All Summer Long

Our final destination in the land of the long white cloud¹ was Wellington, what we felt to be the most stylish city we visited on our sojourn into the otherwise remote wilderness of New Zealand. We stayed on the Miramar Peninsula, a stone’s throw out of the city centre² and a beautiful place to visit in its own right.

We stayed faithful to the maxim we have followed for the entire trip, that the best way to see a city is to get on top of it. We did this in three ways:

1) we climbed Mount Victoria
2) we took a cable car up to the observatory
3) we visited the terrace at the museum.

Mount Victoria gave us the best views of both the city and Miramar. Part of the route was even used as a filming location for the Fellowship of the Ring – another opportunity for us to swoon in delusions of stardom! They’ve named the section of the walk “the Hobbit’s hideaway track”³, and in the film this was where the midgets hid from Ringwraiths in their escape from the Shire. We spent a few minutes cowering under a rock that was supposedly used, beneath an empty patch of soil that may or may not have had a tree manifested into it digitally for the movie. There’s some scary mountain bike trails up Mount Victoria as well, and some nice sculptures and structures that even grown adults can climb on. Definitely recommended!

The cable car took us up to the botanic gardens and planetarium at the other side of the city, through tunnels fitted with kaleidoscopic lights. This was less essential, but a pleasant diversion and rest from walking everywhere. The museum at the dockyard was rammed with exhibitions on a wide range of subjects from a social history of the Kiwis to the fluid-preserved corpse of a colossal squid. The section on natural disasters, which included an earthquake simulation, was harrowing.

Wellington is well known for its cultural quarter. Its civic centre, galleries, library and museums are all impressive, but our favourite showcase of all was of its food, in both the night markets and food hall. There was a real buzz about the city at night that maybe we have missed being out in the sticks, so we enjoyed a jug of ale (no point getting $$$ pints over here, so get an evil litre or so during happy hour), I had a duck-fat infused rye whiskey cocktail, then we lined our stomachs with dumplings before grabbing a couple of curries and eating them in low light.

Before we left for our flight on Monday, we quickly visited Weta Workshop in Miramar. This is the design studio responsible for the props and costumes of tons of films you will have seen, including Lord of the Rings and, most recently, Ghost in the Shell. We watched a documentary about the development of the company and the work they have done. The costumes we saw were amazing, and there was even one of the flying rats from Braindead, so I was chuffed.

And that was it for New Zealand. We encountered no clear air turbulence on the flight and minimal weather. The first stop in Australia was Melbourne, and now we’re hugging the coast yet again as we travel west down the Great Ocean Road.

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¹ Literal translation of the Maori word for New Zealand – Aotearoa
² …if you have the arm of a god. It’s 20 minutes on the bus minimum!
³ It was pretty hidden. There was no bugger up there.