The capital of New Zealand: Wellington

From our overnight campsite at Mount Lees Reserve, we headed to Wellington on 12.01. right after breakfast. It was about 150km away and took us just over two hours to get there. The first thing we noticed: it was so windy! The wind was really stormy and it rocked us back and forth in the car. It was also drizzling lightly. Great weather!

In the city, we first went to the seat of government because we read in the guidebook that you can visit the buildings. Finding a parking spot was a bit difficult, but we eventually found one on the street where every parking space has a number that you enter into the parking meter. So no printed tickets in the end, everything is electronic. Kind of funny!

The government of New Zealand is located in two buildings that couldn't be more different. One is very traditional and old, while the extension to it is not traditional anymore, but modern. It is now called Beehive because it looks like a big beehive. Some people find it ugly, others think it's cool. I actually think it's quite funny. Inside the building, we had to pass a security check and were immediately approached by an employee who told us that a 30-minute highlights tour would start in 10 minutes and asked if we wanted to join. It didn't cost anything. Of course, we said yes. So we dropped off our backpack, picked up a participation sticker, quickly went to the bathroom, and went in front of the television where there was a short information film at the beginning. It was about the New Zealand government system and which people were or are important at what time. New Zealand is indeed a small country with few inhabitants, so the government is relatively small as well. Otherwise, the system is based on the English one, with a few changes. After the film, our guide introduced himself and we set off.

The first stop on our tour was the Banquet Hall, which occupies part of the Beehive and is used for receptions. Inside, the architecture of the Beehive already looked impressive to me! Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos during the tour, but that is understandable. It is a government building after all. Next, we went over to the traditional part of the building and looked around there. There was also a reception hall and then we went into the Debating Chamber. The room where the government debates and is recorded for television. Everything was in dark wood and there was a gallery. It actually looked more like a ballroom than a political debating ground. After some words about the government, we went to the right wing of the traditional building. There are various committee rooms there and we looked at the one intended for Maori meetings. Inside, there were great carved figures on the walls. And again, many questions were asked, even though we were already over half an hour behind schedule. I was already wondering how you could do a tour in half an hour. At the beginning, the guide mentioned that he would get in trouble with security if he exceeded the time, but he naturally loved that people were interested in what he was talking about. He then revealed that he is normally not a guide, but a regular employee and is only asked to do tours during peak times. But that was actually good because I think he could provide us with more detailed information.

The tour ended at twenty past 1 and Andi quickly ran to the car because our parking time had already expired half an hour ago. I picked up our backpack and then we set off to explore the city a bit. We followed the guidebook to decide where to go. First, we went to St. Paul Cathedral, which was very modern and not what we expected. We actually wanted to go to the Old St. Paul's Cathedral, which is one of the oldest wooden churches in Gothic style. But in the end, we also found the old church and explored it ourselves with the help of a flyer. It looked really beautiful inside and the government has done a great job of restoring the church!

Afterwards, we walked back to the car and drove to the National Museum Te Papa. There are exhibits and information about the history of New Zealand, as well as art and natural history. According to the guidebook, you can easily spend a whole day there. But we went there in the afternoon because the museum is open until 9:00 PM on Thursdays and we would have enough time later in the day. When we arrived at the parking lot, we quickly had lunch and just as we were about to get out of the car to go to the museum, a man pointed out that our rear tire was quite flat. And it was. Almost completely flat and with a new tire! We were really upset about it and called Spaceship again to ask what we should do. They said we should put on the spare tire and then drive to the Bridgestone workshop in Wellington, as they are Spaceship's partner and we wouldn't have to pay for the repair costs upfront. Great. We didn't feel like putting on the spare tire again, let alone that it wouldn't have been possible in the tight parking lot with cars on both sides. So we drove very slowly with the almost flat tire around the next 2 corners to a gas station and pumped it up there. It will hold until we get to the workshop. And luckily, they were able to fix something at the valve within 5 minutes and we could drive to the museum again. We still lost over an hour because of this nonsense.

The whole thing was also annoying because we found out that the museum doesn't actually stay open longer today, but closes at the usual time of 6:00 PM. But we only found out at 5:45 PM and then didn't have time to visit the remaining departments of the museum. Because we only arrived at around 4:00 PM and, as Andi and I are, we took our time and spent over an hour in the "Gallipoli - The Scale of our War" exhibition alone. It was about World War I and the Battle of Gallipoli in Turkey, in which thousands of New Zealanders died. I didn't know beforehand that New Zealand was so involved in the war and the personal stories of the 8 featured individuals in the exhibition were really fascinating. At that time, New Zealand sent just over 100,000 men and women to war, while the whole population was only 1 million. Unbelievable!

After the war exhibition, we were somehow quite exhausted and had to cheer ourselves up somehow. So we looked at the natural history section and the information about the volcanic origins of New Zealand. There, you could even lift a lava stone from the depths of the earth and test how much heavier it is compared to a "normal" stone from the surface. I couldn't lift the rock anymore! Just as we were about to go upstairs, we found out that the museum was about to close and we were only able to quickly visit an exhibition about livestock farming and country life. There was a sheep cam, a camera strapped to a sheep that filmed its daily life. It was so funny :D

At 6:00 PM, we were back outside the museum and felt sad that we couldn't see more. But that was the situation, so instead, we could now comfortably get some dinner somewhere. We ended up getting two Domino's pizzas for $5 each. After eating them in the car, we drove to the ferry terminal. We checked in and then had to wait for about 15 minutes for boarding. The ferry was huge and really not comparable to the small boats we had been on so far. Besides a few cars, they even loaded whole trucks and more cargo.

After parking in the belly of the ship, we went up to the passenger deck, where there was actually a small cinema, seats with power outlets, and a cafe. We secured two seats with power outlets and then went up to the panoramic deck. The view over the city was really great, even though the weather was still quite windy and cold. The ferry left the harbor right on time at 8:45 PM and we sailed out into the open sea. There was very little activity in the lounge area and we suspected that many passengers had booked a cabin to get some sleep. We were also soon tired and couldn't do any meaningful work, so we just watched an episode of Elementary. It was already dark outside, but before that, we could still see a great sunset as the clouds had cleared up. Really a beautiful landscape!

At quarter past midnight, we finally arrived in Picton on the South Island. Then we had to sit in the car and wait until we could drive out. On the mainland, we drove for about an hour until we reached a free campsite and could set up our camp for the night. After the day, we were really tired!