We had a look at the Paua House exhibit which is on loan to the museum for 10 years. The Paua house was an actual house in Bluff, at the bottom of the South Island in NZ, owned by Fred and Myrtle Flutey. They collected paua shells, (a NZ shellfish) Fred ground the outer layer off them to reveal the beautiful colours of the shell, and then hung them on nails all round the inner walls of their home. In the 1960's they opened their home to the public for viewing 8 hours and day, 7 days a week and had over 1 million visitors over the years. Myrtle died in 2000 and Fred in 2001 both in their 90's. Their grandson loaned the shells and all memorabilia to the museum, who in turn built a replica of their home to house the shells in their original display, even down to the same carpet lifted from the original home, and the actual view from their front door in Bluff pictured onto the wall beside the house! It was fabulous visting this wonderful home and seeing the quirky displays.
Al and the boys then went in to see the DaVinci Machines display for an hour or so while Katie and I looked round the rest of the Museum.
After this we caught the tram and did a loop of the city (this trip is free for us as we bought the 12 month family pass for the gondola and tram in May this year) The trams are great old beasts of yesteryear, and the one we travelled in was restored after it was found in a paddock and used to house free range chickens!
We got off at the Art Gallery and took Al in to have lunch at the restaurant there.
Once we finished this meal we were going to go to Sumner beach for a drive but although the weather was fine, the Easterly wind was bitterly cold so we stopped at the supermarket, I bought a box of icecreams and we sat in the car in the carpark and ate them!
We then came home and Al lay back on his Lay-Z-boy chair and started to watch his gift from the children - Top Gear 2.0 - a set of 3 DVD's from the Top Gear series. Sophie our cat settled on his lap too.
Katie and I went off to mass as Bishop Barry Jones was blessing the new tabernacle and other features of the rennovation our church has been undergoing over the past few months.
We returned to find Al and the cat in the same place! I cooked soup and hot bread for tea and once finished they retired back to Top Gear.
