Kiwi Jaunts, Pt. 3

Our first full day in Wellington was much like the previous night had been – it maintained it’s wonderful alliterative qualities of wet and windy Welly! This more or less shaped our plans to head for Te Papa, a huge Museum celebrating all that is New Zealand. Spread across six floors, and what felt like hundreds of rooms, it documents everything and anything about New Zealand, from the geological forces which formed it, to the Treaty of Waitangi, which brought New Zealand under British rule.

We couldn’t help but represent ourselves on a world map.

We began in “Awesome Forces”, because when an exhibit has that cool a name, you just have to go in. This went into some detail how New Zealand was formed, and how it is still affected by some of these forces, just like Christchurch’s recent Force 7.0 earthquake. I’ll try to go into more detail about all the exhibits on my photobucket, as any explanations are best accompanied by lots of photographs. Just scroll about halfway down the page, and click on an image to see it’s description.

We sadly didn’t manage to cover the whole Museum. After nearly 5 hours, and only 4 of the 6 floors done, we had to admit defeat. The final offerings of various Maori and modern art just couldn’t outcompete our need to eat, and so it was to the foodcourt over the road rather than up another flight of stairs. Suitably fed and rested, we still wanted to make the most of our time in New Zealand, and set about wandering round town. The rain had began to ease off now, so it was largely only the wind causing problems as night began to fall, but it was still nippy. We ended the night back in the hostel playing charades, much to the amusement of the 6th person staying in our dorm.

The next day was brighter though, and we were able to get about the city a bit more, taking the cable car up to the Botanic Gardens, and enjoying a display from a local brass band. From there, we explored every herb, flower and rare plants garden Wellington had to offer, even taking the Druids Walk up to the most confusing piece of modern art we’re ever seen.

We pushed it, swung it, span it, stood inside it, and threw twigs into it. In return, it leaked yesterdays rainwater all over us.

In the evening, we each had a different plan of things to do. Stephan (the athlete amongst us) went for a run, Emily and Denise hunted down the famous coffee shops of Wellington, while Chris and myself hiked up Mount Victoria, which just about made up for the poor weather at Mount Doom. If you click on Chris’ very impressive photo below, you can see the same view that we did.

Meeting back up with Stephan, we spent a little more time exploring the city, finally stopping at the Hungry Wok for an $8 all you can eat meal, where we almost certainly managed to stack far more than $8 each. With our stomachs screaming for us to stop eating, we left with 4 Big Mac boxes full of Chinese food still uneaten, the boxes generously donated by a kind McDonalds worker who gave the impression that we weren’t the first to take food away with us. We finally reunited as a complete group back at the hostel, and had an earlier night in readiness for the early ferry journey the next morning.

And how very early it seemed. Very mindful that we would have to navigate the Wellington one way system again (well, not me personally. I refused to drive in the city again after the first night), we arrived at the ferry in plenty of time, and managed to snap more than a few photos of sunrise. The ferry journey itself offered amazing scenery, but was extremely breezy, so at the midpoint of the journey, we ducked back inside to warm up. When we reached the more beautiful coasts of the South Island fjords though, we were back outside to check out the view. I’m fairly sure I saw a seal, or maybe a very big fish… definitely something in the water.

Interestingly, from leaving Wellington on the North Island, to arriving in Picton on the South Island, you are at almost exactly the same latitude.

From arriving in Picton, it was non-stop across to the West Coast to reach Greymouth, a small town about a third of the size of Billingham, but the biggest on the entire West Coast of South New Zealand. It was a fairly quaint place, with a very pleasant hostel (the only one to provide towels, soap, mints on the pillow, free board games, and a coal powered heating system) for just $26 (~ GBP£13). We made sure to get our shopping done before the supermarket closed at 9pm, and whiled away the night playing cards and fighting over ice cream.

With no attractions to speak of in Greymouth, we moved swiftly on the next day to Franz Josef, a glacial region further down the West coast. However, that is where I shall leave the story for now. Next time, I’ll go into our glacier walks, and down to Lake Wanaka and Queenstown.

And finally, here is a clip from Flight of the Conchords, a New Zealand comedy musical duo. This is their claimed Lord of the Rings theme tune submission.