Monday 11 March 2013 Wellington New Zealand

We got off to a slow start today. Left the hotel at 9:20 and headed off for a bit of exploring.

First stop was the Botanic Gardens and a ride on the Wellington Cable Car. We eventually drove to the top of the Cable Car and then walked back down towards the city through the Botanic Gardens. The gardens are very well kept, as Deb said, there wasn’t a weed to be seen anywhere. The walk was very relaxing and we finished up in the Rose Garden at the bottom. The girls had a great time taking lots of photo’s of the many and varied roses on display. We then walked down into town, through an old cemetary full of interesting headstones and stories of the past. We eventually found our way to the Cable Car Base Station. I wish they had an integrated tourist map that gave the average tourist more specific information, rather than those dumbed down “Cartoon” styled maps showing general locations. Unfortunately for us, we got to the bottom just as half a cruise ship of tourists arrived and it took us almost 40 mins to get to the top, after what was only a 5 min ride.
From there we drove down to Parliament House. We arrived just in time to get the 12 Noon tour. The tour went for about an hour and was full of interesting information on both the buildings and their history and on the workings of the NZ Parliament. After a serious quake in the 90’s the Parliament buildings were refurbished and “Earth Quake Proofed”. They literally cut the foundations away from the upper buildings and put “rubber cushions” under the entire building to cushion them from the effects of quakes up to about 7.5 on the Richter Scale. Some of the longer rooms in the Old Parliament building were also cut in half lengthways, with rubber seals put into the cuts to help with sideways movement.
NZ abolished its’ Upper House many years ago and then recently introduced Proportional Representation rather than first passed the post voting. I was surprised to find out that, except for conscious votes in the parliament, all voting on Bills is also done on a proportional basis, it must be a nightmare for determing if a Bill or ammendment is passed or not! This sytem has resulted in about 8 parties being represented in the NZ parliament and the minority parties having more influence on legislation that goes through the parliament.
We then drove back to the hotel and had lunch before walking across to the Wellington Natonal Museum. It is an amzing collection of exhibits. In the front foyer area were gigantic statues of characters from the movie, The Hobbit. They had an earth quake experience exhibit, a gigantic squid, whale skeletons, dinoursaur exhibits, etc, etc. It is one of the better interactive museums we have ever been in. For me it’s up there with the Smithsonian in Washington DC and the British Museum in London.
We finished our last day with John and Georgie with a very nice meal at Logan Brown on Cuba Street, thanks for a yummy meal and the company wasn’t bad either! It was a great way to finish off our time touring around NZ together. J & G head to Auckland tomorrow morning to do a bit more exploring by themselves before heading back home. We will miss their company, hopefully it wont be too long before we catch up again.
Thank you Eileen for your message, it’s nice to know you’re enjoying our musings. 🙂