On a previous cruise to New Zealand, it was way too windy to dock at Wellington. Even the locals refer to the capital of New Zealand as "Windy Wellington", not because of the long winded politians as in Chicago but because this place gets very windy. Go figure. Our visit proved to be in calm, sunny and warm weather. Really calm since it was a Sunday morning. Kiwi's take their Sunday mornings very seriously. That is to say, the streets were empty of cars and people and everything was closed except the McDonalds. (The shuttle bus driver pointed the Mickey D out and called it "The American Embassy." Nobody laughed.) Fortunately the little cable car ride to the top of the Botanic Garden was running. We looked at the ship and the lovely inlet at the bottom of the North Island that Wellington sits in and tried to avoid seeing the gigantic Princess ship that docked along with us. We walked around the quiet (did I say quiet?) city, passed by the beehive shaped Capitol and visited the comatose railway station and returned to the ship for lunch. (See what only restaurant was open, above.)
After lunch we returned to the town which had gotten quite a bit busier and walked along the waterfront to the quite spectacular museum. Strange things were going on at the waterfront and at the museum. Beats me what these things were.
It was altogether a very pleasant first visit. Some day I'd like to see Wellington when it's open.
No comments:
Post a Comment