New Zealand: Nightlife and Wildlife in Wellington

 

At Te Papa: Museum of New Zealand, visitors take in "Takapau," a gigantic 
installation that mimics a traditional Maori woven mat to create a pattern
of light meant to evoke "the sacred space of the womb," a threshold
between "the world of light and life and the world of the gods."

Squeezed between the waters of Cook Strait to the south and steep hills to the north, Wellington has a compact downtown, a lively waterfront and, above in the hills, an amazing wildlife preserve called Zealandia. 

We arrived here in our rental car from the nearby wine town of Martinborough, dropped our bags at our hotel and returned the rental car. We were on foot until Saturday morning when we took a cab to the airport for our flight across Cook Strait to Blenheim on the South Island.

The nights we spent here were a Thursday, Feb. 23, and a Friday. This is something of a party town, I think, or at least there are plenty of partiers downtown.  We stayed at the Intrepid Hotel where its Puffin Bar draws a young crowd with a focus on organic wines from around the world.  Generally, wine lists in New Zealand have very few wines that aren't domestic, so it's nice that Puffin offers a break from sauvignon blancs and pinot noirs.  On both nights we were there, Puffin was packed. 

Around the corner from the hotel is Cuba Street, part of which is a pedestrian mall and a scene for street performers. A few blocks away is the waterfront with a number of tempting restaurants and Te Papa: Museum of New Zealand, a huge cultural museum.  When we were there most of one floor was given over to expaining the World War I battle of Gallipoli in which tens of thousands of New Zealand and Australian troops died in Winston Churchill's doomed effort to control the entrance to the Black Sea. The battle is recalled every year on April 25, Anzac Day (Australian New Zealand Army Corps). The battle is considered the beginning of national consciousness for both countries.

Go the other way from the hotel to Lambton Quay (a city street, not a quay) and you'll find a funicular cable car that takes you uphill to a residential neighborhood and a free shuttle bus that will take you to Zealandia.  This sprawling eco-preserve provides habitat for what seems like countless bird species that can be seen from its many trails, some lined with towering tree ferns.

We had a couple of memorable meals in Wellington, a lunch at the Crab Shack on the waterfront with shellfish to die for (I used to live on a Chesapeake Bay island, so I'm pretty picky) and a dinner on Cuba Street at Highwater Eatery. 

Here are some photos:

The lobby of the Intrepid Hotel. The door at the rear opens into the Puffin Bar.

Street musicians on Cuba Street on a Friday night. The
next morning on the way to the airport, out cabdriver
said we had heard a well known local band. The 
trombonist also played saxaphone with an amazing
amount of energy, We sat and listened to them 
for quite a while.

This was one of the more unusual things
we saw on our trip. This young woman
was walking on the waterfront, stopped,
undressed to her underwear and put
her clothes in a backpack. She then 
hid the backpack behind a closed
kiosk, and walked out on this plank
and jumped into the harbor. This 
attracted no attention from anyone but
us, not even when she eventually
climbed out of the water and
reclaimed her backpack. The water,
by the way, must have been quite cold.

After watching the harbor swimmer, we found another photo to take.

Te Papa: Museum of New Zealand focuses on the country's history of immigration,
from the first Polynesian settlers who became the Maori to the different waves
of Europeans.  The country encourages immigration and we found people who
had themselves moved to New Zealand from a variety of countries, from the U.S.
to India to Peru.

This installation of wind chimes is by Kate Newby and is called
"She's Talking to the Wall."

This Maroi boat is made of parts from different boats and some new carvings, but it
gives an idea of how elaborate Maroi design can be. 

Other than having seen a movie or two, I knew very
little about Gallipoli and the huge cost paid by 
New Zealand and Australian troops in a hopeless
campaign. It is considered the Ottoman Empire's
last military victory.

A cable car carries people between downtown Wellington and
a hilltop residential neighborhood with a wildlife preserve.

I seldom miss a chance to ride a funicular like the 
Wellington Cable Car. I like how the carriage
is built on the same slant as the track.

Parts of the cable car route involve tunnels,
and they have strips of ights that change
color, making for a sort of psychedelic
experience. 

"I see it. Do you?"  This group ahead of us on a Zealandia trail was pretty good
at spotting birds. We usually could see whatever it was that they had seen.

Trails at Zealandia wind through dense underbrush
and over creeks and streams.

Tree ferns can be as tall as palm trees, which
they slightly resemble.

Looking down from a bridge at the top of a tree fern.

This is a koera or California quail. It is not native to
New Zealand, but it's thought to have filled a
niche left by the extinction of a native quail.

This kaka, or brown parrot, is at one
of many feeding stations at
Zealandia.

This is the bird we were most excited to see at Zealandia. It's a takahe, a flightless
bird about the size of a chicken. It was once thought to be extinct and is still
critically imperiled nationally. 

We saw both of the two takahes as Zealandia.