In honor of my recent visit to Wellington, THIRTEEN THINGS about WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND.
1. Wellington is the captial of New Zealand.
2. It is VERY hilly, even more so than Auckland and San Francisco. After a day spent exploring, I woke up the next day with sore thigh muscles. No need to buy a thigh master, just visit Wellington!
3. The city of Wellington is known for its wind. Evidently this is because of its position to Cook Strait. (the passage of water between the North and South Islands of New Zealand. The prevailing North-West winds accelerate through the strait giving 173 days with winds greater than 60kph (32 knots) each year on average.
4. There’s an inland island rare bird sanctuary only 5 minutes drive from the center of Wellington, which is pretty amazing. See yesterday’s post.
5. The parliament buildings are known as the Beehive because of their shape. The Beehive is the newer parliament buildings while the old building is the elegant one alongside.
6. People seem to build their houses on top of hills and they balance precariously. Many of the homes are original Victorian buildings.
7. Wellington is home to Peter Jackson and sometimes called Wellywood.
8. Our national musuem Te Papa is in Wellington. My favorite part was about our animals and I really enjoyed the section on our geology. Mr. Munro and I went into the earthquake simulation, which was amazing - an old building that shook and trembled. The earth moved! In fact, the earth kept moving for a while after we left. It was neat but weird, too.
This is one of the Maori panels plus a model of a moa and our local hawk. Both birds are extinct now but were the largest birds in the world at the time.
9. Wellington sits on a fault line and they have lots of earthquakes.
10. Mt. Victoria gives a scenic view of the city and harbor. I’m glad we could drive up rather than walking! This is me up the top of Mt. Victoria.
11. There are quite a few vineyards around. We went to Martinborough - a relief to walk around here since it was flat!!
12. All the vineyards are close to town. We hired bikes and rode around the vineyards.
13. And we stopped to have lunch and sample some of the wines. This is me relaxing at lunch. We rode around 10kms on our bikes before heading back to the hotel to soak in a spa bath. A very relaxing weekend.
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