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Published: March 12th 2011
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We had just over 2 days in Wellington but really wished we'd had more! Welly was as fun as Auckland, if not more, and had Eva wondering how she could immigrate!
We drove down from our DOC Mangahuia campsite to the Moana Lodge in Plimmerton, 20 minutes north of Wellington on March 11. Located in the Plimmerton suburb right on the coastline, Moana was one of the most comfortable and friendly places we stayed during our entire trip. It definitely had the largest and cleanest shared kitchen ever! During our short stay, we were conflicted between enjoying the comforts of Moana and talking to fellow travellers, and going into town. Still recovering from the Tongariro Crossing, body- and clothes-wise, we stayed in that first day and did laundry, taking advantage of the famous Welly wind to dry our clothes. We went a few minutes down the highway for some good Indian food for supper, the first we'd tasted since leaving Seattle the year previous.
The next day, we headed out around 11ish to take the train into the city. We walked around the downtown a little bit before heading to Te Papa, New Zealand's national museum. No, "Te Papa"
Gollum
at the Weta Cave does not mean "The Potato," even though
papa = potato in Spanish. The full Māori name, 'Te Papa Tongarewa', literally means "container of treasures." Quite a fitting name for such a stupendous museum - six whole floors of history, culture, natural history, interactive tech things, and an entire colossal squid! And it was FREE! We spent the whole day there easily without planning. Later that afternoon, we took a brief break to go to the Mac's brewery nearby. A minute after stepping out of the museum, the skies darkened and we were immediately caught in a fierce rainstorm. We made a mad dash to the brewery for shelter, trying to outrun the rain as it came towards us! We did get wet, but not yet soup-fallen chickens. We later learned that this was one of the worst wind/rain storm Wellington has had in years! After enjoying the brewery for a bit and the rain died down a bit, we returned to the musuem for an hour or so before catching the train back to the Moana Lodge. We ate in that night, enjoying the big well-stocked kitchen, and the conversations with the other guests.
The next morning was bright
and sunny, with no sign of the storm that troubled us yesterday. We were up and out early, this time taking the car. We drove all the way out to Miramar, a suburb on a peninsula southeast of Wellington, to see the Weta Cave, a mini-museum of the art and special effects studio that worked on Lord of The Rings. (FYI: A weta is a large grasshopper-like insect native to New Zealand.) We resisted doing a LOTR tour, but we had long been looking forward to going to Weta Cave. The visitor portion is nicely done, with lots of displays and props from various movies and shows, many of them by Peter Jackson. There was a small film with behind-the-scenes look at their work which included LOTR, King Kong, Chronicles of Narnia, Avatar, Eragon, and Contact among others. The staff were friendly and all seem to enjoy working there (who wouldn't?!). Altough LOTR might be the big draw, they've done lots of other work, some on big budget hollywood movies, and other work on local projects (ever hear of Black Sheep?). I wanted to buy Dr. Grordbort's Contrapulatronic Dingus, but Eva thought it would be a waste of money. Besides,
it could be dangerous.
Following the advice of our host at the Moana Lodge, a friendly retired teacher, we took a drive along the Miramar coast. Like Auckland, Seattle, and other coastal cities, Wellington is blessed with gorgeous natural scenery. We passed by a marine lab that just happened to have an open house. Science nerds that we are, we couldn't resist going in to look at the research posters, stick our eyes up to the microscopes, talked to the grad students, and got friendly with the sea urchins and brittle stars. There but for the grace of time, go we!
After our picturesque drive around the Miramar Penninsula, we made our way to Zealandia (Karori Wildlife Sanctuary). The aim of this sanctuary was to return a large piece of land back to its natural, prehuman state; i.e. creating a park where all of the wildflife and birds were native to New Zealand, and all introduced species were excluded. It was a tough challenge - imagine trying to keep rats out of a park! Predators and pests were kept out by a fence surrounding the entire park, which works well to a certain extent, but they figured that
they have another 200 years to go! Birds of course were free to enter and exit at their leisure. The park was beautiful if not completely 'pure' on the day we visited. It was well staffed by very friendly volunteers. Wandering around the park, we saw many unique animals endemic to NZ including tuataras, an ancient lizard-like reptile, tree wetas, and the Kākā, parrots that knew when it was feeding time at the sanctuary. We also came across a small cave, where we were allowed inside wearing helmets and bearing flashlights to see the walls covered with the long-legged cave wetas.
Our visit to Zealandia was followed with some mediocre seafood at an entirely forgettable restuarant, and a drive up a hill with a wind turbine behind the city to get some nice views of the sunset. Then we went back to Te Papa to finish out the museum. Between our two days in Wellington, we had spent nine hours in the museum and saw almost all the exhibits, but still did not quite see everything. It was nighttime by the time we left Te Papa. We took the last cable car of the day from downtown up to
the botanical gardens just for the thrill of riding up a hillside cable car. It was my first time ever going to a botanical garden at night, and it was a little pointless seeing that we couldn't see anything and the garden was closed. The nighttime view of the city however was quite nice, but cold. We finished things off with a little night life back in downtown Wellington. It was Saturday, and the pubs and restuarants were crammed with young people (some more than 15 years younger than me!) dressed up, having fun, and talking in that funny New Zealander way. We slipped into the Enigma Cafe for some dessert and drink, then headed back to our car for home to Moana.
Too short, but quite sweet. We had one last look of the city early the next morning as we boarded the ferry for the South Island of New Zealand.
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