wellington.

enjoying a coffee by the Wellington waterfront

Our last stop on the North Island of New Zealand was a visit to Wellington, the capital city known by the locals as Windy Wellington, and also referred to as cultural capital of New Zealand and the "coolest little capital in the world."  As for the windy designation, Candice and I were very underwhelmed.  There was a nice seabreeze throughout our time in the city, but it was quite comfortable.  Our neighbourhood in Melbourne has a significant windstorm on a weekly basis, with gale force winds not uncommon, so we were expecting a bit more.  However, I can attest that Wellington is the coolest little capital I've been too, and one of the more beautiful cities I have yet visited.

Like all of the places we visited on our cruise, we had not done any prior research on things to see and do in Wellington, so after walking into the city from the ship we headed towards the first interesting building we could see.  This turned out to be the Parliament building, which was surrounded by other beautiful government buildings and a huge cathedral.  

Parliament and other government buildings

We then made our way back towards the waterfront which has a long promenade that we spent the rest of the morning walking along.  The water was a striking aquamarine colour and the city is surrounded by rolling hills, which we both appreciate as it allows for great pictures from the water and great pictures of the water from the hills.

The CBD has a few nice parks and fountains, and a lively area around Cuba Street, which is a pedestrian only street with fun shops, cafes and street performers. We had lunch here at a Kiwi kebab cafe that was quite yummy, then made our way to the Wellington Cable Car.  

whimsical Bucket Fountain

all the informational street signs featured unique sculptures

It took only a couple minutes to get to the top of the hill, which features excellent views of the city and water, as well as a fun little cable car museum.  After enjoying the views, we took a beautiful walking path back down to the city through the Botanic Gardens and a 100-year old cemetery.

inside the cable car

cable car heading back to the heart of the city

Botanic gardens

old cemetary

After spending a day in Wellington it seems to Candice and I that it should be called "the biggest little earthquake capital in the world."  Wellington is built on a significant active fault line and experiences multiple large earthquakes every year, with some locals informing us that there are small earthquakes felt on almost a daily basis that no one even bothers to report.  Candice and I are pretty convinced we felt a small earthquake or two in our few hours in Wellington, though the ground was swaying quite a bit for me from being at sea so I can't be certain.  I looked up a website that tracks earthquakes in that area which indicated there were 172 earthquakes in the past month, or 5 to 6 per day, so there's a good chance it wasn't just me swaying!

One of the main highlights of Wellington that we didn't visit is called Te Papa (meaning Our Place) and is the national museum and art gallery of New Zealand.  We had initially planned to spend some time there, but with the weather being so nice and our limited amount of time in the city, we decided to explore as much as we could.  Plus it's always nice having a reason to visit again.

BK