The Wednesday with an awesome visit to the Te Papa storage facility

 Hi,

After a busy day at work, I had to rush out the door and get to the Tory St Te Papa storage facility.  Mike and Andrew also had tickets but the early start (4.30pm) meant it was near impossible for them to make it.

However, Andrew ended up being able to make it.  He ubered from his work.  I ubered from my work.  And Janine was around in town and able to use Mike's ticket.  We all got to the place within minutes of each other really.

My Uber dropped me off and I had no clue how to get into the building.  But someone saw me looking lost and took me in to the right place.  

I met my contacts and settled into a seat when Andrew arrived.  And when they split the group into two for the two tours, Janine arrived.

Julia took the insect part of the tour in the room we were all sitting in.  She had 3 insects that floated her boat.  Sally had pointed out she has worked with her in the mosquito space - so when Julia had a mozzie as one of her fave insects, I had to stand up and take a photo of the projected microscope view of one just for Sally.

Julia and a favourite mozzie

Julia was an awesome presenter.  Bedbugs, mozzies and glowworms.  Her enthusiasm came in loud and clear.  

When the other group returned from their tour of the wet collection area, we all went with Andrew Stewart to take a closer look at his curator special spaces.  Deep sea fishes.  

Deep sea fish

Collection in alcohol

The storage place has something like 200,000 tonnes of alcohol and 90,000 jars.  And a complicated alarm system that detects any alcohol vapours that could lead to issues.  

Selfie

Big tank area

There's a shark in there!

There's a sunfish in there!

The big tank collection have lids that weigh about 500kg so there is a gantry system with pulleys to open the lids and bring out the specimens to put on trolley to take out for examination.

Rows of tanks

We finished after 6pm (more like 6.30) and went back to the first location to grab our bags and stuff.  We spoke to Julia to mention the connection via mozzies with Sally.  And then headed out to see Mike.  Drove out to Sally and Andrew's place for burgers.  Then home to bed.

Up for a PT session at the gym with Quentin and then home for me to work from there. 

Busy weekend looming.  We need to paint the windows that are now all in at Epuni.  Woot!

Have a good one.

Love,

Angela