Day Fourteen … exploring Wellington

We don’t have a car here in Wellington so my trusty guide had devised a planned route that involved being able to walk, so we were staying fairly close to the CBD for the day. First thing this morning we grabbed a cab and headed to the Mount Victoria Lookout. Mount Victoria is located almost right in the centre of wider Wellington, but being a steep mountain it would have been a killer to walk up, so we decided to start our journey at the top and wander back down rather than kill ourselves.

The views from the top are spectacular, with 360 degree views of Wellington, the airport, the harbour and the ocean. We grabbed a sneaky geocache whilst we were there hidden behind the Pou totem. We ate a leisurely breakfast whilst watching crazy people jogging to the top of the mountain (Wellington folk are very fit with all the hills here) before starting our walk down to the bottom. Along the way we stopped to marvel at the pine forest, to sit and look out over the city, and I had the pleasure of encountering a gorgeous little cat that was happy to have pats and rubs.

Leaving the walking paths on the mountain we wandered down through the streets of Oriental Bay where the hills, the steep roads and the house designs reminded us of San Francisco. The descent was easy but lots of winding paths and hidden staircases made the journey very interesting. I’d say the housing prices in Oriental Bay would be pretty steep (just like the hills).

Reaching the bottom we wandered along the waterfront, past the gorgeous boatsheds at the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club. We were once again on the hunt for some Ad Labs as we wandered (Ian had mapped them out last night and none of them took us out of our way) so we found more pigeon statues and historic sites of the 1840 Shoreline. We explored the theatre district of Wellington … lots of beautiful old buildings. I grabbed a coffee at the hippest little cafe called Squirrel and we sat in Waitangi Park before heading to Te Papa Tongarewa which is the Museum of New Zealand. 

Te Papa is free to enter and you can stay for as long as you like. It has exhibits spread over 6 levels in an incredible building that opened in 1998. We picked out the main areas we wanted to explore which included the Phar Lap exhibit, the earthquake house, the roof top terrace, the giant squid and the explore area. We stayed for about an hour and a half, skipping a lot of the exhibits devoted to a Māori history as we had learnt about a lot of that whilst in Waitangi.

Our exploring then took us back to the wharf, finding more Ad Labs along the way. We passed the Royal New Zealand Ballet rehearsal hall and they had their door open and were happy for us to watch them practicing … so beautiful and graceful. We then walked through Hannah Lane which meanders through the old Hannah shoe factory. The area has lots of small businesses like IT start ups, a chocolate factory, artisan bread makers and lots of food trucks.

Next we headed into what is described as the trendiest parts of Wellington known as Cuba Street. It is said to be the most well known, most friendly and most popular street. We enjoyed wandering through and we stopped for lunch (scrummy kebabs from a kiosk in a side street that was probably only 1 metre by 2 metres in size). We sat out in the street (a mall really as there were no cars) and ate lunch whilst watching the world go by. Wellingtonians have to be the snappiest dressers I have ever seen. They have a sense of style and a freedom to wear whatever that I admire. Both young and old were using clothes as an expression of themselves. I would love to have gone shopping with them to find where they got their clothes from. We also discovered the Wellington sense of humour in their pedestrian crossing signals - walking, marching, strutting, squatting at the greens and reds. And quirky toilet signs too.

From Cuba Street we headed back to the wharf and then into the city. Again, poor Ian was forced to maintain a stop and go walking momentum to allow me time to snap photo after photo of statues, buildings, oddities and wonders. We went to the Old Bank Arcade to watch the animated musical clock perform its hourly retelling of the history of the arcade site.

And this is where our day was meant to end … but it was just after 2 pm and you can’t stop then, so we grabbed a cable car and headed to the top again so that we could wander down through the Botanic Gardens. We had seen an Ad Lab there so decided we should do it at the same time however there were no paths marked on the Ad Lab map so we managed to get lost a fair bit. The gardens are, like everything in Wellington, very very hilly, so we had a bit of a workout as we wandered the gardens. And then … it started to rain! So wandering a hilly garden, in the rain, whilst lost … what an adventure. The gardens were beautiful though so not a ruined afternoon.

We headed back down the hill and arrived back at our hotel drenched but laughing. A shower to warm up, dry clothes and a cake (or two) with a warm hot chocolate was a great way to end the day. Today (so far … because we still need to go out for dinner) … I have walked 21,851 steps/ 16.73 km 😳