Capital city... con't

Lots to tell about my last two days in Wellington.

Tuesday, April 17

I little bit of a slow start to Tuesday, as the half-day tour I was trying to book was unsure if it had the numbers to make the trip worthwhile. It was supposed to be a tour of the Hutt Valley, Mt Victoria, a local seal colony, and stops along the way at many of the Lord of the Rings film locations that were chosen for places like Hobbiton Woods, Helms Deep, Minas Tirith, Rivendell and Isengard.

I called at 9:00 a.m., and they still weren't sure whether they were going that afternoon. I told them to forget it, and went searching for other options. The only thing available, though, was a series of exclusive "LOTR Tours," where guides use film clips, props and other cheesy stuff to recreate the scenes of the movie at each location. I was originally dead against such an obvious tourist trap, but as I looked down the list of things left to do in Wellington, I found the results to be few and far between. I decided to grab a few pamphlets and said I'd think about it.

I had two short stops in the morning, one located right next to the other. The first was the New Zealand Archives, which houses the original copy of the Treaty of Waitangi (the story of which I won't repeat here because I know you've all been paying so much attention to my mini-history lessons. For those in need of a refresher, check out the link or my Feb 13 post).

The treaty is available for the public to see, but is housed in a high-security vault, dimly lit for preservation purposes, and is encased in bullet-proof glass. Needless to say, no pictures. It was really cool to see it though, an iconic piece of New Zealand history.

The next stop was Old St. Paul's cathedral. Made entirely of wood (Wellington is prone to earthquakes, and wood has more give than stone), it has beautiful vaulted ceilings, stained-glass windows and carvings all around. I spent a few minutes looking around inside, and threw some money in the collection after being intimidated by the 500 year old woman standing at the entrance. I swear her entire job is most likely to glare at people who come look at the church and don't donate any money. Creepy.

Anyway, after that I hit the local bus station and caught a ride out the to Karori Wildlife Bird Sanctuary. Right in the middle of Wellington, the city has cordoned off hundreds of acres of land in hopes of elevating the population of some native species of birds who have been badly hit over the past few decades by introduced predators and urban development. The entire area is cordoned off in by a NZ-invented fencing system that's too high for cats to jump over, to difficult for possum to climb, too deep for rabbits to burrow, and too dense for weasels to munch through. It's quite the contraption.

I spent the better part of three hours walking the trails of the sanctuary. Birds were EVERYWHERE... the whole population rising thing is definitely under control. It was almost scary how many birds were in there! The most dominant one was definitely the Tui, New Zealand's "other" native bird (though not a national emblem like the Kiwi, it does have a beer named after it, which 'round these parts is just as distinct an honour!).

I got back into the city at around 5:00, and hit the Internet cafe for a quick email check and a look to see if there was anything going on in the city that night. I didn't find much in the way of interesting activities, but my attention was brought to the Embassy Theatre. About six years ago, this gorgeous, old-style theatre was in shambles, and was on the verge of being torn down. However, with the success and popularity of the Lord of the Rings movies, the theatre was instead renovated to it's original splendour and housed the world premiers of all three movies. Some of you may remember it better with a giant Gollum or flying Nazgul perched on top!

Anyway, I went to the theatre's website and found they were showing two features that evening: 300 and Curse of the Golden Flower. 300 looked really bloody and gruesome (and after seeing Sin City and having nightmares for weeks, I wasn't really interested), so I chose Curse, a Chinese movie about family betrayal set during the Tang Dynasty. It was REALLY good, almost Shakespearean. It kind of reminded me a bit of Hamlet/Macbeth... but, you know, with kung-fu.

After the movie I took a walk around the city to get a feel for the nightlife. It was only Tuesday, so there really wasn't much going on, but I had a pleasant walk and found Wellington to be just as beautiful at night as in the daytime.

Back at the hostel my roommates were just about to throw on another movie, and this one I definitely recommend taking a look at. It stars Anthony Hopkins and is called The World's Fastest Indian. It's the true story of Burt Monro, a Kiwi who spent his life rebuilding a 1920s motorcycle called the Indian. Munro, a man of little means from Invercargill, on the South Island, makes it his life's pursuit to take his bike to Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats (quite possibly the flattest place on earth) and break the world land-speed record. It's an amazing story, and Munro is a totally awesome character. (Dad and Grandpa John, I thought of both you while I was watching this! Definitely a good choice for a Saturday night!).


Wednesday, April 18

I was up and dressed by 8:30 on Wednesday morning, waiting downstairs for my bus tour to arrive. Halfway through the day before I had wandered into an information centre and talked to a couple of the attendants about the LOTR tours. They'd both done the one I was looking at, and said it wasn't actually as cheesy as it sounded. The guides were really knowledgeable, and if you were a fan of the movies you'd definitely get a lot out of it. I figured what the hell, I'd give it a shot.

I was picked up at 8:30 by my guide, who said we had one more stop to make to pick up two more passengers. I was a little surprised, as the day before the girls had made it sound as though the tour was normally packed with people. Anyway, we pulled up to the second hostel and waited for the other two for about half an hour. They didn't show. The guide came back to the bus and said it was just me for the day.

No thanks, I thought. The only thing that would make me more of a loser than going on a Lord of the Rings tour, is going on a Lord of the Rings tour, BY MYSELF. I told the guy I'd been lead to believe there were usually lots of people taking the tour, and that I wasn't really interested in doing it myself. He understood and gave me a refund, leaving me with another full day to occupy my time in Wellington.

I hit another cafe and whipped out the Fodor's guide, yet again. The rain had finally caught up with me, and I had pretty much done all of the big outdoor activities, so I flipped over to the indoor stuff. Te Papa, the New Zealand equivalent to our Museum of Civilization wasn't far away, and had an exhibit on Egypt that looked really cool. I decided to go check it out.

The museum was really fun, but was PACKED with kids by the time I got there. As I mentioned before, it's school holidays again, and a lot of day camps had decided to take the youngins for some culture. A line from a Jewel song immediately entered my head: "Dad took his monkeys to see the kids at the zoo."

Totally nuts.

Anyway, the exhibit was really great, an the rest of the museum was a blast as well. I stuck mainly to the New Zealand culture-type exhibits, and really enjoyed one on Maori culture through European painting. Ancient Maoris were known for their tattooed faces, which along with the bulging eyes and chest-slapping, was meant to make them look more fierce in battle. Woman were tattooed as well, with symbols of faith and protection, and it made for some amazing visuals in the artwork. I could have spent all day in there.

I emerged three hours later, and headed back to my hostel. It was still raining and I had no clue what to do with my afternoon, so I basically sidled up to the front desk and said "I'm bored."

The desk attendant was one I had talked to before when I was first contemplating the LOTR tour, and was sad to learn that it hadn't worked out for me. We chatted for a few minutes, and then she said something that made my day. She said that most of the filming for the movies that was done in Wellington was on Mount Victoria, a mountain smack dab in the middle of the CBD. She said there's trails all through there, and a lot of the locations are marked with spray paint so that the tour guides know where to stop.

I knew it was a scam.

She pointed me in the direction of the trail map, and I was off for a self-guided tour of Mount Vic.

Well I didn't really find much (nothing that I recognised, anyway), but the walk up to the summit took a little over an hour, and was really fun. One place that was marked with spray paint and looked a little familiar was this:

I won't say from which scene I think it's from so as not to cloud judgement, but if anyone recognises it, let me know ;).

The sun was out again once I reached the summit, but the wind was howling and bitterly cold. I had seen another guy walking up the mount on a different trail, and saw him taking in the scenery as I huffed and puffed my way up to the top. He introduced himself as Isaac, from California who was doing the last year of his undergrad at Wellington's University of Victoria. We sat up there in the wind chatting for about half an hour, and then decided it was best to get out of the cold, and walked back down to the city together.

Once on level ground, Isaac asked me if I had any other plans for the day. I told him I was free and clear, and he asked if I wanted a tour of Welly's downtown square, through the eyes of one who had spent almost a year in the city. I grateful for the offer, and immediately took him up on it.

We walked around for about an hour, and then stopped at a cafe right near my hostel for a caffeine injection. Having only just heard about the Virginia Tech shootings that morning from a free paper I'd been given at the museum, I asked him if he had any friends on the east coast who may have been affected by the tragedy. He said he had a few friends who went to uni in Virginia, but none at that school, which was a relief. We spent the rest of the afternoon basically talking about the state of the world... it was great to chat with a fellow North American, as the isolation of this country tends to make Kiwis see things a bit differently that we do.

I left Isaac just before dinner-time, and headed back to the hostel for some grub. My roommates were back from their day's activities as well, and Andrew, an Aussie who'd been staying in the room as long as I had, was itching to go out on the town. I said I'd go for a few drinks with him, but I had to be up early the next day to catch the InterIslander ferry to the Picton, so it couldn't be a late night.

Hah, yea right.

I was actually well behaved on Wednesday night. I got a bit tipsy, but wouldn't say I was drunk. I left Andrew and a bunch of other people we'd met at a the bar at a little after midnight, and went back to my room for a sleep.

Andrew came back at about 3:00 a.m., and woke me up, saying he had a present for me. It referred to a comment I'd made to him after we got chatting one night about religion (I think the conversation came about after I told him I'd been to check out Old St. Paul's). I told him I didn't really subscribe to a particular faith, but if I did I would be one that leaned more towards the value of things like nature or self-improvement, instead of some intangible force. Something like Buddhism, or even Wicca.

Well that night he drunkenly sidles up to my bed and drops a construction pylon into my lap. "Here you go," he says. "I found you a witch's hat."

I don't know if it was the booze, or the way he said it or what, but I burst out laughing, and the two of us were in a fit of giggles for a good fifteen minutes. There was one other guy staying in the room, and when he groggily asked what the hell was so funny at 3:00 a.m., I couldn't even get the story out without bursting again. It was TOO hilarious.

I was up at 6:30 the next morning for my ferry, and left the pylon directly in Andrew's line of sight from where he was sleeping. Shoved on top was a little note with a my email address, and an invitation to party again together in Canada. I'll never forget little Andy... and my witch's hat!