New Zealand, Wellington: Government Beehive for Capital City on the Water

The last city we visited in the North Island of New Zealand before hopping on the Interislander Ferry to make our way to the South Island for a couple of weeks was the country's capital city - Wellington. After eight days of driving around the North Island and seeing many interesting places, we wanted to relax and spend some time in Wellington. To get to Wellington from Hunterville, where we had spent the afternoon at the annual Hunterville Huntaway festival, thoroughly impressed with the number of farmers competing with their huntaways (sheep dogs) in the Shepherd's Shemozzle race, we drove south on highway 1 and stopped a couple of times along the way for breaks, one short one and one long one.

The first break was the shorter one at a town called Bulls. The main reason we stopped there was to get information from the I-Site (New Zealand's chain of tourist information centres) so we could book a ferry crossing journey to the South Island a few days later. It was important to book the ferry in advance because the price was cheaper and spaces for campervans were often fully booked; we really didn't want to pay an extortionate amount to cross the Cook Strait and we also didn't want to miss our chance to travel on the date we had planned to cross between the islands. The man working at the Bulls I-Site was very friendly and helpful; he looked up prices on the internet for us and he also phoned the ferry booking line to help us make a booking.

Wellington had several government buildings, many fine churches and some beautiful colonial buildings throughout its city streets

The price of the ferry crossing was much more expensive than we anticipated. We not only had to pay to transport our campervan, but we also had to pay for our individual selves to make the journey. Since we were too honest to have one of us hide in the shower inside our campervan during the crossing (that would have had to have been Dan since Kyle was driving), we went ahead and forked over nearly $600 New Zealand Dollars (that's about £230, or $460 US Dollars) for our tickets! Once they were booked and we'd realised that our daily budget was exceeded by five times in about ten minutes, we left the I-Site somewhat dejected; seeing our travel budget in New Zealand continue to spiral downwards, further and further into large negative numbers, was enough to make anyone feel the same way, and hopefully enough to make some of our closer friends or relatives take sympathy by donating some cash to our cause.

Before we left the I-Site, we asked the man running the place where we could fill up our campervan's water supply. The tank was empty and we wanted to find a picnic area outside Wellington for that evening's sleep, thus saving money by avoiding a holiday park campsite fee. There was a large fire hose at the side of the I-Site building and we were able to use the water without any issues; after ten minutes or so, we had a full tank of water and were on our way to Wellington again, but with another stop in mind.

The next stop we made was at Palmerston North and was a much longer stop than the one in Bulls had been. Inside the Bulls I-Site, there had been a stack of papers listing the film times for a cinema in Palmerston North, which was only about 20 minutes down the highway from Bulls. We had already had a busy day of driving through Mokai Canyon, riding the world's fastest flying fox (100mph!), making an unexpected stop in Hunterville to discover the incredible Shepherd's Shemozzle race, and spending several hundred dollars on a future ferry ride in a small town named after male cows, so we decided to treat ourselves to a film that evening on our way to New Zealand's capital.

Palmerston North was a nice little city and the 8-screen Reading Cinemas Palmerston North was in the city centre. The Reading cinema chain had a fantastic promotion underway when we were in New Zealand - film tickets could be bought at a discounted cost just by picking up a brochure before walking to the counter to pay for them. Since we got such a good deal on the tickets, and since we both love films so much, we decided to see a couple of them and completely relax after a long and busy day. We ended up seeing and enjoying Resident Evil - Extinction and Atonement, and afterwards, we headed back to our campervan to continue driving south to Wellington. It was good that our campervan was okay; we had been worried about leaving it, with all of our things inside, at the side of a road a few blocks away from the cinema.

Just outside Wellington, we found a picnic area at the side of a small inland bay and pulled over to get some rest. After seeing two films in Palmerston North, it was late when we continued our journey, around 11:00pm. It had passed midnight when we finally parked the campervan and pulled the curtains shut, and it was after 1:00am when we finally got settled and went to sleep. Our plan the next morning was to drive into Wellington and check into Capital Gateway Motor Inn for a couple of nights, but to also drive into the city centre and explore the area throughout the day.

Wellington was a small capital city, relative to others we had visited this year during our around-the-world trip, with a population of around 205,000. Overlooking a harbour, Wellington was famous as the country's culture capital, with many arts and cultural influences in the city, a lively cafe and entertainment scene, and some of the country's best shopping and restaurants. Many houses and buildings in Wellington were built on the steep hills surrounding the harbour, giving its residents, and visitors, spectacular views of the city along a rugged coastline. The main harbour in front of Wellington's Central Business District (CBD) was sheltered, and a great place for water sports and nice walks along the seafront. There were even some beaches nearby that offered refuge for people wanting to spend a lazy afternoon away from the bustling city.

After checking into Capital Gateway, we made brunch and had some tea before heading into the city centre. We were going to take the bus, but we had just missed one and the buses were not very frequent since it was a Sunday. To avoid waiting an hour for the next bus, we decided to drive into the city centre upon the holiday park manager's suggestion that we park in the Te Papa Museum car park. Finding the museum and driving further into town was not a problem, but parking our long campervan in one of the museum parking spaces was difficult. We ended up parking alongside the path (that's the same as a sidewalk for the Americans reading this) after getting approval to do so from the man working at the car park ticket gate.

The first thing we wanted to do after parking the car was to ride the gondola and catch views of the city from the air. It was just our luck that they were making repairs on the cable car ride and the repairs wouldn't be completed until the next day. It was just our luck again that the repairs took longer than they had anticipated and we were turned away again the next day. Since we couldn't ride the gondola, we used that first afternoon to become acclimatised to the city, and we walked all around the place whilst observing several buildings, churches and neighbourhoods along the way. When we had walked towards the gondola from Te Papa Museum, we had taken the harbour front route before strolling down Wellington's busy streets, so we decided to walk back in another direction, cutting across more of the city centre's shopping and financial areas.

Wellington had several government buildings (the Parliament building was shaped like an enormous beehive), many fine churches (Old St. Paul's was a fantastic old wooden building) and some beautiful colonial buildings throughout its city streets. We saw a lot of nice restaurants, bars, shops and cafes that we wished we could have eaten at if we weren't travelling on a budget and trying to use the groceries in our campervan for our meals, or eating cheap delights such as those served at McDonald's or KFC (we're guilty as charged, of eating at both places). After walking around for a couple of hours, we made it back to Te Papa and checked out the museum's excellent displays until they closed at 6:00pm. We learned more about Maori culture there, we found out what it would be like if an earthquake hit our living room, and we saw many examples of creatures living in New Zealand, both native species and introduced animals from other countries.

Entrance to Te Papa was free and we didn't finish looking through all of the exhibits in the large museum, so we agreed to venture back there the following day and finish the last two floors of the museum. Since the museum closed at 6:00pm the first time we were there, we wanted to see a film before heading back to our holiday park, which was situated at the edge of the city centre. By doing that, we ended up saving $10.00 NZD (around £3.80, or $7.60 USD) because the car park attendant wasn't at the ticket gate when we left later that evening, and the barrier had been raised, allowing us to drive through without paying for parking. The film we watched, "La Vie En Rose", was a brilliant biopic focusing on the life and times of Edith Piaf, a tiny French woman with a powerful voice and even more powerful addictions.

Back at Capital Gateway, we checked our emails and then ate a healthy dinner of tortilla chips and salsa with orange juice. We wanted to get an early start the next morning so we went to bed at a decent time. When we woke up after a good night's sleep, we ate scrambled eggs for breakfast and then drove into the city centre again, with full intentions of parking in the Te Papa car park for the entire day, leaving late enough in the evening to avoid paying as we had done the previous day. When we found out that we couldn't ride the gondola for the second time, we thought we would make use of our afternoon by having a nice lunch and getting haircuts. We walked for almost an hour, trying to find a decently priced hairdresser, and also a Mexican restaurant that was listed in a Wellington tourist brochure that we had picked up somewhere in town. Don't worry; we planned to share a main course at the Mexican place, keeping our focus on our travel budget at all times.

The only hairdresser we passed wanted us to pay $60 NZD (£23, or $46 USD) for a haircut, which we quickly and politely declined. About half an hour before finding the expensive one, we had passed a standard barbershop with much lower rates, but we weren't convinced that we would come out of the building looking like the clean-cut individuals we would like to have people think we are, and we reminisced at that point of "haircuts in the hood" experience in Phoenix in the US.

The Mexican restaurant was called The Flying Burrito Brothers Cantina and Tequileria (try saying that one five times fast). When we finally arrived at the place, it was closed! They only served customers for dinner and didn't open until 4:30pm, several hours after we had arrived. Since it was closed, we started looking for a Thai restaurant because it sounded like a good alternative to Mexican food; however, the few places we passed on one of Wellington's busier streets, Vivian Street, were all closed during the afternoon, too. Sadly, we settled for a meal at KFC after walking around for ages being completely indecisive.

Both of us had stomach problems and they got worse as we walked around looking for the Mexican restaurant and a hairdresser. When we entered Te Papa Museum so we could explore the remaining two floors, each of us had to duck into the men's loo to take care of the demon D. We think it hit us hard because of the double-whammy of McDonald's the day before and KFC an hour earlier, and we each took a couple of Immodium tablets to fix the problem. When we had seen all of the last displays in the museum, we walked a block over to the Courtenay Place shopping mall to see another film called "Eastern Promises". The great film starred Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts and told the tale of a Russian family in London and some of the bad things that happen when prostitution, money-laundering and other crimes occur.

Despite having bad stomachs, we somehow ended up eating fast-food Indian food in the shopping mall before seeing the film. We shared a chicken korma with rice and a few small onion bhajis, and a large Coke. The shopping mall had a couple of cafes and we had parked ourselves and the laptop at one of them before eating an Indian dinner and again after the film ended, so we could finish up the last of our "US and A" travel journal entries. As planned, the ticket gate employee was not there when we returned to our vehicle, and we left the Te Papa Museum car park without paying. The money we saved on parking paid for two of our film admission tickets!

The next morning, we were booked on the Interislander ferry to Picton, a town just across the Cook Strait from Wellington. Our boat was due to leave at 8:25am and we were supposed to check in an hour earlier. To do that, we had to wake up at 6:40am and we were happy to have gone to bed right when we returned to the holiday park after leaving the Te Papa Museum car park. We made it to check in with plenty of time to spare, and we waited patiently for the enormous ferry's gates to open, letting all of the campervans, automobiles and large shipping trucks through to park.