Through the highs and lows, what a Capital idea …..
DAY 1 – The Road to Wellington
With not much of a drive ahead of us today we had a quiet start enjoying our spacious room in Martinborough and a simple breakfast of fruit, yoghurt and coffee. Whilst it was a little overcast when we woke, by the time we drove off it was a cold 10 degrees but perfect sunshine.
The first part of our drive was fairly flat open country. We drove through the town of Featherstone which is known as “Booktown” due to the number of bookstores it has. However, as most were closed on a Monday we didn’t bother to stop.
From here the drive started to climb into the mountains – the Remutaka Range – on a very winding road. The area is famous for the “Remutaka march” which refers to a historical route taken by New Zealand army reinforcements as their final test of fitness and preparation for deployment in World War 1. Between 1915 and 1919 some 60,000 troops made the crossing between a military camp in Featherstone and the Hutt Valley over 2 nights and 3 days. Unfortunately, the only lookout stop was on the wrong side of the road and we couldn’t turn in due to the winding road conditions.
We continued on – through Upper & Lower Hutt – and arrived in Wellington late morning. As we were early, we drove to the Mount Victoria Lookout which looks back to the city on one side and out to the airport on the other.
We then drove to the hotel not expecting to be able to check in but leave our car and do some walking around town. Fortunately our room was ready, and we are on the top floor of the Hotel Grand Chancellor. We are here for two nights and are currently sitting in a lounge with a wonderful view over the city toward the harbour.
After settling in we setoff to explore the city on foot. First we took the Wellington cable car up the hill to the Botanical Gardens and another great view over the city. Back down the cable car we then walked down to the quay and Queens Wharf and walked along the waterfront.
We went to the Museum of New Zealand (Te Papa Tongarewa) with the main aim of seeing the Gallipoli exhibition however it wasn’t until we had paid our international visitor fee that we realised it was “temporarily closed”. Anyway we wandered many of the other exhibitions, had a snack for lunch and then made our way back to the hotel.
For dinner we strolled down to the Quay and found a table at Bin 44 on the wharf. Adrienne chose the fish and chips being by the water and I had a pork belly nasi goreng – very tasty food again ! We strolled along the quay and back to our hotel where we had a coffee in our lounge – there has been hardly anyone else using it – and watched the lights over the city.
DAY 2 – Exploring Wellington
We started the day with coffee and a light breakfast in our lounge – pretty overcast and a bit of wind. We then went down to collect our car for a bit of touring around Wellington in the morning.
First stop though was a tour of the Weta Studio. Some way need no further explanation however for the uninitiated this is the creative geniuses behind Peter Jackson and his many projects – Lord of the Rings being the local star. Adrienne was like a kid in a chocolate shop and was a bit disappointed when they said the 90 minute tour was largely “don’t touch anything and no photos/video”.
Despite this, it was a very interesting tour with many props from various movies, videos and demonstrations featuring such things as make up, prosthetics etc used in the film processes, talks from a couple of the designers etc etc. Finally there was time to touch and photographs and Adrienne was right into it – like many on the tour !
When this was over, we were already on the eastern peninsula of the city in Miramar so went for a drive around the whole peninsula. The road literally follows the shoreline all the way around to the airport. At one point we stopped and could actually look across to the snow capped peaks on the South Island !
On the way back to the hotel we had to stop at another Lord of the Rings site (LOTR for future reference as I expect to be referring to it more over the coming weeks). Once at the hotel, we made a quick pitstop and then set off on foot again to the northern part of the city and Parliament House. The “Beehive” – the building housing the Executive Wing of the NZ parliament buildings – stands out in the complex.
The weather today has been quite a bit cooler and as the day progressed the place has lived up to its nickname of “Windy Wellington” ! We walked back down along the quay for part of the way back and then headed toward the southern part of t0wn to and area called “Cuba Street” which is an older area and has many restaurants.
On the way back we stopped at a supermarket to buy a sandwich for a late lunch and sat in “our” lounge again to eat it. After a bit of blogging (and a couple of work things to deal with) we decided with the cold and wind outside we would just have dinner in the hotel restaurant. We ventured down for couple of drinks in the bar to start. They had a bit of a crowd in with what looked like the end of a group tour in for dinner. We had a nice dinner again with a Hawkes Bay pinot gris from Brookfields – Adrienne a Curry pot and I had a risotto. Again, very good so only the one glitch on the north island as far as our food experiences.
Tomorrow we leave the North Island for the next part of our tour. I think we would say both Auckland and Wellington have impressed us as cities to visit, and we would gladly come back to both. As well as a number of other interesting stops, I am sure we will be back to visit other parts of the North Island.