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Published: February 21st 2015
Wellington
As Seen from Lower HuttExploring the North Island was addictive. Tramping through the bush in Karekare, my soul craved the opportunity to explore open spaces, to climb over other unknown cliffsides, and sleep again under the unfamiliar celestial sphere. Pitching my tent in Coromandel, a desire to be a nomad connected eternally to the road swelled in my gut. Hearing the stories of full-time travelers living in a hostel in Rotorua, I thought that I too could just skip town to town, get work, explore, and then move along and repeat.
Each new place I visited, the inevitability of settling down constantly lingered in the back of my mind. Not far behind that was a counter thought repeatedly whispering:
Do you?
...really?
Despite my craving to endlessly wander, I had a new home waiting for me in Wellington. I had no idea what to expect, or why I had felt so drawn to this particular city all of these years, but it was time to find out.
I first arrived on the day of the Four Nations Final Rugby League Championship. The city was alive and all of the hostels and campsites booked. Anke, my German travel companion, and I
Sunshine!
Enjoying a Picnic at the beach…only 15 minutes form my house! set up our tents at a campground in the Lower Hutt. A 15 minute drive later we were at the gates. Tickets in hand, we emerged into the high energy of the Westpac Stadium to watch a very different kind of rugby game then the union style I had spent the last two years.
The only time I had ever seen a game with thirteen players per team on a field was when the Arctic Foxes (my Alaskan team) played Fairbanks at a summer Golden Days Tournament in North Pole, Alaska (Yes. This is a real place). In this specific case, a game that was supposed to be fifteens wasn’t possible even with one team whoring out players. But the number of players on the field was the least of the differences.
Union rugby has more rules and is supposedly much more complex than League rugby. This did not keep me from being utterly confused through the entire first game. Unaware of the differences, I sat on the the edge of my seat, baffled. It was like they took out everything I loved about rugby and made up for it with the aspect I liked the least: running.
Relaxing
Enjoying a Picnic at the beach…only 15 minutes form my house! Where were the line outs? Why was there so little tackling? Why was no one rucking?
As you can read in my previous blog, tackling was what got me hooked to the game in the first place. Though I was intrigued by this league rugby, I was a committed union rugby fan.
A few days later Anke left for the South Island and the real work began.
During my first month, everything fell into place as if Wellington had been preparing for my arrival. I found a flat for Jhene and I to live in, applied for a tax number, set up a local bank account, discovered where the grocery stores hid, and stalked the Circus Hub.
Upon Jhene’s arrival, we quickly got back into our old routine of working out every morning and cooking together. We quickly found the Acroyoga group that met a few times a week. I took an initial class at the circus hub for silks and lyra, and She started pole and Ballet classes. We even went to a circus festival outside of town called Under the Spinfluence.
The city boasts all sorts of activities outdoors and in. While I
Christmas Ceilidh Time!
Jhene and I ready to go dance it off cams style. have been here, Meetup has been a good source of my meeting people. I have a taken a fire spinning workshop, gone on a self scavenger hunt, kayaked around the bay, attended a pinata party, and gone to a cranium game night. Friends have invited me to play croquet in the park, attend several Ceilidhs, and I even started Ceroc dancing. I found the perfect park to hang my own silks in and have even started teaching beginner lessons. These coupled with weekly acro meetups have kept me quite busy!
The city has a character of its own. Wellington’s City Center encircles the fluorescent bluish-green of the harbour. Sailboats wink in the distance as paddle boarders and kayakers make their way around Oriental Bay. Houses rise onto the hilltops to the south and east overlooking the office buildings, museums, and city buses weaving efficiently through roads almost too narrow for the simultaneous use of foot traffic and motorbikes.
As the country's capital, Wellington is the political center of New Zealand. The downtown business district (CBD) thrives with a versatile energy that encompases all ranges of activities and people. Business men and women take their lunch breaks on the
I found my People!
Onesies are a big thing here, Thank god!!!! benches and green spaces of Civic Square. On a nearby outdoor mat a group meets to do acroyoga while break dancers show off their moves under the shade of a pedestrian bridge.
Across the street, a philosophy group gathers on picnic blankets in Frank Kitts Park and another group plays on a series of slacklines webbed between the trees. Children squeal with glee on the playground while runners...and I mean runners….ferociously jet past as if they were partaking in a race right then and there.
Just a little further to the harbor, the Queens Wharf is littered with people dining at upscale cafes that provide outdoor seating on the waterfront. As they sip their wine on bean bags or over a white table cloth, 30-somethings walk by barefoot (a very normal occurrence) at the very same moment a group of girls gear up for a stand up paddleboard yoga class.
A few blocks southwest, Cuba street draws in musicians or buskers that are better than 90% of the musicians trying to make it in Nashville. The street boasts shops ranging from outdoor gear and bookshops to ones that specialize in selling onesies and fire spinning equipment.
Just one block east on Courtenay Place, strip clubs silently await the evening crowd, their second floor brothels still with anticipation. A spread of restaurants line the street: Japanese, Italian, and Indian cuisine. New Zealand grown beef burgers and rosemary lamb shanks are offered at multiples places and new craft beers make their way into the scene almost weekly.
A block North, back on the water front, school age children get off of a public bus for their tour of the newest exhibit at Te Papa, New Zealand’s National museum. Though special exhibits charge an entry fee, there is no general admittance fee to visit permanent exhibits on the five levels of the museum. Visitors can however book private tours, and donations are of course grately appreciated.
In short, no one describes Wellington better than Hillary Wilke does in her blog 7 ((Obervations?))
(https://whatsinnewzealand.wordpress.com/2014/12/22/7-observations/)
“At the exact same moment, San Francisco and Washington, DC walk into a bar that is on a hill, but the door is only big enough for one of them. This sends them crashing to the floor where they find themselves becoming tangled in one another because each decided it was a
scarf kind-of night. THEN the floor gives out, sending the two snowballing out the door and down the hill, and by the time they hit the bottom, they are officially one! And it is called Wellington.”
Having spent ample time in both San Francisco and Washington D.C. (and loving both cities), I can honestly say that this description depicts the heart of Wellington.
Wellington and I are still in the honeymoon phase of our relationship. I still swoon each time I look out my bedroom window at the canopy of trees; I get butterflies in my stomach when I discover a new coffee shop or sushi place; and I still feel giddy every time I hear someone on the news use the term “rugby field” as a unit of measurement.
I am not sure how three months has already flown by, but it feels good to be home!
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Robbie
non-member comment
Great Blog! I love being able to keep up with you, so to speak. I couldn't come near keeping up with you when I was your age. Glad to hear of you adventures and your peace of mind at the beginning of this next wondrous chapter in your life. R