The windy city
Trip Start
Aug 17, 2003
1
52
76
Trip End
Jun 04, 2004
Wellington,
New Zealand
Sunday, March 14, 2004
Once I eventually found the Information Centre (obviously turned into a man for a while - forgot to take a map and refused to ask for directions), they had some fantastic walking tour brochures, so I followed a couple of those, which took me along the waterfront and into the political areas of town.
First was the Civic Centre where the information centre is, and as it is the Wellington Festival at the moment, there was a free street theatre show going on
Cable car and view over Wellington
. It was excellent - a Japanese group with a guy on a tightrope pretending to wobble, but all choreographed to drums and music. The skill it must have taken to pretend to fall, but manage to actually stay upright is incredible.From there I walked along the waterfront, admiring sculptures and stopping off at a photography exhibition. It was great to see an area so obviously redeveloped and now a great place to just wander. The photography exhibition wasn't really my cup of tea - I wasn't very impressed, but obviously I'm just a heathen who didn't understand what the photographer was trying to achieve....
After walking along the waterfront, I got to the main political area of town, the centrepiece of which is the Beehive, the main parliamentary building. As you had probably already guessed, the name comes from the shape, which does look odd alongside the classic architecture of the buildings around it.
Around the corner from the Beehive I discovered Old St Paul's Cathedral, once the cathedral for the city until the congregation became too big and a pink nonentity was built up the road. Old St Paul's was possibly the most beautiful church I have ever seen
Old St Paul's Cathedral
. It was in gothic style, but unlike many British churches which are gothic stone, because this was made of wood, it gave it an incredible warmth.The final bit of sightseeing was a trip on the cable car, or funicular which goes up to a great viewpoint over the city. There was an observatory up there with a talk about the stars of the southern hemisphere which was very cool. Now I'll be trying to spot a few more constellations next time I'm out at dark!!
One of the main parts of the few days I spent in Wellington was catching up with friends I'd met earlier in the trip. I spent one evening having a bit of a blowout with James from Perth - the first big boozy and food night out either of us had had in a while, as he'd been desperately saving money as well. It was so good to catch up with him - it seemed incredible that 4 months had passed since we last saw each other - there was a hell of a lot to catch up on!!!
I also met up with Kerryn from the Africa trip, and went back to her flat to look through all the pictures. It was very funny reliving all those memories! But it seems like years and years ago that I was there.
Another major highlight of Wellington was Te Papa, the museum
Sculptures at the civic centre
. It is fairly new and the exhibits are incredibly interactive, which makes them so accessible. One of the best bits was the section on earthquakes and volcanoes (all very fascinating if you're from Britain, where we don't really have either!) At one point you could stand in a house and experience what an earthquake feels like - quite scary!I also met up again with Louise, who I'd spent some time travelling with in the North Island the first time, and we arranged to drive up to Auckland together over the next week. I'd always wanted to do that trip driving, but it just didn't seem that I'd be able to find anyone to come with me. So I was very glad to get a text from her! We also went to the rugby again to see another Super12 game, although it was a bit disappointing as there really wasn't very much atmosphere.
