brien), of Rocky Horror fame.

So let me just get started, and we’ll see how far I get before I run out of steam.

First, speaking of capitals: Wellington. The internet has apparently dubbed it “the coolest little capital in the world,” and I’ll not be the one to try to disabuse you of any notion that it is. Then again, almost all of my time there was spent in a beige government conference room brainstorming about software with Lewis, Will and Ella.

Mind you, it was brilliant brainstorming. I’ve written about these folks before: Ella is with CSIRO (effectively the Australian counterpart to the NSF), and Lewis and Will are with NIWA (kind of the NZed version of NOAA?). They’re all frighteningly competent, both technically and in team dynamics, and have been a joy to collaborate with. Great ideas, great interplay of brainstorming and getting down to proverbial brass tacks. They were confident enough to not simply defer to me when I pronounced a design decision – sometimes after I explained my logic, we went with it; sometimes they explained the error of my ways, and we went with Ella’s or Lewis’ way.

But I lied about spending all of my time in a conference room. We also brainstormed on walks, over a dangerously delicious dockside dinner, and over repeated visits to the coffee and pastry shop around the corner from NIWA headquarters.

And we got an impressive amount of stuff done, beyond simple brainstorming. There’s a lot of code to be written, but we hammered out a draft solution for one of the most persistent challenges with OpenRVDAS (creating/maintaining cruise definition files, for you ship data nerds). I’m psyched to get home and get to work on it.

My “homework,” written on the only non-electronic surface we had handy – the cardboard protector for a wall calendar.

Devon got to do some city explorations while I was sweating it out among the pastries and coffee. Most notably at Te Papa, The Museum of New Zealand (short for “Te Papa Tongarewa,” Maori for “the place of treasures of this land”). I got a little bit of a debrief, but apparently the Gallipoli exhibit was pretty darned sobering.

And once work was done each day, D and I did manage some explorations together: an old fashioned pinball arcade, ice cream and sushi, the cable car up to the top of Wellington’s gorgeous botanical gardens (with bonus observatory/planetarium/space museum!). We even got a tour of Kaharoa II, NIWA’s brand new and cool little research ship, befitting the cool little capital that is its home port.

But, our work done, there was a whole big island to be seen, so the next morning we crammed our belongings back into the trusty…okay, not entirely trusty little campervan and set off for Napier, about a third of the way up the east coast.

Napier is known for …oh, wait: our first stop was at the Pūkaha National Wildlife Centre, an hour up the road, where they try to breed, hatch, rehabilitate and otherwise try to help repopulate the native NZ fauna that have been nearly wiped out by successive waves of non-native predators. Kiwis, of course, but also tuataras, kākā, kererū, korimako, piwakawaka and many more. It’s also, point of interest, home of a giant metal wēta (cricket-like thing) that shoots flames from its antenna. Not endangered. Built for Burning Man, in case you had any doubts. Note: there are many different species of wēta in NZ; none of the naturally-occurring ones, not even the “giant wēta,” are any larger than your thumb, and none shoot flames from their antenna. In case you had any doubts. Because this is NZ after all, not Australia.

But Napier. Known for an intensely art-deco downtown, having been almost completely rebuilt after a devastating 1931 earthquake – still New Zealand’s worst natural disaster. And for housing the National Aquarium. Those of you who know Devon know that she has a thing for aquariums, and this was a lovely one. Beautifully-designed inside and out, with a constantly turning, spiraling layout that – oh, look: they have kiwis! – what was I saying? Oh, right: the design kept you – omigosh, they’re going to feed the penguins in like three minutes! And…uh. You get the idea. I know we stayed somewhere in Napier that night, but for the life of me, can’t remember anything other than art deco, kiwis, penguins. That should be enough, shouldn’t it?

Okay, that’s it for now. More once I’ve packed for our flight…