The irrelevant guide to Wellington: A two day whirlwind
When I think of Wellington, I think of colour. Of rainbow streets, a primary coloured bucket fountain, knitting on lamp posts and bench seats. And most importantly, the people are colourful. Smiles, funky clothes, and just a nice absence of the suited beige and grey army that we have here in Auckland. This makes Wellington a place that I like to travel to.
My last trip to Wellington was for a special occasion. My sister was turning another year older. For this momentous event, she decided she wanted to travel via train from Hamilton to Wellington. I told her I would meet her in Wellington (I still had PTSD from a train trip earlier this year in Sydney. It left me with many battle wounds and a quiet aversion to long haul train treks. But that is a story for another time ). We arrived in Wellington at 11:30pm. Our flight had been delayed multiple times and I was in the midst of an anxiety attack as I believed I had left the heater on back home. I had already imagined very vividly ending up in prison as I had burned my entire apartment complex down in a fiery firestorm. It was not the best time to have an anxiety attack, but to be honest, I never get a say in the matter.
After checking into the Ibis Hotel and waking up a neighbour to check on that ticking time bomb aka my fan heater, I called it a night.
Day One.
Reader, you have not meet my sister, but she likes to organise. She would make a great tour guide, a very strict tour guide. Or maybe an army sergeant. Either way, Saturday was planned down to the second.
Breakfast
As any good day begins while travelling, we hunted and gathered. And what do I mean by that you may wonder, we basically searched out a brunch spot in Wellington. Brunch is a favorite of mine. I could live off that meal. And often I do. I am a huge advocate of brunch for dinner. We ended up finding Fidels, a cafe on the main drag of Cuba Street dedicated to everything Cuban. Especially the main man,Fidel Castro. The decor is alight with Fidel’s form puffing on a cigar and the air is alight with smells of deliciousness. It is also a very busy cafe. Think lines out the door. But, the wait is worth it. I ended up chomping down on a vegan breakfast and do not let me get started on their scones. To die for. Literally. One bite and you will think you have gone to heaven. The scones are little bundles of taste bud heaven.
A Takahe who lives at Zealandia.
Zealandia
After being suitably fuelled by scones and brunch, we idled our way to the Zealandia Shuttle pick up zone. What is Zealandia you may ask. Well, it is an ecological reserve in Wellington and basically a bird girl like me, dream place. They have a free shuttle service from Wellington CBD to the sanctuary which is really nice thing to do really.
Wandering around Zealandia feels as if you have jumped back in time to when Captain Cook was surveying New Zealand. Green and lush and alive with the sounds of many native birds, from the croaks of Tui to the sweet melodies of the North Island Robin. Zealandia was a great place to breathe in the green as I like to call it.
For a full story on my experience at Zealandia, I have a post coming out this month at In The Know Traveller.
Shameless plug I know. Though, I have never been able to say that sentence. I now have an official plug. Look at me go.
Te Papa
It was time for my mind to be expanded with interesting facts and stories. At when in Wellington, the place to have that done is at Te Papa, at their waterfront museum.
Wandering through the first exhibit, I suddenly had the dead eyes of countless birds staring down at me. Quite the contrast from the alive bustle at Zealandia. I had dawdled into their new Te Taiao exhibit. This showcased animals past and present of New Zealand, from the snuffling kiwi to the swooping Haast Eagle.
Going on a tangent, you should check out the Haast Eagle, that bird was huge. I could imagine it would be rather terrifying having that bad boy eagling down on you. Think LOTR style eagles. It is a very educational exhibit so I left feeling throughly educated. My favorite part was the video playing of the Albatross love dance. They are very flirty birds.
After being stared down by many dead birds, I walked into the Gallipoli Exhibit, an exploration of the Gallipoli campaign. This was a harrowing experience and one I would recommend to all that visit Wellington. The exhibit features extremely realistic but enormous models of real life people who were in this campaign, from soldiers to nurses. You walk into a room where all the walls are black and illuminated in the centre are huge wax figures caught in action. From eating a fly crawling can of spam to a nurse sobbing over a letter containing tragic news. The whole thing is a walking story, one that you are now privy to. And some of the moments feel as if you are an intruder on such a personal private moment. It is an exercise of human emotion.
I left that exhibit feeling somber. You know how you leave a sad movie and you sometimes feel like shit. Well. This is ten times worse, as this is real. This really happened. They say war is hell. And, reading and listening to the stories of some of those soldiers and the people left behind at home, you truely feel that sentiment after walking away from Gallipoli.
Night Market
Feeling throughly depressed and demoralised, we ended our first day in Wellington with a lot of greasy, delicious, salty food. The way to my heart is mostly through food, so what better way to cheer me up by stuffing thousands of calories in my mouth.
The night markets brings Cuba street alive on Friday and Saturday night with smells of deliciousness. I felt like I was in food heaven. Burgers, sundaes, curry, and red bean buns, a nostalgic favourite from my time in Japan. There were quite a few vegan options which always makes my heart happy, so I ate to my hearts content. And I left or rather rolled my way home, as by the end of this I felt rather round in shape.
Day Two
Weta
Day two arrived with a bang. In the most literal of senses. It was pouring down with rain. I thought to myself, now, I was truly in Wellington. The only problem was our army sergeant, aka my sister had told us that today we were to venture out to Weta Studios, the homeland of everything LOTR. It was also two bus rides away from Wellington central, so we where in for a wet time.
First order of business was to gather up some resources aka umbrellas. Once properly armed, we began our journey. We were new to the Wellington public transport system so our journey started messy. We fluffed around with the first bus driver, so much so, that a local woman loudly remarked that the bus driver was on a schedule , you know. My mother, who is never one to stand down, retorted rather loudly back that we are not from around here so give us a break. After that bracing confrontation, we settled down for the bus ride through wet and windy Wellington. After piling out from our first bus, we found our next bus that was to deposit us at Weta studios.
Entering Weta Studios you are greeted with a bouncer in the form of an ugly drooling troll, who looks like he wants to munch on your bones and suck the marrow from them. It is but a statue, so your life is definitely not in danger but it is quite the bracing welcome.
The first part of the Weta tour is to watch a documentary. And you may be thinking, boring. Or “I thought this was a cool workshop tour, not the history channel”. But, it was very interesting exploration on the origins of a workshop that has worked on some really cool movies, like Avengers and Avatar. After being educated on the past, we wandered through the awesome things that they have made. Weta has a no photo policy meaning that I have no actual photo evidence of this awesomeness, so you will have to go check it out for yourself. Let’s just say, the tour lets you squish fake faces, feel helmets that may have sat on a certain dwarf’s head and generally see a lot of maddening cool things.
Waterfront.
And there is no better way to end a day than at Wellington’s waterfront. There is something magic about watching the skies bleed red and oranges, while listening the cries of seagulls and the lapping of the water below. While walking down, be sure to check out the famous statue. This guy actually got damaged a while back because someone thought it would be cool to swing off it like a hooligan.
Electric scooters are a big thing now in New Zealand, so you will find many littered around the waterfront. If you download an app, you can unlock them and zoom and zap down the waterfront attempting to dodge all the pedestrians. It is actually a great way to get around. If you have coordination that is.
Need to know:
Fact one: Wellington is interesting in the fact that with some cafes, you wait until they have made your coffee before you sit down. As you are the one who brings the coffee to your table. This happens at a few places, one being Midnight Espresso.
Fact two: Public transport here can be a bit confusing. You can pay by cash, or buy something called a Snapper Card. Information on all this can be found here https://www.metlink.org.nz/
Fact three: Best brunch spot can be found at Fidels. I am not biased at all, I just throughly enjoy good coffee, vegan scones, and conversation starting decor.