Ah, Wellington, with your lovely natural surroundings; your quaint wooden homes; your traditional and spunky new architecture; your electronic buses and your fabulously amazing museum – how I love you. Were it not for the whole earthquake thing, I’d move here in a second.
I had two and a half days in Wellington after Au Contraire, and I made pretty good use of them – at least, as good a use as one can when one is tremendously overweight and unfit.
Monday morning I booked out of the con hotel and left my luggage there cause I couldn’t book into next hotel yet. From there, I walked down to Te Papa, the national museum (sore hip, sore back, sore knee – I did mention how atrociously unfit I am, right?) Started with an hour tour with a small group and a fabulous guide – she was a teacher by profession so had the explaining thing down pat, and was Maori so a great understanding of the history and mythology of the land. I’ve decided that Polynesia is definitely going to be the basis of my main setting culture in Battle for Odana – with a fantasy twist, of course.
Giant moa –extinct Traditional Maori house – note the
short door – had to bend down to
so if enemy, dealt with easily :)
Then I walked across the waterfront at Wellington and over to the cablecar, for a trip up to the botanic gardens. I was surprised when most of the trip was done through tunnels – this is really a commercial mode of transport, not a tourist gimmick. In the botanic gardens is the observatory, so I went in, had a look around and saw the planetarium show – it was a little uncomfortable (I got dizzy a couple of times) and I would have preferred not being spoken to like a 12-year-old, but all in all it was good.
The cable car and the view from the top.
By now it was 4pm and it was bloody freezing and I was tired and sore so made my way back to con hotel and checked into new hotel – Travelodge. The cheapest of the trip, and the best. I had a quiet night (doing some prep for workshops) and then to bed.
The next day dawned overcast and rainy. Ross Temple came and took me out to Martinborough – one of the newer wine districts of New Zealand. Thanks to Ross’s offer of some space in his luggage, I indulged in some purchases. Unfortunately, the weather really was quite miserable and so a bit of a shine was taken off the trip, but it was lovely country.
Back in Wellington, I jumped on a bus and went to visit this guy:
In case you ever wondered what it would look like when a uruk-hai came at you, the answer is something like this:
It’s a long bus trip out to the Weta Cave and back (40 mins each way) and the cave itself is only a half-hour visit but damn it – it had to be done, for the sake of my geek cred :) Didn’t do as much credit card damage as I thought, since there wasn’t as much LOTR gear on sale as I expected, but I am now the proud owner of the Evenstar – beautiful.
That night, I shouted myself dinner at a fancy restaurant – to celebrate my last night in New Zealand.
This morning I had a few more hours to kill, so I walked around the waterfront, went back to Te Papa for another visit and FINALLY found a stubby cooler (there was a thought that there isn’t any in NZ, but I proved that wrong). Was feeling a little under the weather (my health’s been really off and on lately) so I came to the airport early to rest for the trip.
So, there we have it. When I came to NZ, I had two things I wanted to know more about – the culture and the landscape. Thanks to the Te Papa museum and my two fabulous tour guides Russell Kirkpatrick and Ross Temple, I’m leaving very happy, and very much in love with New Zealand.
Thanks, Kiwis. I’ll be back.
