NZ Road Trip: To Windswept Wellington

The excitement of a road trip is always enhanced when an evocative route name is involved, so you can picture our joy when we discovered that our journey away from Taupo would take us along the Volcanic Loop Highway and on to the Desert Road, you can’t get much more evocative than that. For forty minutes or so we hug the shores of the lake before we pull away to pass through the volcano belt which provides great views of the largest of them, Tongariro, with its almost perfect peak. From there it’s through the heather-clad rocky desert before we regain pastures and hills as the coast comes ever closer.

Wellington welcomes us with what we are informed is its customary wind blasting along the waterfront and turning shopping streets into wind tunnels. As darkness falls Courtney Place comes alive with evening revellers, a mixed crowd of students, expats, tourists and locals, many of whom are using happy hour to honour St Patrick’s Day with several pints of Guinness. For us it’s a hilarious hour in a rock bar with two drunken ladies from Perth (more on that later) followed by an absolutely delicious Thai meal in Cambridge Street.

Next morning we meet up with Liam, a former work associate of Michaela’s back in England who now lives here in Wellington, though this is the first time that either of us has met him in person. He kindly gifts us an introductory walk through his city – a city he has clearly fallen in love with – and provides a bucketload of useful advice for the rest of our trip through NZ. By coincidence it turns out that Liam is, like me, a Derbyshire boy.

Bidding Liam farewell we’re off to explore the city on our own, passing the new and old Parliament buildings, the former Government offices which are intriguingly constructed entirely with timber cunningly disguised as stone, and of course the cleverly designed waterfront with its many pathways, bridges and cycle routes. 

We also, probably inevitably, take the “cable car” as it is known but is in truth a funicular railway (which is after all a car pulled by a cable so the local name is legit), which climbs steeply up the hillside to the suburb of Kelburn where the botanical gardens provide sweeping views back across the port city. Travelling on a gradient of roughly 1:5 (609 metres long, 120 metres up), the car passes through three tunnels on its five minute journey, two of which are enhanced by colourful dancing LEDs.

Over the years since its opening in 1902, the cable car has steadily become an iconic emblem of Wellington. A small but excellently presented museum at the top provides a complete and compelling history of the cable car, which has swung from heavy commuter usage to virtual obsolescence then to the major tourist attraction and symbol which it is today. An up and down history in more ways than one.

The following morning we take a guided tour of the NZ Parliament building, which is pretty good value given that it’s free of charge. Much of the parliamentary system here is based on Westminster, but with sensible improvements like abolition of an upper house, writing desks and microphones for every member and an electoral system which is part way proportional representation. I guess it’s easier to make changes to a young parliament than it is to one with centuries old traditions. Maybe Wellington has learned from Westminster’s intransigence.

Inside Parliament

Down near the waterfront stands the impressive four storey national museum, Te Papa, which is a seriously well designed, hugely informative place for anybody wanting to understand New Zealand’s history, from the first early settlers from the Pacific Islands to modern day conservation efforts and contemporary sociology. Unfortunately we don’t have time to study everything – you could, honestly, spend at least half a day here – as closing time is approaching as we complete our first hour.

It’s very noticeable everywhere, including both in Parliament and at Te Papa, that care is taken these days to refer to this nation as “Aotearoa New Zealand” in order to incorporate both the Maori and English names. It’s equally noticeable how eager everyone is to remind us that New Zealand was the first country in the world to grant the vote to women, thanks in no small part to the revered figure of Kate Sheppard, who is remembered in many forms here, including even the green caricature on pedestrian crossings.

Te Papa teaches us, as have earlier guides on the trip, that New Zealand has virtually no indigenous mammals, when the Pacific settlers first arrived they found the lands all but devoid of animal life, so consequently almost everything here has been introduced by human beings. This applies equally to many plant species, several of which, both plant and animal, have proved to be errors of judgment in terms of ecosystem and have subsequently needed to be controlled or even extinguished.

An in depth analysis within the museum speaks volumes on the subject of the influx of Europeans and wide scale displacement of the earlier settlers. The 1840 Treaty Of Waitingi was ostensibly the agreement by which Britain and the existing tribespeople set out the plan for sharing the land and its riches on an ongoing basis. However, Britain pulled a fast one, some might say a dirty trick. There were two versions of the Treaty, one in English and one in the local Maori tongue, but craftily, the wording of the two didn’t translate precisely, with subtle but significant differences over matters of, in particular, sovereignty. After over a century of offence and a strong sense of wrongdoing, it wasn’t until a Parliamentary Act of 1975 that the differences in translation were officially recognised.

Acknowledgment of the..errr…indiscretion together with the recognition of the rights of the Maori are now quite rightly unmissable as we travel through NZ.

And so with lessons learnt and our knowledge base increased, we prepare for an early morning departure by ferry from Wellington to South Island as our journey southwards continues.

FOOTNOTE. If we needed a reminder of the brutal say-it-as-it-is way of Australians, it was provided in spades by the hilarious Sally from Perth in the bar on that first night in Wellington, who, within five minutes of striking up conversation, blurted….”hey, I have a question for you guys. Do people of your age still have sex, and if so, how often?” It was the start of a truly hilarious and entertaining hour in her and her friend’s company. Not backwards in coming forwards, as my Mum would have said.