A playground, a tree house and a rose garden in the hills. Then a return to the summit via Middle Earth.

We're continuing in this post with our adventure in Wellington.  At the end of our last very exciting episode, we were just approaching the playground down the hill from the top of the cable car track.

Today's adventure starts with Amiri preparing to take a flying leap into the air...

I like this picture. It hints at the second picture. Here, Amiri is watching another kid ride the 'flying fox.' It is perfectly safe of course, as long  as you hold on,  but I like the little girl's reaction who is next in line to ride it. She looks as if she is considering whether she really wants to. Amiri's reaction is completely different. His look says, "Okay, that's how it is, cool." 

Here, Amiri is a split second away from hitting the tires that stop the wheels he's riding and cause him to rock forward and then reverse direction. He's excited. Unfortunately, Allie is missing this particular ride. Hard to keep you eyes on two boys at once who are going in opposite directions.

We have left the playground and are heading for the tree house. The lighting is odd at this time of the day. It's overcast but bright and so muggy that there is almost a mist in the air. Some of these flowers seem to glow.

Here we are at the treehouse. 

The Bee Lady welcomes guests.

The mistiness is making everthing look indistinct. Almost out of focus. 

Beautiful, a hint of sun has brightened things. but I wish it was clearer.

We have left the tree house above and behind us. Boys and water are a natural combination. Fortunately, this was the only sprinkler we found all afternoon. 

Down, down, down we go. The problem is that we have to climb back up to the top of the hill  to ride the cable car back down again. 

Lots of people from all over the world are wandering slowly through the gardens. Eveywhere you go the smell of the flowers causes you to inhale a little more deeply than your otherwise would. Always a new flavor on the wind. 

We had a choice here. Do we go to the left and take the unimaginative, and flat, route to the rose garden, or do we take the scenic route? Right, up the stairs it is.

And since we took the stairs and the scenic route, we climbed to high above the rose
garden. Now to climb down  yet again. 

About half way down we see some interesting wire trees.

Ah, we made it. I have found a comfortable bench nearly in the center of the garden and the rest of the crew can circle me to their heart's content.
From here, we went inside the greenhouse (glasshouse here) and saw some amazing orchids.  I'll show you those another time.  I also had the strongest cup of coffee at the Begonia House Cafe that I have ever had, in my entire life. It shocked my mouth it was so strong. Had I known how strong it was going to taste, I might have watered it down a little with some 100 proof whiskey. 

Allie is starting the climb back up to the cable car, about 1/2 mile away. The route we followed was used in the Hobbit movie as a filming location. Frodo and his Hobbit friends take shelter from the Nazgul (Ringwaithes) along this stretch of forest.

Not Frodo and company, but Arram and Amiri are walking the same path that the Hobbits did, sort of. Pretty cool if you are a fan of the books. (the movies were okay, but could not possibly match the books.)

No sign of the black horsemen today.

We did make it back up to the top, avoiding both the Nazgul and exhaustion after our day of ups and downs, and ups and downs. We rode back down the cable car and although it was getting later in the afternoon, noticed that there were still big crowds waiting for their ride to the top. We met a very tall and and elegant lady on our way back to our hotel.

I wonder if she knows the guy with the dog that we met earlier? He'd be way too short for her though. 

There it is at last. We really did have a long day and we're all happy to be home again. And what did I say about the crazy weather? The skies are blue once again. 

And what does one do after a long day of hiking and climbing and riding flying foxes? One word (okay, two words...) 

HOT TUB                     -djf