Wellington - Days 2 & 3

A full day of exploring and fun today, as well as a lot of walking and learning! Yesterday I bought a Wellington City Pass, which got my access to The Wellington Cable Car, and 2 other attractions from a choice of 4. I knew I wanted to go out to Zealandia the Nature eco-sanctuary but I wanted to see the time I had left after that before I made plans for the other attraction. For $37.50 it was a really good deal though and saved me money as I'd wanted I do at least 3 of the places on the list!

First stop: The Wellington Cable Car. Wellington city is basically built around a harbour, but that harbour is surrounded by minimal flat land and a lot of steep hills! Therefore a the cable car is a great invention that was very popular and suitable for the city! There are lots of private viable cars but his one was the first private commercial cable car. 

  

 

I walked from Andrew and Craig's into town and from the middle of town, pretty much, you can get this cable car up to the top of one of the hills, where the botanical gardens and the Planatarium are based. A very cute wee journey that took less than 5 mins but was well worth it! 

Botanical Gardens

  

I had intended to go straight to The Space Place (The Planetarium) as it was overcast and cold and a bit rainy, but it didn't open till 4pm!  But since I was up there I took a walk around the botanical gardens and it was well worth it! 

Zealandia

I then took the free shuttle from the Canle Car station out to Zealandia. What a great place! It's flippen huuuge, with loads of walking tracks for all abilities, a variety of habitats from wetlands to naive bush. They have a massive fancy fence around the whole place to keep predators out and keep the special wildlife safe inside. They have a few very endangered ground birds (not able to fly) none of which I saw of course, but the fact they can have this sanctuary, and so close to town too, is pretty special. I could have spent a whole day here exploring and definitely want to go back!!! 

    

  

I was there for a good 3 hours but I started to get cold, and hadn't brought appropriate footwear to get to the outer tracks so after enjoying a cake and a cup of tea I headed back to town.

As I was passin I decided to pop in to The  Space Place (Planetarium) as I'd read good things about the Māori side of their exhibits. I was not disappointed! As well as the usual story of Big Bang and the planets and the stars  which I already find really interesting, they also had a bit on each panel about how the Māori interpreted each of these too. How Māori culture says the solers system was created, their star stories and pictures, their names for the planets, how their calendar worked, so much new information that I'd never even thought about before! 

After the exhibition there was also a free planatarioum show included in the idler and the one I saw was called We are Astronomers. A young guy then gave us all in the theatre a wee tour of the night sky (digitally) which was cool as it's quite different to how I knew the stars in the Northern Hemisphere. 

I was hungry when I left here and walked round town for a bit looking for dinner. (I also had to buy hat #3 of this holiday😓as I lost another one!!). I are a yummy Thai meal before confirming plans to meet up with Ruth, a friend from home who I played rugby with for a bit in Stornoway. 

It was really really lovely to meet Ruth for a pint(s)! Seeing a wee friendly familiar face from home was just ace!! Catching up and just  checking in on how our trips were going so far! Both great! 

  
We drank a fair bit, one jug each at the second place (I mean the first place was $9 a pint and then the second place was $9 for 4 pints...it was logical really!?! True rugby drinking fashion! Not letting the team at home down!! 😂😅) I had a really great night and was glad to have managed to arrange this! 

(Saturday 31 Sept)

Today was a much slower day and it was great! I was surprisingly not hungover (really!!) after last night and A&C kindly offered to take me on a wee drive around Wellington to their favourite places about town. We drove to a couple of lookouts...

 ... then stopped for lunch at the chocolate fish. 

They both through it hilarious that I was photographing my food for this blog and I love this sneaky pic they ruined/made ace! Haha I had a corn fritter with bacon and an iced coffee! DELICIOUS! 

We took his selfie at the top of Mt Victoria! What a view!

And on the way home, we stopped for cake, and supplies for the dinner I was going to make them tonight! 

I made a spag-bol and it was lush! We also had a couple of bottles of wine and stayed up chatting for a good while which was really lovely! Thanks again for the hospitality guys!! it was lovely to speak Gaelic to people again even for a wee while!