NZ Day 8: Wellington

Our last and final stop in New Zealand was Wellington. We left Martinborough sadly and made the one hour drive to Wellington on the west coast.

However, we weren't sad for long because there was lots of fun walking around to be done in the city. We stayed fairly close to Civic Square and the main quay, so there were tons of cool public areas to explore.

We meandered along the harbor.

And then cut up into Cuba Street. Most of the shops were closed for the day, and that was OK with us. Having come from places with pretty much zero people, it was nice to ease back into the bustle of civilization.

We found a good dinner spot on Cuba Street. A friend from work had recommended a restaurant called Veni Vidi Vici, and we just happened to stumble upon it. Lucky we did because our dinner choices were looking slim, but this was like stumbling into a gold mine of Italian food! We all had delicious dinners and finished them off with complimentary limoncello shots. The owner even brought Toby a couple slices of fresh bread so he could scrape up the last bits of sauce from plates, making him Toby's favorite person of the entire trip.

The next day we walked around a bit more and checked out the Museum of New Zealand. One of the coolest things about the museum was its exhibit on the way it was constructed to withstand earthquakes. The museum (and some other buildings in Wellington) use a system of base isolators that keep the buildings up off the ground and able to stabilize when the ground moves. The building sits on lead columns that are surrounded with rubber and steel; when there is an earthquake, the columns absorb the movement so the building on top doesn't really move. The museum has an underground viewing room where you can see the columns as well as a needle that shows how much movement the columns have experienced since base isolators were set up.

One of the bonus surprises of our stay in Wellington was the discovery of the Lord of the Rings Costume Trail. Well, this was a bonus for at least one of us, who was VERY excited about this! There was a whole map of costumes and prop displays around Wellington. Happily, we encountered some of these just along around wanderings, as well as at the airport.

Last stop before heading to the airport? A drive up to Mount Victoria Lookout where we could see all of Wellington from one hilltop.

A 10 minute reshuffle and Herculean effort of zipping souvenirs into suitcases later, we headed down the mountain and to the airport!

We definitely could have spent more time in Wellington, just like we could have in all of the cities in New Zealand. But with Wellington, we felt like we only got a skin-deep feel for the city and that there were lots of areas left to be explored. Maybe next time!

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