North Island adventures begin

Wellington is a really cool city. Good food, excellent coffee, and a wide selection of craft beer. 

I didn’t take a lot of photos in Wellington, but I did get one of my posh porridge. You’re welcome.

We spent a lot of time in the excellent national museum Te Papa. A film showing the story of the Ka Mate haka was particularly good, as were the giant, extraordinarily lifelike models in the Scale of Our War exhibition, which explained NZ’s operation in Gallipoli in the war. 

I felt it did a good job of including both Maori and Pakeha (New Zealanders of European descent) history. The museum was curated very well; there was so much to see, but it never felt crowded with artefacts, and the exhibition ran smoothly but I didn’t have to read absolutely everything. 

Our tour of the Weta Cave was fun. Lots of props from the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were hanging up everyehere. We heard about how they created weapons, prosthetics and models for the movies. We got to handle a big alien gun from District 9 and lots of examples of movie chain maille. 

On our way out of Wellington, we visited Zealandia, a bird sanctuary free of predators. NZ has no native mammals, except two species of bat, but since human settlement, rats, possums, weasels etc have wiped out many of the endemic bird population. Zealandia has created a protected area in which they can reintroduce many birds. 

This is a Kaka feeding station. In the car park, for electric vehicles, we’re car-car feeding stations 💜

We have both really enjoyed bird spotting here, and Zealandia allowed us to get up close to feeding Kaka, Pied Shags (and their chicks), the extremely rare Takahe, and noisy Tuis.

We also visited some Lord of the Rings filming locations, including Rivendell and the wood where the hobbits hide from the ringwraith (“get off the road, quick!).

We spent the night at the Putangirua Pinnacles, aka the Paths of the Dead. It was creepy walking through the shards of rock towering around us, but the campsite was incredibly peaceful. 

I’d been really looking forward to visiting, since the pinnacles are so striking. I wasn’t disappointed, and I’d highly recommended visiting, despite the long journey to get there.

Wellington and around was an excellent introduction to the North Island, re-energising us for the road ahead.