WELLINGTON - Not a Speck

Wellington is one clean city. Barely a speck. And I can't be certain but I'm fairly sure, I passed one broken bottle on the ground walking up a street and, half an hour later coming out of a bookshop, found it was gone. On a Saturday afternoon. Now that's how to look after your capital city.


Wellington from Mount Victoria.

Funnily enough, wandering around here reminds me a lot of Rio. The scenery isn't so striking, or exotic, but the city lazily spreads itself around both water and between hillscapes in a similarly pleasing way. No favellas here, of course. Like Auckland, if Wellington does have a seedier side then it keeps it well hidden from the hordes of tourists who are fast becoming New Zealand's biggest industry (in fact, if they don't already in 2005/6, the yearly tourist influx will soon be greater than the entire population of the country. Isn't that interesting? It's the sort of random fact you'd only get from some strange person you meet halfway round a rainy mountain. Which is exactly where I got it from two days ago)

Due to various bus/boat/chaos theory influenced factors on my part I only got one day to explore the city, which is a pain as it was one of my more anticipated stops. Needless to say, a fairly hefty walking schedule soon developed to allow me to get up all the major hills, browse all the book shops and get to the post office to send back the key from my last hostel which I forgot to hand in when I left (sorry, Ski Haus) Mount Victoria was the first stop. Scenic views and open parkland coupled with large pine forested hills. I spent a happy few hours wandering around, completley forgetting I was in the middle of a city. And, because it's New Zealand, I even stumbled (quite literally, darn steep paths) onto a Lord of the Rings location:


"Get off the road!" This familliar bit of track isn't signposted and I couldn't claim to be able to give directions but you'll know it when you find it. There aren't *that* many paths with spooky overhanging trees in Wellington.

A short hop, jump and cable car ride later (grr...) I was off to Wellington's second hill. Covered with its very pretty botanical gardens and equally pretty historical graveyard. Rose gardens, observatories... It's a walker's paradise and startingly empty for a Saturday afternoon. Maybe because it's just so darn huge. I was impressed by it all. My hayfever wasn't.


So, here we have typical Wellington. In the back, Mount Victoria. Then the city and, in front of that, cricketers. Finally, the famous red cable car/train type thing. And there you have it. Serve with sunshine and a side order of nice Kiwi people.


Roses in, funnily enough, the rose garden.

So leaving behind the hills I headed for that little world we like to call history. Being a stunningly new kind of a place, of course, Wellington doesn't have much in the way of historical buildings (and if there are ancient Maori sites around then they look surprisingly like glass fronted skyskrapers to my untrained eye) but there are some interesting spots hidden down side streets. Old St. Paul's is the impossibly pretty Anglican church in the city centre. Deceptivly non-descript from the outside, the interior is all neo-Gothic wood and stained glass. Most impressive. And popular with the wedding crowd. I managed to get in during the twenty minute interval between weddings.


Old St. Paul's. Even prettier when you use someone else's wedding decor for your composition. Well, they don't have any further use for it, right?

And so that is Wellington. And that really is the North Island. Where everything is pretty and shiny, and if it isn't pretty and shiny you have no idea where it's been hidden because even the dirty bits are, actually, pretty and shiny. I tried to find the dirt, I really did. But, like so many broken bottles, it had all been taken away before I got there.


The North Island line-o-map. Not in strict chronological order, you must understand but you get the jist of it, I'm sure.