New Zealand 4: From one Island to another

[selenak]

In which we travel from the South lIsland to the North Island and visit the capital.



Though first a few more river shots from the south that didnj't make it into the last postl. This is Swing Bridge over Bull River, and yes, we walked across.












En route to the ferry, which leaves in Picton, we passed again over Pelorus Bridge. Otherwise known as the place where thirteen Dwarves and a Hobbit got out of their barrels and met Bard the Bowman in "The Desolation of Smaug":





Now sadly, our weekend in Nelson had mainlyfeatured heavy rainfalls, and Monday, the day we switched islands, wasn't much better. However, the Pacific Coast of the South Island does look impressive in rainfall as well:



The Ferry between islands takes three hours. We arrived in fog and rain and couldn't recognize much of Wellington, though we found our Bed and Breakfast, a delightful lodge in Miramar, sure enough. The next day, however, was another matter. It started rainy as well, but by noon, the sun had returned, and thus I can provide this gorgeous overview of Wellington:






The harbour, when there isn't fog:



Athletic citizens, I must say:



Meanwhile, there's this rusty anchor:



And this modern city, though everything in New Zealand is young if you hail from my part of the world:



We visited the most famous museum of the country, the Te Papa:



Where the ground floor has fantastic nature exhibitions - extremely kid friendly, btw -, but also an exhiibition about the battle of Gallipolli which caused one of these culture clashes for us Germans. Gigantic soldier figures (courtesy of WETA, btw., detailed letter excerpts,battle movements, and my Aged Parent, born in 1945, stared and said: "They weren't heroes, they were poor sods slaughtered in an utterly pointless war just like the other guys. I don't get this war cult."

Whereas we loved the Maori exhibition in the third floor. You're not allowed to take photos within, so here are two from without at the start of the exhibition - the Treaty of Waitangi, where the Maori version said something very different to the British one, and one Waka:





After Te Papa, we took the cable car to the top in order to get that overview you already saw, then walked back to the city through the Botanic Garden. Which features one hell of a tree house:





Near the end, you pass the cemetery, the first truly big one I've seen in New Zealand. This monument is to former PM Harry Holland, and either he or his admirers seem to have had a thing for Apollo/David types:



Another cemetery detail:



After you leave the cemetary, you can already see the New Zealand Parliament and the seat of the PM, "the beehive", next door:



As opposed to all other seats of government power I've encountered, these buildings were without military guards, and also without queues - you got right in and could take part of a tour for free. Very interesting it was, too, and full of details I hadn't known, such as the one about the traffic lights. New Zealand was the first state to grant women the voting right - in 1893! - very much against the will of the then reigning PM, which is why Wellington traffic lights feature their red figure as a male and the green figure as a female.

But of course one personal highlight of the day wasn't about history. Right at the start of said day, when it was still reigning, I dragged my AP to the WETA Workshop, where you can take a 45 minutes tour. It's actually not a big building, and still has that garage workshop atmosphere, and there's work in progress - we talked to people painting models for "Thunderbirds", for example. But of course it was an extra thrill to stare at the glories of the past, hold Thorin's literal Oakenshield, or a mithril coat, and stuff from the Xena: Warrior Princess onwards (though not, alas, her chakra. The LotR movies made half the nation into part employees, one feels; for example, our landlady works at WETA while her two sons were an elf and a dwarf respectively in the Hobbit movies.



Miramar, the part of Wellington where we stayed and where WETA is, also features an old cinema named Roxy restored courtesy of Jackson & Co., hence the statue in front:



One last look at Wellington from the harbor:





On Wednesday, we started our journey to the Lonely Mountain the inner country. First along the Wantangui River:



Where we spotted the city of Jerusalem, or Hiruharama in the Maori tongue:



The church there is St. Joseph, or Hohepa, and the Maori artwork within is beautiful:









Leaving the Wantangui valleys behind, we came across the most NZ view ever. I haven't featured any sheep yet in my pics, which must be rectified in the concluding photo of this particular entry:

Comments

[lilacsigil]

Yeah, the Australia/New Zealand worship of the ANZACs must look pretty strange from the European point of view. But it's not straight-up worship of what they did, more that they were representing their very new countries. There's ANZAC history and right alongside it, though not always in the same place, is the commemoration of the WWI slaughter. Most towns, even tiny ones, have outsized war memorials for this, but it seems that in the big museums, the ANZAC side comes across more strongly.

That hobbit hole door is terrific!

[msilverstar]

It must be odd, yeah, cognitive dissonance, to see Allied WWI and WWII exhibits. I can see them feeling that the events were bringing NZ into the world, would make it hard to realize their boys were just poor sods like the rest.