Wellington & Marlborough Sounds

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Wellington is New Zealand's capital and lies on the southern tip of the Northern Island. It's quite a pretty and pleasant city and not too big with just less than 400,000 inhabitants. The weather was very nice on the day I explored the city and I took Wellington's signature cable car up the hill to the Kelburn suburb and the botanical gardens. From the top, you have excellent views of the city. The botanical gardens run all the way back down the hill into the city. A pleasant walk back amongst the gardens and a picturesque graveyard of the first settlers of Wellington overlooking the city. As I walked back into the city, I walked past New Zealand's Parliament building, the "Beehive", named after its shape. Via Wellington's main shopping street and the harbour, I ended my tour of the city.

Possibly New Zealand's best museum, Te Papa Tongarewa (Maori for "the place of treasures of this land") , where a lot of the natural history is explained and exhibited. One of the main attractions is a "colossal squid", the largest squid ever caught on earth. It's 10 metres in length and was caught in 2007 and now resides in the museum in a pool with some strong substance to preserve it. Quite an amazing sight. There was a pretty cool 3D movie about the squid as well. Much better than the Avatar movie! :-)

In Wellington, I met up with Kevin and Matt again, so we all had a drink and played a game of pool in Wellington's good nightlife area. The next morning, I had to get up early to catch the ferry to the South Island. This is probably one of the most beautiful ferry rides in the world. Lasting about 3 hours, the ferry departs Wellington harbour and circles around the peninsula of the North Island, crosses the Cook Strait and into an intricate network of hills and valleys, called the Marlborough Sounds. It has amazingly clear water and ferry-chasing dolphins, and we passed an old Whaling station, before arriving in Picton, on the South Island.

The South Island is said to be even more beautiful than the North. I have 2 weeks to explore it and judge for myself!

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