Wellington & Wellywood

From Martinborough we had only one more stop in the North Island: Wellington.  We'd both heard on good authority that Wellington is the 'best' city in New Zealand, plus had been given some good contacts there, so we were excited to hit urbanisation for a change.

View from the top: Mt Victoria

Arriving mid morning, our first challenge - or rather Duncan's - was navigating The Beast through city streets, but all those years of driving horse boxes in his youth paid dividends and we arrived with no scrapes.  To be able to walk around town, we chose a central car park on the marina, near the ferry terminal and very near the Te Papa museum and trendy Cuba Street area.  Hugely expensive, with no facilities, but hey-ho: we were central.

We immediately set off on the tourist route; a hike up Mount Victoria, giving us our bearings of the
city: a suite of blue water bays, surrounded by the hilly city and its suburbs. And we realised why Wellington is such a great city - its location  and topography is gorgeous. The wind practically blew us back down from Mt Victoria and we walked along the rejuvenated old docks, now a series of parks, walkways, sculptures, restored old shipping buildings and modern cafes.  Up through the botanic gardens to the Observatory on the opposite side from Mt Victoria and we had another lovely view.  By this time we had tired legs and wandered  back via an excellent wine bar, Noble Rot, on Cuba St.

We spent the bulk of the next day at Te Papa, Wellington's central museum (there was an early morning visit to the local internet cafe for Duncan to get some work done - finding decent wifi in New Zealand is probably our single biggest hurdle - it's pants!).

Imagine this 10x as big as you...

Te Papa is an amazing building right on the waterfront, ingeniously earthquake proof as it is built with base isolators of rubber and steel, with lead cores that absorb earthquake energy by turning it into heat - about as fascinating as the contents of the museum itself, which included: a 495kg colossal squid, volcanoes and earthquakes of NZ, including a simulated earthquake, ancient Maori artifacts, and an amazingly heart-and-gut-wrenching exhibition on the ANZACs years in Galipoli in WW1.  Lots of personal stories of the horrors there, and 6 unbelievably lifelike models of some of the individuals in those stories.  These models were mindblowing:  about 10 times life-size, they were so detailed and perfect you could see each individual hair on an arm, each bead of sweat on a forehead, each drop of blood from a wound.  Every statue commanded an entire room, I only wish I'd taken photographs - instead I've swiped one from the museum website.  They were so incredibly true to life that there was only one place they could have been made...


Wellywood is an informal name for the city of Wellington.  It's a reference to the film production

Partying with trolls and uruk-hai at Weta

business established in the city by The Lord of the Rings film director Sir Peter Jackson, and Wellington-based special effects companies Weta Workshop and Weta Digital. And that's exactly where we headed in the afternoon.  We'd seen Hobbiton, so we kinda had to go and see the Hobbit Feet too.  And I have to say, it's well worth it.  Hearing how they made 2400 suits of armour and 400 pull on silicon hobbit feet for LOTR, along with the trolls, orcs, elves and their individual swords was only part of the story.  They are in such high demand now that the list of movies they do is too long to mention.  But their best work to date (the guide's words) were the model soldiers for the Galipoli exhibition in Te Papa.  We'd come full circle, from the best museum in NZ, to the best special effects company in the world.

Paul, Bindy and yours truly

From Weta Workshop we walked through the suburbs of Miramar.  We were meeting friends of Elaine for dinner:  Paul and Bindy.  Drinks at their home followed by a local restaurant gave us not only another perspective on Wellington, but a really fun evening.  Both were full of fun and good advice on how to spend our time in South Island.  Not originally on our itinerary, Abel Tasman national park was so highly recommended (with great local tips) that it's now firmly in the next few days plan.  (Thank you Paul!) What a great way to end our time in the North Island.


We had a 9am ferry the next morning, so sadly couldn't party the night away with our new friends.

Ferry friends reunion

Instead we left our car park, and local swimming baths (good for a shower!) early and started the next leg of the journey.  What made it rather fun was that 4 of our canoer friends from Whanganui had got tickets for the same ferry, so we had a mini reunion, swapping notes on our past few days' travels.  As we headed out of the Wellington Harbour, across the Cook Strait and into the Queen Charlotte Sounds, we all stayed on deck to take pictures of the already amazing inlets, islands and hills of South Island.  While the North Island is very pretty, we could all tell that, yes, South Island is going to be even more so.  And the sun was shining.  I can feel in my bones that NZ has turned a corner for us.  Happy days.

Views of South Island:  Queen Charlotte Sounds