Catching Up and Covering Some Miles
It’s been four weeks since we left Wanaka and a little less than that since I’ve taken the time to sit down and write about our trip. I find the concept of “taking the time” to do something to be problematic because I’ve realized I don’t need to take what I have in abundance. I’ve had more free time these past nine months than I can ever remember. It’s such a luxury. And, with that luxury comes the responsibility to better choose how I spend that time and even with my months of practice I am not getting any better at it. I am the same procrastinator in New Zealand that I was in the United States. I know it confounds Cameron as he is the complete opposite.
So, in the interest of being efficient and making myself feel better about not being weeks behind on blogging I am going to do a catch-up post and try and cover four weeks of our time in as concise a manner as I can manage. First up, our final days in Wanaka and weekend in Christchurch.
Not far outside of Wanaka is Roy’s Peak, one of many mountains in the area that are on the edge of or part of Mt. Aspiring National Park. Unlike some of the mountains we hiked this summer, Roy’s Peak is unremarkable when viewed from the ground and if it weren’t for Instagram it is unlikely we would have known about it at all. I started following some NZ travel and blogger accounts on Instagram when we decided to do this trip and the view from the top of Roy’s Peak is one of the most photographed in the country. We set out on our third to last day in Wanaka to see if it was as phenomenal a perspective as it looked on our phone screens. It’s a hard hike, a roundtrip of 9.7 miles with 4000 feet of elevation gain. It’s definitely the toughest hike we’ve done as a family, but goodness is it worth it. I will let the pictures speak for themselves:
Two days after Roys Peak we packed the car, had breakfast at the same cafe we ate at our first morning in Wanaka, and then started the six hour drive to Christchurch. Along the way we stopped at Lake Pukaki and Aoraki/Mt. Cook Village, where we were able to see NZ’s tallest mountain from its eastern side (we first saw it from the west when we went to Franz Josef Glacier). After checking out the Visitor Centre and Museum at Mt. Cook we stopped for lunch on Lake Tekapo followed by a quick visit to the Church of the Good Shepherd, another social media darling of NZ. We made it to Christchurch around dinner time and got a good night’s sleep before spending Saturday exploring the largest city on the South Island.
Chances are you’ve heard of Christchurch before for two horrible reasons. First, the devastating earthquakes that occurred there in 2010 and 2011, including over 4000 small aftershocks, that killed 185 people and caused over $20 billion in damage. Secondly, the horrendous terrorist attacks at two of its mosques this past March when an avowed white supremacist killed 51 people and injured another 49. This double dose of unthinkable horrors may have broken some cities and their citizens, but from what we saw in Christchurch they are a resilient and resolute community. Our visit to the Transitional Cathedral (popularly known as the Cardboard Cathedral) was particularly uplifting and hopeful. This contemporary church of international architectural significance is the temporary home for the Anglican Diocese while it waits on the rebuilding of the 115 year old cathedral damaged in the earthquake. The city seems to be thriving now and on a dreary, windy day the streets and parks were full of residents and visitors out enjoying newly built playgrounds, freshly painted murals, and reopened cafes and shops. There is still lots of work to be done to physically repair the city, but its spirit seems to be intact and strong.
It wasn’t until we were walking back to our motel after a full day of sightseeing that we realized that one of the mosques from the terrorist attack was around the corner from where we were staying. Hagley Park, which we were walking through at that moment, was where the mosques held Friday prayers a week after the shooting and 20,000 people showed up to show their support for the Muslim community, encircling those praying in a show of support and protection. That moment of realization in Hagley Park will be one of my strongest memories from this trip. The physical proximity to such fear and healing physically affected me.
We were up very early the following morning to take the Coastal Pacific train from Christchurch to Picton where we boarded an Interislander ferry to cross the Cook Strait to Wellington on the North Island. The train and ferry was the perfect way to travel as it allowed us to relax and enjoy the scenery. The ferry ride was quite different from ferry trips we’ve done in the US. Because the Cook Strait is very tempestuous the boats are similar in size and amenities (minus the pools) to small cruise ships. They carry tractor trailers, train cars, and personal vehicles in addition to many walk-on passengers. After a full day of traveling we got into Wellington in the early evening, took a cab to the apartment we had rented for the month, got settled, and walked down the street for dinner.
We had read that Wellington was a very walkable city with good public transportation so we had decided to live in the central city and forgo renting a car. Wellington is the capital of New Zealand and has a population of around 213,000 within the city and another quarter million in the surrounding suburbs. In 2018 Deutsche Bank named Wellington the city with the best quality of life in the world. Nicknamed “Windy Welly”, the city is by many measures the windiest city in the world because of its position on the narrow Cook Strait that connects the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean. On the upside, the wind clears out any air pollution very quickly and powers wind turbines that provide electricity to the area. And, it definitely creates hardy residents as any Welly resident we talked to said they didn’t actually think it was that windy there and most people wore less layers than we needed to stay comfortable. It was by far the most fickle weather I have ever experienced and since we didn’t have a car and were walking a lot we had to learn to live with it.
Our first couple of days in the city were spent getting settled and familiar with our new location. Our apartment was on the western side of Mt. Victoria, which boasts one of the best views of the city and the harbor. We quickly fell back into the routine we started in Wanaka. Mornings are for school work, going to the gym or on a run, and any errands we need to do. Then, we try and get out and explore in the afternoons. I’m not going to give a super detailed rundown on our day to day activities in Wellington, but will just hit some of our highlights:
Wellington Botanic Garden- Sitting on a hill above the central business district (CBD) and Victoria University these beautiful themed gardens meander down the hillside.
Te Papa Tongarewa/Museum of New Zealand- This is one of the most beautiful museum spaces I have ever visited. Highlights included the Gallipoli: The Scale of Our Wars exhibit that examined the most infamous failed war campaign in the country’s history through a collaboration with Weta Studios, who created 2.4 times scale sculptures of real New Zealanders who were part of the campaign. The exhibit was designed to emphasize the immense impact that WWI and the Battle for Gallipoli had on the country and its people and it was a very raw and moving presentation. In complete opposition to the mood of that exhibit was the fun and joyful art installation “Finale: Bouquet”.
The Wellington Zoo- Walkable from our apartment, this medium size zoo was an unexpected highlight for me, especially the up close interactions with the giraffes and orangutans.
Days Bay and the Pencarrow Trail- A quick ferry ride across Wellington Harbour takes you the the quaint town of Days Bay and provides access by bike to the Pencarrow Head Lighthouse, which we had previously viewed from the deck of the Interislander ferry when we first arrived in Wellington.
Weta Workshop Tour- We got a behind the scenes peek at the creative workshop responsible for the costumes and props from the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies as well as many other famous films. It was fascinating to learn about their creative process and collaborations with famous filmmakers, including one of its co-founders Peter Jackson. Weta is part of “Wellywood”, a one-stop shop film community situated on the Miramar peninsula in Wellington that director Guillermo Del Toro said was “Hollywood the way God intended it.”
Tour of the Beehive, New Zealand Parliament House and Parliamentary Library - These iconic government buildings offer free public tours on a daily basis. The Beehive, also known as the Executive Building of New Zealand Parliament, houses the office of the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, and the ministers of the government (similar to cabinet members in the US government). Directly next door is Parliament House (comparable to US Capitol), which includes the debating chamber, Speaker of the House offices, and committee rooms. This was a great way to learn about the structure and process of the New Zealand government and we even got to sit in and listen to some debate, which was much closer in spirit to what you see in the UK Parliament than the US Senate or House. We also went into the basement to see the base isolation engineering system that was installed under Parliament House from 1992-1995 to insure the building could withstand an earthquake of up to 7.5 on the Richter Scale (crucial because there are multiple earthquake faults within one kilometer of the building).
The Salted Caramel Cookie at Leed Street Bakery- I know it may seem crazy to see a cookie on the highlight list, but if you were lucky enough to taste one you would understand. All four of us, who have very different tastes when it comes to desserts, agree that it’s the best cookie we’ve ever tasted. If we could figure out the recipe we would have a business we could start when we get back to the US. They’re that good.
Besides the highlights above, we did lots of walking around downtown and ate at some good restaurants. Because Wellington offers so much as a city we had decided not to do many day trips to surrounding areas like we had done in Wanaka. Instead we did a three night trip back to the South Island to check our Marlborough wine country and Abel Tasman National Park. I will cover those in another blog post since this one is already pretty long. We all enjoyed Wellington and living in a capital city, but I think we are all ready to move on to warmer, calmer, more consistent weather. Personally, I’ve always known that my mood is strongly affected by weather, mostly when there’s a lack of sunshine (there’s a decent chance I have some version of Seasonal Affective Disorder), so I’m looking forward to wearing shorts and applying sunscreen as we head towards more sunshine and temps above sixty degrees. I’m also hoping that I will be better about blogging since I will be able to do it sitting outside on our deck, overlooking Orewa Beach.