Wellington

We arrived to Wellington and that’s where our itinerary with Relaxing Journeys was over. We had almost three full days in Wellington and were on our own. We had to figure out what to do and where to go and keep in mind that we were there on Easter weekend, when many offices and stores were going to be closed.

At first we didn’t like Wellington. After Napier it seamed to be hot, crowded and busy:

The same afternoon we went for a walk to see the marina, Te Papa museum, famous Cuba street.

We didn’t spend as much time at the museum as we should, but it was very interesting to learn history of New Zealand presented in a very modern way.

Cuba street is closed for traffic and with multiple restaurants, cafeterias and shops is loved by tourists and by locals. 

It has been the place were first settlers of Welling chose to build their houses. Despite having popular local haunts like Havana Bar and Fidel’s Cafe related to the country of Cuba, it is actually named after an early settler ship called Cuba, which arrived on New Zealan’d’s shores in 1980.

For the next day we were lucky to book a sight seeing tour with Richard Bialy from Xplor Tours. Richard was an amazing guide who made us fell in love with Wellington. Here are few photos from our tour with Richard. First he took us up to Mt. Victoria from where we could see a panorama of Wellington:

Then we went to the Lord of the Rings museum:

Next was the cable car that took us up on top of the the other hill:

There was also a museum of cable car where Richard dressed us fashionably to match the style of the old cable car:

The view from the hill was amazing:

After we stopped by New Zealand’s parliament that is called the Beehive:

After that we were completely in love with Wellington:

The next day was Saturday before the Easter. Many tourists places were closed and we didn’t want to see any of those that were open. So we thought about getting out of the city and looked around. Of course, we were not interested in hiring a car and driving on the wrong side of the road. We hired a car from this company:

Rose came with her husband Gareth and took us for the day long trip outside Wellington.  Again, we saw blue ocean, deep green valleys with rapid rivers. We also saw a late blooms of New Zealand’s Christmas tree:

 

We also visited an old Maori Catholic church with the large cemetery outside:

Interesting was our trip to Macara beach on the Tasmanian Sea shore. It was a rocky beach where we could find all kinds of see weeds and shells:

It was our lucky day as we started finding paua shells:

We came back to our hotel in the evening and started preparing for the Easter. Our idea was too keep Lithuanian tradition of decorating eggs even we were far away from home. Few days ago in Taupo we picked up some gum tree leaves and bark, added bright red color skins of the unknown fruit we just ate and started brewing dies:

To learn how did the egg decoration go next morning come back next time!

But before I finish telling about Wellington, I must say that after setting up the dies we went out one more time to see the city in the evening, when there was no traffic and not many people on the streets. Enjoy these few last images from the city we now were in love with: