Wellington

May 11-12, 2026 were spent in Wellington. According to Wikipedia, Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand, located at the southwestern tip of the North Island, and is officially the world's southernmost capital of a sovereign state. Known as "Windy Wellington" due to its high average wind speeds, it serves as the nation's political, cultural, and gastronomic center.  It has a small town feel (population of about 200,000 people) and also reminded us a lot of a small San Francisco.

May 11 - Our car has started to make a growling noise and we plan to change cars in Wellington. Not much to report today, other than an uneventful drive to the port in Picton to catch our Ferry to Wellington and drive the 5 minutes to the Travelodge in Wellington where we stayed for 2 nights.

We had planned to look around Picton and have lunch, but weren't allowed to leave the area once we checked in for the ferry. We are carrying around a grocery store in our car because we move left-over food with us between the AirBnBs. so had lunch in the car

while waiting to drive on.

Here's a bad photo of the ship - you have to look really close up.

The crossing was uneventful and the scenery and weather were both beautiful.

We arrived into Wellington

and went to the Travelodge which was very uninspiring.

But the Chinese guy at check-in had some interesting shoes

We had a lovely dinner at Charley Noble which was the only restaurant open on a Monday night. I had the venison and Chris had a steak. That's peanut brittle (me) and tiramasu (Chris) for dessert.

May 12 - Chris was able to exchange the car. This one "only" has 190,000 km on it, so we'll see when this one quits.

We were planning on a museum visit, but the weather was so nice I couldn't imagine being inside, so we walked over to the botanic garden and got a good tour of the city.

We enjoyed the localized walk/don't walk signals

Along the way we passed the government buildings - the new parliament building is called the "bee hive".

We walked up the hill by the old Bolton Street cemetery which was obviously there before the main roads went through because the roads and walkways go around and above it.

to the the botanic garden. Here we were going to stop and sample the cafe, but it was under construction.

So we walked to the top of the botanic garden and saw the observatory,

the view,

and the cable car.

We walked down again and walked by the bizarre Chinese Embassy. The outside looks like it is a bunch of girders bolted together.

and saw many of the original houses left standing along this street are also many antique shops. (this is more an aerial view from the cemetery)

and this brought us in a loop back to the hotel. Buni found Bunny street on the way!

Dinner was with friends we hiked with on the Overland Hike - 1 month and a million years ago. We had a local tasting menu - unfortunately no photos of Joe and Terrance. Jen (Joe's wife) was ill, so didn't join.

Tomorrow we drive to Lake Taupo, so my next posting will be in about a week.