Windy Wellington
Jan. 9th, 2024
I like Wellington and can’t put my finger on why. I immediately felt comfortable when we arrived, like oh this is a city and I get it in a way I never got Auckland. Auckland seemed like a sprawling confusing jumble and not cohesive. I feel guilty about making a snap judgement, like if I only spent a little more time and went to such and such a neighborhood I’d be in love. Still, I felt a constant sense of no there there, which isn’t fair, especially with everyone being away on holiday.
Anyway, Wellington has flyers for bands and events stuck all over things. People have nose rings and colored hair. A crazy old punk rocker was playing guitar and yelling a song consisting almost entirely of profanities. I’m not sure why that made me laugh.
The downtown feels like a downtown with fun stores I want to shop in.
The neighborhoods run up the sides of hills, with stairways and paths everywhere. Is it just the hills making me feel at home? Honestly though, this place makes San Francisco look flat. These hills are steep! Our Uber driver said people compare this place to SF, but if anything it’s more like portions of Marin/Sausalito with a small downtown core of high rises. Much more open and green space. What’s interesting is the transition from dense downtown to single family homes is – no transition. You just cross a street.
The wind, as promised, was uncomfortably strong in certain areas. We had lame bagels a few blocks from the hotel this morning and I had to hold on to the plastic basket to keep it from blowing away. First destination: a cable car/funicular, which didn’t feel like it traveled far but when we got off we were suddenly hundreds of feet above the city.
We wandered through charming neighborhoods with cute houses. I don’t want to be disloyal but the vegetation is so lush and the views so dramatic – it’s prettier than San Francisco in many places! Blah! I feel like that about New Zealand in general – a prettier California. Like the best day in spring everywhere. I’m not going to sell my house and move here because of that. I never wanted to live in the country and I like my cultural amenities, but it definitely tones down my “California is the best place in the world” rhetoric.
We had a lame lunch at a pub in downtown. Tourist bad luck/starving needed to eat. We walked a few blocks to the Parliament (Wellington is the capital city) where I’d hoped we could take a tour, but they were sold out for the day. The building is odd. I appreciate wanting to do something different but it doesn’t quite work for me.
I walked along the waterfront on my way back to the hotel and was captivated by teens playing in the water in what looked like an industrial area. People don’t jump in the water in San Francisco in the downtown like this. I guess you could, although I suspect the water is warmer here. Embarrassed to admit I never touched it.
Oh and in exciting news – I saw a jellyfish. First big one I’ve seen in the wild.
Next stop, Weta Workshop. I’ll let them speak for themselves here before I go on a rant.
Wētā Workshop has catapulted onto the world stage, thanks in part, to the creation of sets, costumes, armour, weapons, creatures, miniatures and more for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. From the sweeping landscapes of Middle-earth to the lush forests of Pandora in the movie Avatar, we’ve since gone on to design imaginary worlds for many more blockbuster films and TV shows. But don’t take our word for it, visit us, and experience our magic for yourself.
Blah blah blah. I was excited because my guide book said they had sets from their remake of Thunderbirds, originally a 1960’s sci fi series filmed with puppets and elaborate sets. I love this series so much, and the book said you could sit in a full-size plane.
We arrived early and the Uber driver pointed out a bus and said they’d be using that to drive us all around. Nope. We waited for the tour in the gift shop, which had lots of nice things if you were into Lord of the Rings paraphernalia – and some people really were. I was happy to find a display of a few Thunderbirds models, though they were haphazardly thrown in a case with models from other shows and a couple of orange juicers. ??
Our tour guide gathered our group (about 20 people) and admonished us that we were not allowed to take any photos due to laws/secrecy/contracts/etc. which made the tour sound promising. She herded us into room one, where we (awkwardly standing) watched a movie about the founding of Weta. Then she herded into another small room where we (awkwardly standing) watched a movie about how they make rubbery faces to make people look like vampires or whatever, and there were samples of the process lining the room. From there we went into a small room full of swords and other Lord of the Rings props, which we weren’t allowed to touch or photograph…except gosh darn it we looked like such responsible people it might be okay to pass around one sword.
Here we learned that a big part of their business now is making reproductions, and there was a small window into an actual workshop, possibly a blacksmith shop, and another small window into a room with a CnC machine slowly cutting a rhino out of a foam material. That was as close as we got to the workshops. Grrrrrrrrr.
Finally, we went into a room with full-sized costumes that actors wore in movies. That interested me as there were sci fi outfits from movies I’d seen and the guide had information about the difficulty of getting in and out of them.
The tour ended in a room where the guide promoted a clay-like model-making material called Pal Tiya people in Weta developed that you can form on top of tinfoil and it literally turns to stone and can be used outdoors. I sigh as I write about it because yes I’m interested but, really? This has what to do with the tour? We were encouraged to make a sculpture out of tinfoil or use some props and take a selfie against a green screen and choose a background. My hopes rose for a moment, thinking I could hold up a real sword with a flaming volcano from Mordor, but no. The props were not from the rooms we’d just visited. Maybe they tried that and people stole everything, because, people. All there was was some lame ass capes and such like you’d have in a selfie booth at a Halloween party. Sad.
We asked if we could leave, and did, and not through the gift shop. Such a disappointment but this did feel like a checkbox we needed to check while in Wellington.
Maybe the only real part of Weta Workshop we saw, while waiting for our Uber
We had dinner at Kisa, a well-rated middle-eastern restaurant near our hotel and it was delicious. Today was another day full of so many new sights and experiences, my mind is again blown. So happy to be here, doing all this. : )
Roadtripz and Other Journeys 