at the south tip of the north island
Jan. 10th, 2009 07:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ilanaramaSince Tuesday we have been in "Absolutely, Positively, Wellington" as all the tourist signs inform us. This is NZ's capital and although it's actually not a big city in terms of population, the downtown business district feels just as big as any major US city, with lots of tall buildings and busy streets. The nice thing is that it's built around the waterfront, and the waterfront is developed for people rather than industry (or rather, people in the middle, industry at the edges) so there are pedestrian walkways and public art installations and museums and gardens and more cafes than one could possibly manage to have lunch at in a month, let alone just one week.
Wellington has lived up to its reputation for being gray and windy - we've had only one genuinely sunny, warm day - but that's okay, as we've spent lots of time in the many wonderful museums here. (If Auckland's Space-Needle-like skyscraper, frequent rain, and volcanic hill backdrop had us comparing it to Seattle, Wellington is clearly San Francisco. Complete with major fault line running smack down the middle of the city. Fortunately, they did not put on any earthquakes while we were here, but The Big One will, eventually, arrive.)
On our first day, we visited the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, which is a predator-free reserve for native birds and other wildlife created in the space where two old dams used to create the city reservoir, since decommissioned because hey, major fault line. We saw a few birds, heard quite a few more, and saw one tuatara which only exist in this reserve and some of the offshore islands. (The problem with New Zealand is that as there were no large endemic predator species, many species developed in ways that made them sitting moa, so to speak, when rats and weasels and humans arrived. I mean, flightless birds, duh. Fortunately they are not all extinct. Just most of them.)
The next day we visited the Weta Cave (the tiny public bit of the animation and effects company most famous for Lord of the Rings), rode the cable car (see, San Francisco, I told you) to the top of a hill overlooking town, where we visited the Cable Car Museum (more interesting than I would have guessed) and then meandered slowly back down via the extensive Botanical Gardens. I wish more things had been labeled, because there are lots of weird NZ plants we are seeing all over that we want to be able to call by their right names, but, wow. All sorts of interesting paths winding in various directions, and lots of people were using it for their running workouts, which were serious workouts because it's all basically one BIG hill.
Our third day was gorgeous, and we spent it mostly wandering around the waterfront looking at public art and watching really cute teenage boys in trunks jumping into the harbor. (Well, I did.) We also visited the Museum of Wellington City and Sea, which has an extensive maritime history collection including a documentary about the 1968 wreck of the Wahine, an interisland ferry, which maybe wasn't the best thing to watch a few days before our own ferry voyage but was interesting nonetheless. After a coffee break at one of the innumerable cafes dotting the waterfront, we spent a couple of hours at Te Papa, the justly famous national museum. It's in a remarkable building, just amazing and innovative architecture, and the exhibits are amazing as well. The current headliner is the Colossal Squid (bigger than a giant squid!) which came up on an Antarctic longliner (wrapped around one of the fish they had caught) just this past year, and has only been in the museum since October. It looks a little worse for the wear, but the display built around it (including a 3D animation of Life and Capture of Big Squid!) is very cool. We came back yesterday and saw even more of the exhibits; it was nice to split Te Papa over a few days, since it's so huge, and we didn't even see everything.
It's been really relaxing being here as we have been staying with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
trickofthedark and meesto, who we did not actually know other than through the internet until now, but who have turned out to not be axe murderers be wonderful people with whom we have lots in common and have enjoyed spending time with. (And hopefully they are not rolling their eyes at this and saying to each other, "Man, we sure fooled them! I couldn't wait for them to leave!") We have learned a lot about Wellington's film industry and, of course, about That Movie (in which meesto was a dead orc) so that's been fun, too! We also met up with china_shop and her partner (more non-axe-murderers) who know all the best places to eat in Wellington. (We are going to be eating a lot of backpacking food once we hit the South Island, so I have been enjoying my fine dining!)
At noon we take the ferry to Picton, on the South Island. Although it's more or less due west from Wellington, and so the ferry path from the North to the South islands is actually a northwest journey, which amuses me greatly - kind of like how a crossing from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the Panama Canal is actually southeast. Anyway. Next phase of adventure, coming up!
(I shall try to get a few more pictures up before we leave here, although we need to breakfast and pack and all that.)
ETA: Wellington photos
Wellington has lived up to its reputation for being gray and windy - we've had only one genuinely sunny, warm day - but that's okay, as we've spent lots of time in the many wonderful museums here. (If Auckland's Space-Needle-like skyscraper, frequent rain, and volcanic hill backdrop had us comparing it to Seattle, Wellington is clearly San Francisco. Complete with major fault line running smack down the middle of the city. Fortunately, they did not put on any earthquakes while we were here, but The Big One will, eventually, arrive.)
On our first day, we visited the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, which is a predator-free reserve for native birds and other wildlife created in the space where two old dams used to create the city reservoir, since decommissioned because hey, major fault line. We saw a few birds, heard quite a few more, and saw one tuatara which only exist in this reserve and some of the offshore islands. (The problem with New Zealand is that as there were no large endemic predator species, many species developed in ways that made them sitting moa, so to speak, when rats and weasels and humans arrived. I mean, flightless birds, duh. Fortunately they are not all extinct. Just most of them.)
The next day we visited the Weta Cave (the tiny public bit of the animation and effects company most famous for Lord of the Rings), rode the cable car (see, San Francisco, I told you) to the top of a hill overlooking town, where we visited the Cable Car Museum (more interesting than I would have guessed) and then meandered slowly back down via the extensive Botanical Gardens. I wish more things had been labeled, because there are lots of weird NZ plants we are seeing all over that we want to be able to call by their right names, but, wow. All sorts of interesting paths winding in various directions, and lots of people were using it for their running workouts, which were serious workouts because it's all basically one BIG hill.
Our third day was gorgeous, and we spent it mostly wandering around the waterfront looking at public art and watching really cute teenage boys in trunks jumping into the harbor. (Well, I did.) We also visited the Museum of Wellington City and Sea, which has an extensive maritime history collection including a documentary about the 1968 wreck of the Wahine, an interisland ferry, which maybe wasn't the best thing to watch a few days before our own ferry voyage but was interesting nonetheless. After a coffee break at one of the innumerable cafes dotting the waterfront, we spent a couple of hours at Te Papa, the justly famous national museum. It's in a remarkable building, just amazing and innovative architecture, and the exhibits are amazing as well. The current headliner is the Colossal Squid (bigger than a giant squid!) which came up on an Antarctic longliner (wrapped around one of the fish they had caught) just this past year, and has only been in the museum since October. It looks a little worse for the wear, but the display built around it (including a 3D animation of Life and Capture of Big Squid!) is very cool. We came back yesterday and saw even more of the exhibits; it was nice to split Te Papa over a few days, since it's so huge, and we didn't even see everything.
It's been really relaxing being here as we have been staying with
trickofthedark and meesto, who we did not actually know other than through the internet until now, but who have turned out to meesto was a dead orc) so that's been fun, too! We also met up with china_shop and her partner (more non-axe-murderers) who know all the best places to eat in Wellington. (We are going to be eating a lot of backpacking food once we hit the South Island, so I have been enjoying my fine dining!)At noon we take the ferry to Picton, on the South Island. Although it's more or less due west from Wellington, and so the ferry path from the North to the South islands is actually a northwest journey, which amuses me greatly - kind of like how a crossing from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the Panama Canal is actually southeast. Anyway. Next phase of adventure, coming up!
(I shall try to get a few more pictures up before we leave here, although we need to breakfast and pack and all that.)
ETA: Wellington photos