Wellington—North Island

24 – 26 March 2023

On the Way from Nelson

We left from the small but nicely designed Nelson airport, about a ten-minute drive from the motel. It has one departure gate. We boarded a prop plane for about fifty people, and the flight to Wellington took all of thirty minutes. Many people take the ferry to the North Island, but the crossing is notoriously rough and ferries are often cancelled.

Turned in the rental car. Total of 2,814 kilometers (1,749 miles)

The City

Wellington, the capitol city and cultural center of New Zealand, is set on dramatic steep hills that plunge into bays. It is far more hilly than San Francisco. Many houses dotted on the forested hillsides seem nearly impossible to reach. In fact there are 400 privately owned cable cars. Some were built by owners to get construction materials to the site and then kept for daily use. Others were built by small groups of neighbors.

Although Wellington’s downtown has a big-city feel, its population is only 212,000. If you include the suburbs, the number climbs to 400,000. Still small. In 2017-18 Deutsche Bank ranked Wellington number one in the world for livability. It claims to be the world’s windiest city, and we experienced a bit of the reason why. New Zealand is riddled with earthquake faults, and Wellington especially has been shaped by quakes that raised land several feet above the waterline to form part of the downtown and the port. The climate is similar to San Francisco. On this trip we discovered Cuba Street, a busy pedestrian retail strip filled with young people that has a touch of the Haight. Bonnie found several choices for vegan gelato there. Nearby Robert shopped, comparing Icebreaker clothes at a couple of stores we remembered from our past trip.

Accommodations

Strolling

Cuba Street—maybe not a sibling, but at least a cousin to Haight Street

Cable Car

The Wellington cable car, built in 1898, starts in the middle of the long, main retail street, Lambton Quay, climbs a steep incline, stops twice near the university, and finally ends at the top of hill. Here you can get a terrific view of the city, visit the small cable car museum, have coffee at the cafe, see one of the first observatories in the area, stroll through the hilly botanical garden, or take a walking path back down. The cable car was built to promote a new suburb with direct connections to the downtown, but it is now an iconic Wellington landmark.

Weta Workshop and Mount Victoria

We assume you have heard of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Ha! So have the Kiwis. They refer to it all the time. Although filming began more than two decades ago, most Kiwis are still eager to point out filming locations throughout the country, let you know if they were extras, made costumes, supervised helicopters, or have close friends who did. Everyone seems to have some connection to the films.

Because Lord of the Rings is so central to Kiwi culture, we made reservations to tour Weta Workshop where they make costumes, creatures, props, and backgrounds for many films and commercials. They are like Industrial Light and Magic for George Lucas and Star Wars in the Bay Area. The workshop is located in a nondescript warehouse in a residential neighborhood that also has three large sound stages built by the director Peter Jackson and also used by James Cameron for Avatar. The creative couple who started Weta in the 1980s worked with Peter Jackson on a few projects before Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. One early project, they state proudly, used the most fake blood ever in one scene of a horror movie. They describe the other early project, Meet the Feebles, as the Muppets on crack. Good Kiwi humor.

The tour was down home and not highly polished. A good thing. The enthusiastic tour guide took us through several rooms filled with examples of their work, like puppets, creatures, swords, and sci-fi robots, and we peeped through big windows to see workbenches and equipment. Some of the workshop equipment looked familiar to Bonnie from the Exploratorium shop. No photography was allowed until the last room because the prior rooms had materials for movies currently filming. At one remarkable stop, the guide showed us chainmail armor for Lord of the Rings made by slicing black pvc pipe to make tiny circles, cutting a slit in each, joining them to three others, and gluing them whole again! Two people did this for two years to make enough chainmail for all the actors, and they ended up with no fingerprints. Since then, the studio has figured out less hand-intensive means to make chainmail. The workshop also specializes in making swords, both real ones made by a masters swordsmith and realistic looking props for action scenes. Bonnie was a bit disconcerted by how much workshop production is devoted to weapons and armor. Robert was not. All in all, the work they do is very creative and very labor intensive. In two rooms people were demonstrating their skills—sculpting and sewing small creatures. Both have their own businesses for private commissions in addition to working at Weta, something the studio encourages. You do not see this at Disney. The tour is worth a visit.

Weta is the name of giant flightless crickets found in New Zealand. Among the heaviest insects in the world. Or spelled without the macron accent marks as we have done here, weta means excrement in the Maori language. More humor?

The van driver who took us to Weta made a detour up Mount VIctoria for terrific views of Wellington.

Observations

Sports teams are everywhere in NZ and many people, of all ages, belong to one. Several teams were staying in our Wellington hotel for the weekend, but I was most curious about the mature women in groups of five or six all dressed in colorful matching shirts, a bit like bowling outfits. I was guessing they played lawn bowls. But no. I asked one woman outside for a smoke who said they did Leisure Marching. When I looked puzzled she said, “You know. When some of the girls get too old for regular Marching, they do Leisure Marching.” I was still puzzled, so I tried YouTube. Indeed, this was the weekend of the national championships, where small teams march in complex formations to music, like our college marching bands. Amazing.

Possums are invasive creatures in the New Zealand landscape, but their soft fur is valued for fabric. A mix of merino wool, possum, and a touch of nylon is terrific for scarves, sweaters, and hats. Warm and cosy. A mix that includes silk is incredibly soft although pricey. Our friend Diana says the silk mix is in demand by designers in Paris and Milan.

On our last trip we weren’t tempted to shop except for a few Icebreaker clothing items. For us Americans, products weren’t exciting and store displays were dull. New Zealand has wonderful materials, craftsmanship, and heritage imagery, but we thought they needed creative product designers and graphic designers to make things like wool sweaters and greenstone jewelry more tempting. We seldom saw an unusual color or design. Overall, graphic design has improved noticeably. The best clothing design is now at the outdoor clothing stores. But we still haven’t been tempted to buy sweaters.

New Zealand is a safe place. In many towns the locals sheepishly admit that they don’t lock their cars or houses.

Robert can tell you about “flat white” coffee. His regular morning drink here.

Tattoos. Yes. On occasion you see a woman with a traditional Māori tattoo on her lower lip and chin. If you can read the symbolism, you can identify her iwi (tribe), status, and history. But as in California, most tattoos, and there are lots, diverge a long way from Māori traditions.