Wellington - the cozy capital

We now made a big leap south with an uneventful overnight stay to quickly reach Wellington. On the one hand, we wanted to finally get to the South Island before the Christmas holiday summer vacation boom starts, and on the other hand, the English motorcycle had a small ailment that required a visit to a workshop. Fortunately, this was successfully taken care of on the first day, so we had 3 more days to explore the city.

And it was really worth it. Wellington is a university city and the seat of government, but it does not have a major airport that brings tourist masses into the city. Therefore, Wellington is quite relaxed and at the same time more creative than mainstream, the location on the natural harbor is beautiful, and the downtown area is very nicely done in many parts. So there was a lot to discover, such as galleries, second-hand stores, and craft stores. And there are also nice things to discover in the streets.

But it's not just strolling through the city that has its charm, there were some visitor highlights that we didn't want to miss. The Te Papa Museum, a modern building from the 90s in a great location right in the harbor, is an absolute must. You can spend quite a lot of time here. We mainly visited the earthquake exhibition. There, you could experience an earthquake in a simulator and learn how to make your house earthquake-proof in a computer-animated quiz. There was also the opportunity to look under the earthquake-proof building in the basement to see the construction with huge rubber bearings on which the foundation stands. The art exhibition was also worth seeing.

Also, the ride on the cable car to a hill above the city was very nice. From there, we had a magnificent view of the downtown area, and the way down through the Botanic Garden was fascinating. And since we were already in the capital, we of course also visited the Parliament. There is no need to register, you just go there. The crowd was not big either, but we still had to go through a security check. After a guided tour of the beautifully restored Parliament buildings, which took about 1 hour, we were able to watch a heated debate in the Parliament chamber from the visitor gallery. And here, too, they showed us in the basement how they installed an earthquake-proof foundation during the renovation using the same technique as in the Te Papa Museum. We were proudly told that this technique was developed in New Zealand and is now being applied worldwide.

However, it was not so nice that the effects of the earthquake in mid-November were clearly visible. Broken windows and painting work in the hotel because the plasterboard had cracks were the smaller things. We also saw completely closed buildings with fallen mannequins and a street was completely closed off.