Wellington, the bottom of the North Island. Hard to believe we had only one more day on the North Island. Seems like a huge city to me, but not surprising after all the small communities we had spent so much time in. Wellington is tall skyscrapers, lots of them, and that's appropriate for the capital of a nation. We found our hotel, then found the parking for it, not an easy feat. Wellington is so hilly that, well I never understood how the hotel worked, but reception was on the 6th floor on one side and ground level on the other.
With only a day to spend in the city we knew we wanted to take the cable car to the top to see the Botanic Gardens, and we bought our return tickets and made our way up. The Botanical Gardens were eye opening, wonderful serpentine paths through huge trees, tiny and large succulents, more roses (though not as nice as those in the Marston garden). We abandoned our return tickets for a walk down through a very old cemetery and across a bridge to see the rest of the cemetery some of which had to be moved to make room for the motorway coming into the city. A very wide variety of gravestone types and fashions and fonts, more than I 've ever seen. Our walk brought us to the waterfront--lots of walking room, looked like a huge lego setup to me with all sorts of cranes, containers, piers and "boats".
Since we had had a sandwich at the Botanical Gardens, we made our way to the other "must see" in Wellington, the Te Papa museum which is supposed to be the best museum to explain and illustrate Maori history. We found it a teriffic museum, but by this time much of the Maori history was beginning to seem familiar to us. Our favorite exhibit (though not in an entirely positive way) was the earthquake section of the museum. Way too realistic for me. But the attitude here seems to be that since an earthquake is such a real possibility throughout the nation, if it happens to you you won't know, it will just be all over. On our way back to the hotel we found a casual italian restaurant on the waterfront and had a good meal there. Early to bed because we had to be out the door by 7am on the way to the ferry to the South Island.
Our trip is 1/2 over...
More soon,
Claire
