Wet, Windy Wainy Wellington

Our time in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, was awesome. It’s a large bustling city filled with young hip folk, trendy restaurants and clubs, art galleries, museums and shopping.

We were privileged enough to stay with a couchsurfer up in the hills above the city. Ryan and his girlfriend hooked us up with some great Malaysian dinner, a choice brewpub, and picked up tickets for us to join them in seeing a great play called The 39 Steps. It’s based on an Alfred Hitchcock story, with an ensemble cast of 4 performing as over 100 different characters. Anyone who gets the show in their town should definitely go see it. Their house had a cable car – a little trolley that made the trek up the mountain to the front door, allowing one to bypass the bazillion stairs winding through the forest up to the house. Make sure to check out the pictures of that.

We mostly bummed around the town, enjoying the awesome architecture, both modern and old. The government building is actually made of wood, but looks like stone from the street. For Valentine’s Day we had a decadent meal at The White House, feasting on Oysters, Pumpkin Ravioli, a fantastic cheese plate, and five little chocolate deserts. It was the perfect evening for a tacky commercialized holiday

Today we went to Te Papa, the huge museum on the waterfront which is seen as the heart of Wellington. We took a quick tour of the highlights. They included:

• A giant squid, the largest preserved one in the world. It was about 20 feet long, and found in the 80’s
• Traditional Maori huts, and a giant Maori canoe
• Huge Wetas, disgusting locust-like insects that can weight up to the equal of three mice
• An exhibit of artifacts, body casts, and frescoes from Pompeii
• The skeleton of a whale about 70 feet long
• Prehistoric dolphin skeletons
• The largest piece of New Zealand Greenstone (jade) in the world

Now we are driving to Lake Taupo, in the region of the volcanoes and bubbling hot springs that starred as Mordor in The Lord of the Rings… We just passed Mt. Doom!

Check out pics of Wellington: