A Weekend in Wellington

Bree and I finally made it down to Wellington for the weekend and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Wellington is New Zealand’s capital city and home to New Zealand Parliament. From Palmerston North it is only a two hour drive south down the Hwy 1 and so even a day trip is an option. We decided to travel down on a Friday after school and then spend the weekend so that we would have sometime to see many of the areas attractions. 

I booked a hotel over the internet but lucked out as it was a small and beautiful family run hotel, called Hotel Willis, right near the downtown core. We were able to park the car in their lot and leave it there for the entire weekend as everything was walking distance. They also had a little lounge area and served breakfast for a small fee.

On Saturday morning we headed out early and had a bite to eat on Cuba street, which is well known for its diversity of restaurants. We then walked along the waterfront and over to Te Papa, the national museum that is very interactive based. One of the many great things about Te Papa is that there is no entry fee. The place is huge and it is worth having a map to decide how to best allocate your time. We started with the large interactive New Zealand map and then went on to learn about volcanoes and of course earthquakes. Bree went into the earthquake simulator house and found
 that pretty scary. Since the recent Christchurch earthquake and then the one in Japan she has been very concerned about possible earthquakes.

We then went on to visit bush city, the mountains to sea exhibit, the story of the peolpe in New Zealand (passports) and some other exhibits. On almost every floor there are also designated areas for children with hands-on activities and Bree loved to spend time in these areas. Outside in the bush walk area there was even a large sand pit where children could dig for fossils.

After about 4 hours our brains were full and are stomachs were empty so we headed out to the waterfront to get some lunch. There was a big dragon boat event taking place so the entire area was full of food booths, crafts, and every kind of ice cream treat imaginable. It was a beautiful sunny day and so we strolled along the water front and sampled a variety of items. We eventually ended up near the cable car and decided to take a ride up to the top. Wellington is a pretty hilly city so the short ride up the cable car gave us some great views and you can then walk through the botanical gardens.

Also at the top is the Carter Observatory and so we went to check it out. They have exhibits and also a planetarium show which we took in. After that we walked through the gardens to a wonderful playground where Bree spend about an hour on the flying fox (a kid’s version of a zip line). By late afternoon we made our way back to the Cuba Street and looked for an interesting place for dinner. We ended up at the Flying Burrito Brothers (Mexican) and had a nice meal before heading back to the hotel at almost 7pm.

On Sunday we went to the Wellington Zoo which you can spend an entire day at. Every half hour or so are different talks you can attend and Bree especially enjoyed the “be a vet in 5 minutes” where she was able to dress up as a vet and help do a health check on an animal. We had to be back at Palmy by 5pm so we left after lunch but I think we could easily spend another day at the zoo.

Wellington was a great trip and in some ways it reminded me of Vancouver. I think the beautiful weather helped make the trip a success as walking around in the rain would have been less enjoyable. I do think we will head back again as there are just some many things to do and two days is not enough.