Cable cars, trolley buses and tired feet
Trip Start
Mar 13, 2012
1
14
55
Trip End
May 10, 2012
Where I stayed
Wellington, North Island, New Zealand
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
First thing today we went up the hill on the cable car to the Botanical Gardens. There was a lovely view down across the city and lots of paths wandering up and down hills - and all for free, unlike the botanical gardens in Cambridge where you have to pay to go in even if you are a resident. The gardens seem to be the place where young mums take their toddlers for a morning run about and the place seemed to be full of children chasing each other, shouting at each other and then falling over and crying. The walk through the park ended up in the Bolton Street cemetery which was the original cemetery from the mid-1800’s. There were so many graves where there were 3 or 4 children from the same family all dying within a few months of each other - it was very sad - presumably it was TB or something like that sweeping through the family.
After the Botanical Gardens we passed the Parliament Building and went into Wellington Cathedral. of St Paul. This was finished in 1998 and is a quite unattractive modern building (but it did have some nice modern stained glass) - unlike the formed cathedral , the Cathedral Church of St Paul which is a lovely wooden building (even the nails are wood) and would be a lovely setting for a wedding . Opposite the new Parliament Building is the old Parliament Building which is the biggest wooden structure in the Southern Hemisphere but looks as if it is made of stone - very clever construction.
We then wandered back into the centre of the city past a lot of interesting street sculpture and caught a trolley bus out through the suburbs to Miramar where the Weta Workshops are located (for those who don’t know , they are the people who did the weapons, special effects etc for Lord of the Rings (amongst other films)). The museum they advertise isn’t quite what we expected but it was quite interesting as was the film about all the things they do. The trolley bus journey there and back was through lovely suburbs of wooden villas - I really like that style of house.
We then went back to Te Papa museum to look round the rest of the exhibits we’d not seen yesterday and staggered back to the cable car back to the B &B - we must have walked miles today - I’ve just been dozing off on the bed whilst David uploaded the photos - I am so tired and we have an early start tomorrow to catch the ferry to the South Island.
Comments
So did you get back to the bead shop or the yarn shop?
The shells on Lambton Quay must be down the other end to me, as I don't recall seeing them before, so I must investigate. And I've never been to the cathedral either! That's given me ideas for a lunchtime walk now (though I'm in Auckland today, where it's sunny and warm).
Enjoy Picton and the rest of the South Island.