Capital of Culture

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Kia Ora

Our Ferry trip from the South to the North Island took just over three hours, so by the time we arived in our hostel in Wellington it was getting pretty late aka early night! The next day we wandered aimlessly around New Zealand's Capital City before heading to the Botanical Gardens.

The city's population is about 4 times smaller than Auckland but it boasts quite a large city centre. There are coffee shops everywhere, and it certainly has a bohemian feel to it (So says the Book of lies anyway!) We stumbled across the Parliamentary buildings, which looked rather grand, and also another War Memorial.

We caught an old fashioned Cable Car up a hill to reach the Botanical Gardens, the Cable Cars been in operation for over a 100 years apparently, it was very Beamishesque. At the top of the hill we got a really good view of the City below us as well as the harbour. The Botanical Gardens were extremely well kept and there were loads of different paths down to the bottom, there was also a kids park with a Zip Wire: a few opportunities for Wilson to Cookmeister down it!

Before arriving back at the Hostel we walked along the harbour passing a couple of old stylee Theatres on the way: Not suprisingly for the Capital City Wellington seems to be very big on the Arts, in fact throughout July and August it was hosting the 35th Annual Film Festival. That night we went to the theatre across the road that was showing a film called CRAZY about a lad growing up in seventies and eighties Montreal (Canada) We got a bit of a shock upon realising the film was in French with subtitles, but it was brilliant. It had a class soundtrack: Rolling Stones and a bit of Bowie to name but two. At the end of the film everyone started applauding?!?! Felt a bit of an "American" thing to do (as jonny said) but it was good all the same.

The next day we visited the National Museum. They had a Lord of the Rings Exhibition on the top floor, which was brilliant. It was scattered with lots of costumes, models of sets and photographs from the films as well as explaining the story a bit more thoroughly: having different sections for the different types of characters.

At night we went out to watch the All Blacks vs Australia. As you probably know Rugby is pretty much a religion over here, and there is no-one they love more than beating than the Australians (Makes a change from everyone hating England the most) There was a lot of controversy in the papers for the whole week concerning the Haka, and whether the All Black would perform the dance with the throat cutting jesture at the end. As it happened they didn't do the throat cutting jesture but they still won the game, cue a lot of happy New Zealanders.

Overall Wellington was a cracking little city, just the right size so you don't get bored but not too big as to be intimidating- purely belter!

Mike

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Photos

Wellington from Above
At the top of the Cable Car

Press be asking to I care for Botany
I don't know... Yeah Probably (Botanical Gardens)

Lord of the Rings Exhibition entrance
NO photos allowed inside the exhibition unfortunately.

Maori Meeting House
At Museum