Wellington

12/02/12-15/02/12

A busy travel day as I first had to make my way to Picton so I could catch my ferry over to the north island. I was jumping on the early afternoon Interislander ferry, the first part of the journey saw the ferry flanked on both sides by pretty green hills as we made our way to the open sea. Luckily unlike my experience of the crossing to Stewart Island the sea was at least calm today so I spent most of my time on the sun deck taking in the views. It took around 3 hours to make the jump across before we were safety pulling into Wellington harbour, the most southern capital city in the world. After a quick shuttle bus to the train station and a brief walk I was checked into my hostel, I had three full days to explore the city. It felt strange to be back in a built up place again after so many weeks spent in small towns. One of the first things I noticed was the amount of Polynesian people around; there existence was not to be seen in the south island.

On my first full day I decided to first jump on the cable car to the top of the botanical gardens. Wellington is surrounded by hills so as soon as you leave the city centre the streets quickly become steep! This isn’t the only cable car in the city; local residents who live up in the mountains often have their own private ones to get them from the street below to their front door. From the cable car station I ventured through the gardens following a declining route which led to the water front near to the harbour. On route to the water front I passed by the parliament building with the iconic ‘beehive’ structure which to me looked like the top of a darlek. I followed the path next to the waterfront until I came across the local museum which I popped into to learn about the history of the city.

The next day was dedicated to one place, Te Papa, the national museum of New Zealand. The building on the water front is huge containing items related to the natural world, Maori culture and national history. One of my personal favourites was the giant squid they had on display, the only one in the world on public display. In total I spent just over 6 hours wondering round before I was all museumed out for the day.

On my last full day the weather had turned nasty so in the morning I jumped on a bus to the Weta Cave. Weta are the driving force behind most of Peter Jackson’s work, the movies they have worked on included the Lord of the Rings, King Kong and Tintin to name a few. At their studios at the edge of Wellington they provide weapons, miniatures and special effort work for varies films. I am a massive fan of their work, especially their use of miniatures. Though you are not allowed into the actual studios due to confidential reasons on films their working on, the Cave contains a shop and mini museum you can visit on the site. On display are varies props from all the movies they have worked on, they also screen a short film to give you a behind the scenes look at the daily running of the studios. After my visit I took a quick look round some of the local warehouses to discover sets for the fore coming Hobbit film where being constructed in plain view. In the afternoon, I used my bus ticket to avoid the walk up Mount Victoria to get to the lookout platforms at the top which give excellent views of the whole of the city.