The Adventures Of Henry the Travelling Bear.
26 March
2014, Waikanae - Wellington
I'm going
on my first trip today and I'm very excited. I have to wake up early at 5.30am.
We leave Waikanae by car at 6am and it’s still dark outside. I know that
Wellington is the capital of New Zealand and it must be a big city. It’s almost
an hour to drive into Wellington, and I’m getting a little bit bored so I play
“sweet and sour”. I waved to the other cars out the back window and some drivers
smiled and waved back at me, they were sweet J
It’s still
dark when we arrive in Wellington at 7am. Here’s a photo of me as I get out of
the car in Willis Street.
I’m quite
hungry now and as a special treat we go and have a breakfast at a café.
Then it’s
got light outside and it’s a clear autumn day today. There is no wind – I
don’t know why people say “Windy Wellington” at all. As I walked out of the café
I saw this red phone booth in “Post Office Square”. I tried to phone Waikanae School
but they told me that there was no one in room 6 just yet. I might sent you a
postcard instead.
We went to a
street called “The Terrace” where a lot of tall office buildings are. We parked the car under one of the buildings in an underground car park. Then we went up in
a lift to the 7th floor and I liked how shiny and silver it was and I
got to press the buttons. I asked whether we could go all the way to the top floor.
I was allowed to go to the 12th floor three times – yayyyy! Then I thought I'd better let other people use the lift too and I went to start work.
I needed to
be very quiet at work. People looked very busy and serious but everyone is
very friendly and said “Good morning” to me. I was allowed to sit on the desk and
watch everyone all day. I got a bit bored so I was allowed to draw pictures with
highlighter pens on white printer paper.
At
lunchtime we walked down the road to “Lambton Quay” which had a lot of shops on
it. We had sandwiches for lunch and we sat on the grass in front of the
parliament buildings. Parliament is where the people from the government meet
up and talk about the laws of New Zealand. The main parliament building is
called the Beehive. I bought a postcard on the way back to work and mailed it to Room 6 at Waikanae School – did you get it??
In the
afternoon I was allowed to go to a meeting where everyone was sitting in a big
meeting room at a round table. Sometimes everyone talked at once, but there was a
person at the head of the table who was chairing the meeting. The chairperson
decided whose turn it was to say something. Another person was the minute-taker
and wrote down notes about who said what and also wrote down all decisions
that were made in the meeting. When someone was given a task then this is called
an action. At the next meeting everyone who was given an action had to say
whether they had finished and what the outcome was.
After work
we went outside and it was a lovely sunny afternoon. We walked along Lambton Quay
again to the “Cable Car”. The Cable Car goes from the centre of the city all
the way up a big hill to where the university is. I looked down on the rails of
the Cable Car and I could see that there was one thick cable in the middle of the
rails that was attached to two carriages.
So one carriage is pulled upwards the
track while the other one is going down.
When the Cable Car moves there is no
engine noise so it’s not very noisy but it does rattle a bit like it does on a
train, but it goes a lot slower than a train.
On the way
back to Waikanae I was a bit tired and I had a sleep all the way back to
Waikanae. I can’t wait to get back to school and show you all my photos from
today.
HENRY
Next week I hope to have the real Patches McPatches come and visit Room 6! He is due back from PNG at the end of the week but will need a couple of days to get over jetlag.
Meanwhile Henry 1 is off to on a separate adventure.
