Between Middle Earth and Rose Garden

It's Sunday, which means a very relaxed morning was on the agenda. You can't expect to leave the house before 10 am, we made it around 10:30 am.

Then we went by car to the eastern Peninsula Miramar. This is the seat of the famous Weta Studios. Through their hands, among other things, both Middle Earth trilogies, Avatar, King Kong, and many more well-known films have passed.
In a 25-minute (free) video, the story was summarized: from the dream of two teenagers to success with Peter Jackson to the present day size.
In one part, the costumes, weapons, film sets, in other words: all props are made, and the other is responsible for all the cool special effects and CGI. That is roughly summarized, but it should be enough.

Why the Weta? Or better: what is a Weta?

A Weta is basically a New Zealand grasshopper. Don't ask me why they chose that, they probably wanted a typical New Zealand animal that has nothing to do with the Kiwi.
So why do masses of tourists flock to these studios?
First of all, there is a really cool shop there that makes every fan's heart go crazy. Quite small, but I could have spent hours there.
In addition, tours start there that lead through the actual studios, and there is still this great short video clip.
Because of the film industry, Miramar has become a tiny Hollywood. There was even once a sign 'Wellywood' in the mountains, but then Hollywood got upset about it and it had to be taken down.

But what I actually wanted to say: It can happen that you meet one or the other movie star on the streets. Locals also casually talk about random encounters with Peter Jackson, that's just normal there. But unfortunately, it didn't happen to me today...

In conclusion, because it was on the way, we stopped at the War Memorial (which was the one with the talking toilets). The museum was closed three months ago, but a worker kindly guided us through the empty corridors. Only a few tanks were standing around because they are difficult to remove from the museum. The rest of the exhibitions ended up in some warehouse. What a shame...

After the War Memorial, the brilliant plan was as follows: I take the Cable Car up to the Botanic Gardens and there I meet my host with the car. Unfortunately, the Cable Car was closed today. So we went directly to the Botanic Gardens.

There are currently many lights being hung in the trees for the upcoming days when concerts will take place in the gardens. I would like to go to at least one of them.
Otherwise, the gardens were very beautiful - perfect for a walk with lots of colorful flowers along the way. When we reached the top of the mountain, funnily enough, the Cable Car came towards us - we couldn't explain that, but getting upset doesn't help anyway.

Because it was only early afternoon, we decided to take a short hike up a mountain. On the way, we also stopped at a hardware store to buy a Venus flytrap, in case anyone is interested.

The mountain, called Kaukau, rises about 400m high and a path winds through New Zealand bush with many stairs. When we reached the top, we were rewarded with a magnificent view - fog.
The mountain was surrounded by clouds, not even the strong wind could do anything. But sometimes the journey is the goal, so we set off on our way back.

My host took a little power nap (which turned into a rather extensive nap) and I did some exercise.

Chill evening, just the way I like it.

Because the workweek starts again tomorrow, I am on my own. Probably I will go to Mt Victoria, in that park, I can do more hiking. Te Papa is also at the top of my list.
I will definitely make use of the time!