Wellington

Capital of New Zealand - Sunday 22nd February 2009

Wellington’s compact CBD lies between the city’s foothills and its mountain encircled harbour. Partly built on land developed during reclamation projects begun in the mid 1800s, the area today is the working environment of the country’s politicians and the national government infrastructure.

Primarily our objective whilst in Wellington was to visit the Te Papa museum of New Zealand however, before this we took a walking tour of the harbour front.

The harbour front stands entirely on reclaimed land and covers a site once central to Wellington’s waterfront industry.

We started out along the quay which followed the sea front in to Lambton Harbour. There were yachts and boats bobbing in the choppy waters and we could see the houses that are built in to the hillsides - these houses are made of timber and tin and were built by the early settlers as there was no flat land remaining for development.

There was a Harley Davidson rally in town so it was good to see all the bikers and their gleaming helmets!!!!!!! (and bikes!).

We crossed the City-to-Sea bridge, a bridge decorated with large, pacific-style wood carvings in to Civic Square which is an extensive, paved plaza-style courtyard which features various sculptures including a fern sculpture suspended in the Square.

The walk continued through to Courteney Place, lined with bars, clubs, and restaurants and then we made our way back to the Quay where there was a fruit market near to the Overseas Terminal and where the cruise ships dock.

By this time the breezy weather had turned to gusty, gale-force winds and we were having trouble standing upright! Seagulls and ducks were having trouble landing!!

We learnt later that there was a huge street carnival last night with over 150,000 people attending!! We didn’t hear a thing and only heard about it on the news.
We had a great view of the harbour from our 9th floor hotel room, so we were able to watch the ferries coming and going.