Jon’Spot

Dec 4 - 8

Heading south from New Plymouth along Highway 1, I began to think I had left sheep behind in favor of herd after herd of cattle (which should have come as no surprise, given what I’d learned in Puke Ariki. I travelled for quite a while without seeing a single sheep, but they did start to appear again, so my previous comment still stands. Overall, the ride to Wellington, New Zealand’s capital, was uneventful, though I spent most of the time fighting strong winds coming off the Tasman Sea, which - as you can probably imagine - made for a tiring afternoon. For the first time on my trip, I arrived at my destination at the time I had planned (6:00). This was to be the first of my 4 night stops, staying in the lovely Bouqet room at Annaday Homestay, with a beautiful view of the city and harbour. As I was unloading the bike, Anne and Dave were kind enough to invite me to join them for an early Christmas dinner, which I naturally couldn’t refuse. A very nice ending to an exhausting afternoon.

I awoke the next morning to thick fog and rain. Luckily the fog lifted and the rain tapered off as I ate breakfast, though I waited until fairly late in the morning to head out for the day. After the previous day’s long ride, I thought it would be nice to do a walking tour of Wellington that was in one of the travel guides I had brought. I started at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa… and didn’t leave until they closed at 6:00 that evening. The four levels of exhibits and art galleries covered a wide range of New Zealand culture and history, and amazingly has no admission fee (as I’ve found with most government-run sites - though brochures must be purchased, and donations are accepted of course).

Immediately inside the main entrance to the museum, I found one of the replicas of Burt Munro’s bike used to file The World’s Fastest Indian. The display also corrected some information in one of my previous posts: the speed shown in the movie (>200 mph) was an unofficial time - the official record he set that year was 178.971 mph.

After taking several shots of the bike, I wandered through their geological exhibits, though most of the material covered was nothing new to me. I did learn that New Zealand was not formed through volcanic activity, as I had assumed. It was actually part of Gondwalaland, the southern supercontinent that eventually broke apart to form South America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The islands do have a major fault line running through them, and the country has certainly been shaped by earthquakes and volcanic activity. Among the exhibits I found a touch screen which showed the locations of major earthquakes in New Zealand’s past, along with a list of recent quakes that had been recorded. Next to this was a small “house” on hydraulics in which you could experience a simulated quake.

Next to the geological exhibits were several fossils. Most memorable among these was a spiral shell about 4 feet in diameter. I believe I’ve heard of larger having been found, but this was impressive enough. They also had a large moa (extinct, flightless bird - looked a bit like an ostrich, but with no wings at all) which showed evidence that it had been attacked by an eagle (also extinct, I believe). Imagine an eagle (no bigger than any species alive today) hunting a 7 foot moa!

After wandering through the exhibit of New Zealand’s flora and fauna, I opted to take the lift to the top floor and work my way down. The top two floors were devoted to art galleries and installations. One large room had dozens of examples of work done by Bernard Roundhill, a prolific commercial artist. Seed packets, labels for canned goods, magazine covers, calendars, health posters, and probably half a dozen other types of items I’ve forgotten. It was an impressive collection, and quite beautiful. Nearby was Stamped, an exhibit dedicated to New Zealand’s postal history. Besides a couple mail boxes, “Postie” uniforms and bikes, were numerous stamps, from the first used in New Zealand, to recent stamps in various shapes (circle, triangle, …), a holographic stamp (commemorating the moon landings, iirc), and a collection of four stamps honoring New Zealand Olympic medalists (each of which showed a slightly different scene of the athlete, depending on the angle at which you viewed the stamp). This exhibit also included letters sent to and from soldiers in wartime, including a few examples that had been censored in transit (with either thick black marker or scissors).

The highlights on the next floor included Culture Moves!, a displays of polynesian dance costumes from around the Pacific. The costumes presented were from the 2005 ASB Auckland Secondary Schools’ Maori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival (Polyfest), and the displays included video and photos from that festival. After wandering this hallway, I passed through Made in New Zealand, an exhibit devoted to Kiwi history, culture, and inginuity. At this point in the day, I think I was a bit overloaded on information, so I don’t remember much detail from the exhibit. the main thing I remember is a station wagon clad in “heavy guage corrugated iron”, and an audiovisual show with hundreds of images and sounds from Kiwi history, accompanied various animatronic items, from a moose head, to tin soldiers, to a soldier’s uniform.

Before the museum closed for the day, I decided to check out The Time Warp, two motion simulators that take you through New Zealand’s history (influenced in part by both geological evidence and the Maori story of creation), as well as 50 years into the future. I enjoyed the former (Blastback) more than the latter (Future Rush), though Future Rush did have an interactive room which sensed your body position and motion - for instance, you could snow board by crouching and leaning left and right.

As the museum was closing (with about a floor’s worth of exhibits left unexplored), I turned in search of food. The parking garage I left the bike in was next to a food court and cinema, the latter showing (among other things) the new Harry Potter movie. Tired of walking, I grabbed some Indian fast food and a smoothie, then bought a ticket to the show. The movie cost as much as in the US (adjusting for the exchange rate), but unlike theatres back home, this one had assigned seating (for evening shows at least), and the seats were much more comfortable than any I remember. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie (better than the previous, I think), though I did miss the surround sound found in newer theaters like at Crossgates. After the movie I spent half an hour or more trying to navigate Wellington in the dark to return to my room, and then proceeded to spend half an hour or more trying to take more night photos from my room…

The next day was much the same, though I got an earlier start. I headed right to the museum - well, almost, as it took me 10-15 minutes to find the parking garage I had found relatively easily previous day (only $2.50NZ for parking a bike all day!). Back to the museum, I wandered through the Maori exhibits for quite a while. This was my first big introduction to Maori culture, but I’ll save that for my post from Rotorua. Next to this was a section on The Waitangi Treaty and The Waitangi Tribunal. The latter was created in 1975, and charged with making recommendations on Maori claims of violations of the treaty (originally just future violiations, but later expanded to include past grievences). I finished up by taking a walk through the Bush City, an living outdoor exhibit which “offers the feel of New Zealand’s rainforest”. This was next to a small pond with several ducks and as many cute little yellow ducklings paddling around (though according to one of the museum’s staff, many of the ducklings don’t survive - most visitors just feed them bread, which of course doesn’t provide them with sufficient nutrition).

In retrospect, I’m not sure how I ended up spending the entire afternoon at the museum again, but I again left as they were closing (though this time satisfied that I’d seen everything I wanted to see). Sick of walking, I grabbed the bike and headed along the coast for a while, though I turned back when the road I was on led through some sort of military installation… back in Wellington, I wound my way up to the lookout atop Mount Victoria, where I spent the remainder of the evening taking photos - first of the clouds, highlighted by the sun, then of the city as the light faded and the lights came on. For the second night in a row, I arrived back at my room later than planned (though this time I did a bit better navigating the city).

The weather improved a bit for day three, so I decided to take a walking tour of the city. First stop was a clothing store for rain pants, in case my luck didn’t hold out and I needed to ride in a downpour. Finishing that, I made my way over to Wellington’s cable cars. Wellington used to use cable cars like those in San Francisco (with a moving cable running under the street which the car would grab onto), but that was eventually replaced with a newer design - two cars connected by a cable run around a pulley, balancing each other with one ascending the mountain while the other descends - both cars sharing a single track, which splits halfway up the hill to allow the cars to pass each other. A couple of old cars are on display at the Cable Car Museum at the top of the hill, along with the machinery that ran the old underground cable.

Next to the museum sits the Wellington Botanical Gardens. Naturally, the gardens sit amongst steep hills (along with much of Wellington), but starting at the top made finding a nice downhill route path quite easy. I wandered by the observatory and (more importantly) planetarium, but decided not to stop for a show as I had already spent much of the previous couple days inside, and I feared that I would have to cut short my walk. Next to the observatory, I found the Sundial of Human Involvement. By standing on the current day with your hands in a point over your head, you become part of the sundial with your shadow showing the current time. The sundial is even correct during Daylight Savings Time, as staff members adjust the numbers on the markers twice a year to compensate.

Continuing on the path, I came across a few Pohutakawa trees, with it’s bright red, bushy flowers that bloom each year around this time, for which it is sometimes called the New Zealand Christmas Tree. This was the first time I had seen one since leaving the Bay of Islands, so I delighted in taking pictures - with several large bees collecting pollen as a bonus! (I’m not sure why I’m so fascinated in taking pictures of bees and other insects, but it certainly is a challenge.)

Continuing, I passed some kids skateboarding (sitting, not standing, as I recall) down the windy path, a group of young school girls on a lucnh break playing on a playground, and (of course) many other trees, flowers, and busy bees. The telephoto lens I bought right before the trip makes a halfway decent macro lens, and I think I ended up with a number of nice close-ups of various flowers and bees.

As I reached one of the streets bordering the park, I had to choose my route to the Rose Garden (and just as importantly, the cafe next to it) - either the “easy” route downhill along the street, or the “hard” path over the hill. As I’d had a fairly easy walk thus far (and was no longer sore from Mt. Taranaki), I opted for the walk over the hill, which was not as bad as I’d feared. This led me to a small herb and spice garden, then provided a beautiful view of the rose gardens as I descended the switchbacked path down the hill.

I resisted the temptation to wander around taking pictures of all the different roses (just a few), but I had to spend a bit of time with the fountain in the center of the garden, not to mention the ducks sunning themselves on the grass nearby. I then grabbed an ice cream and wandered over to the Waterfall and Peace Flame next to the garden, where I found ducklings! After swimming around the there for a couple minutes, they all made their way up onto the sidewalk, then waddled across the road towards the fountain area, with mom in the lead. I would’ve had a great “Make Way for Ducklings” shot of them crossing the road, but it’s quite difficult to get out and use a camera with an ice cream cone in one hand!

Back to the Peace Flame, I found a block of stone from one of the buildings destroyed by the atomic bomb blasts that ended World War II - from the Nagasaki Town Hall, I think. The flame itself, I have since learned, was originally ignited by the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. New Zealand passed legislation making itself nuclear free almost 20 years ago (refusing port access to US ships with nuclear weapons or utilizing nuclear power, which as you can imagine, still results in political friction).

My walk then took me out of the gardens, and through an old graveyard divided by a motorway. Many graves, both marked and unmarked (many unknown) were relocated to make room for the highway. Back on the streets of Wellington, I passed the parliament buildings (including the building known as “The Beehive”), with more Pohutakawa trees (and bees!). My next stop was Old St. Paul’s Church. A beautiful little wooden church, with a young organist practicing inside when I arrived. (Dad, the organ was built by the South Island Organ Company, replacing the original which was moved to the newer church which was built to replace this one - hopefully one of the pictures I took of the console came out ok.)

Wandering back down town (with a brief return to the church to retrieve the lens filters I left behind), I walked along the wharf to find the first street bagpipe musician I’ve ever seen (and probably will see, except perhaps outside Scottland). After taking a few photos for proof, I continued on to the watch the kayakers and rowers (plus take some pictures of yet another fountain) before turning towards my evening plans.

In addition to it’s nicknames of “Windy Wellington” and “Wellywood” (as home to many of New Zealand’s film companies, including Peter Jackson’s Weta Workshop and Weta Digital), Wellington is also known as the art’s capital of New Zealand, so I had long since decided I wanted to see a show before leaving. I considered seeing It’s a Whanau Thing at Circa Theatre, next to Te Papa, which was written and set in New Zealand, but fear that there would be too many local jokes to make the performance enjoyable for an outsider led me instead to see Little Shop of Horrors at Downstage. First I had to find the theatre, but naturally I didn’t remember the address, and the i-Site was closed. They had given me directions that morning before I set out on my walk, but I had failed to find it then, so I started wandering around the downtown area trying to find it again (I had seen it while looking for parking that morning, but of course had little sense of where I was at the time). After walking the equivalent of at least 20 blocks, I finally managed to find it.

Fortunately, I had time to grab a quick bite to eat after buying a ticket for balcony seating (which I normally prefer over orchestra seating). When I came back, I ordered a glass of Chardonnay at the bar (as this was the first night I knew I wasn’t going to be getting back on the bike right away), and after browsing the photos from past productions I headed up to my seat. It’s an intimate little theatre, capable of seating up to 250, according to their web site, though the main seating area was set up with tables and candles instead of traditional rows of chairs (I tried to count, but don’t remember my final estimate of the number of seats). The program, included explainations of a number of American cultural icons and terms referenced in the show - Lucy (Ball), FTD, Rose Bowl, … - though perhaps they should’ve included “Howard Johnson”, as I think I was the only one who reacted to that reference. I had been looking forward to watching a show with Kiwi accents (another reason I opted for a show I knew, as I sometimes have difficulty understanding lyrics in shows), but I hadn’t even considered the fact that they’d likely adopt appropriate (American) accents for the characters. I must say, they did a fantastic job with the accents, though I think there was one word that felt like Boston to me, not New York (but then again, I’m no expert). I enjoyed the show, and was pleasantly surprised to see the cast acknowledge not only the orchestra, but the crew during the curtain call - a custom I’ve only seen practiced by the RPI Players. I spoke with the light op after the show, who said she believed the company at Circa also practiced this courtesy, but wasn’t sure how widespread it was.

The next morning was much like the previous - cloudy and not looking particularly promising, but it was time to get going, so I packed up the bike and headed North towards Napier…