A Campervan in the Capital

Saw this sign and felt a bit of kindred spirit :)

Our first night in Wellington, New Zealand's capital city, was in a parking lot in a bay.  It was really windy, but a great location to where we needed to be in the morning.  We learned several days later that Wellington experienced earthquake tremors of a 4+ magnitude this night – in the campervan that is always rocking at bedtime due to 4 kids in a small space, combined with the crazy wind Wellington is notorious for, we didn’t even notice!

The next morning we headed out to the Weta Caves, but were routed up an incredibly narrow and steep street which literally took us in a circle – yikes!  Google's first major hiccup for us. Upon arriving for the first tour of the morning, we realized we were in for a treat!  One of the founders of Weta Caves is Peter Jackson, and this is the place where the props and visuals are created for many movies we are familiar with – Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Mad Max, Planet of the Apes, Avatar, Avengers, Amazing Spiderman, District 9, and others.  The studio was filled with incredible creations and the creativity, imagination, and implementation of what we learned about was astounding!  We were able to feel silicone examples of human skin that they create, see the process they use for drawing, designing, molding, and painting many weapons, and gain better understanding as to how they use scale and specific models to increase the realness of only a scene or two.  We really enjoyed this tour and have much more appreciation for all of the details that go into cinema.

Hobbit Feet at Weta Caves

Captured by a troll - Weta Caves

Our "Gollum look"

Wellington streets are narrow, and being that most of the destinations we desired to visit were downtown, we opted to pay a bit to stay in the only camping location downtown, which also offered us electricity and a shared bathroom.  It was a great location and ironically in the parking lot of a Meridian hotel!

Here's what a camper park looks like in the city - Wellington

We got situated and headed to the WWI memorial area.  Peter Jackson has created a Gallipoli exhibit there and that was the focus of our afternoon.  The exhibit’s free but there was so much information that after starting we soon realized we’d benefit from a tour guide.  We had a great guide who summarized much of the information at a level that was easily understood by the kids and caught their interest.  Gallipoli was a battle fought by ANZAC (Australia & New Zealand Army Corp) against Turkey on the shores of Turkey in 1914.  ANZAC troops rallied to support Great Britain in WWI, and this was a big task for these troops from far off islands.  New Zealand lost a significant percent of their population at that time in this battle, and also had the highest percentage of injured and killed of all countries who fought in Gallipoli.  Although ANZAC lost the battle of Gallipoli, New Zealanders are proud of the troops who participated and the opportunity they had to make an impact on the world at large. As we left we had the opportunity to witness the changing of the guard and lowering of the flags.

Changing the flag at War Memorial

The following day was raining and a great day to spend at Te Papa, a five story museum with exhibits on everything New Zealand.  We started with the Weta Caves exhibit on Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War, which added to our understanding of this battle by displaying incredible larger than life New Zealanders and telling their stories throughout the battle.  It was very sobering and educational, truly quite amazing, and something we will never forget.  

Te Papa Museum

Gallipoli displays, built by Weta Caves, were incredibly large and life-like

Another Weta large scale model

After a full day at the museum, we headed over to the Wellington Night Market.  We really enjoyed this friendly environment of street music and ventured out trying many new and unique foods from the many cultures that are represented in Wellington. Some foods we tried were: Moroccan lamb tagine wraps, BBQ pork buns, beef dumplings, Japanese pizza (prawns fried in dough), crepes, fried ice cream, and Dutch mini-pancakes (it was more adventurous than it might sound).

Saturday Mom was able to get a haircut which was a huge treat for her as aside from our time in California, she hadn’t had alone time since mid-September.  Dad enjoyed a fun afternoon with a friend who works for an equity shop in town. He took him up to the top of Mt. Victoria and to a great little beach restaurant. But the real thrill was the chance to talk markets and business uninterrupted by kids. Meanwhile mom and the kids walked the boardwalk, played at parks and had ice cream.  Late afternoon we stumbled across a wine store that was offering a class and made room for us to attend, so Mom and Dad had a date and were able to learn about a range of New Zealand wines with some of the locals, while the kids were bribed with a movie and dessert back in the campervan! An arrangement where everybody wins!

Sunday, Dad and the boys went to a local establishment at 4am to watch the All Blacks play in the semi-final rugby World Cup match against South Africa.  The All Blacks won so all is right within the country for the next week at least. 

All Blacks 4AM semifinal at local establishment

Later we went to a church that a friend of ours in MN had attended when her family lived in New Zealand.  Of all the churches we’ve attended, the people here were extremely friendly and outgoing.  After service we were ushered to the café for conversation and beverages.  Mom randomly asked the woman she was speaking with if she happened to know our friend in the States, to which she enthusiastically replied, “YES!”  CRAZY!  It was a beautiful day and we were invited to join some of the families across the way at a fun outdoor restaurant.  We all really enjoyed the opportunity to visit and interact with these families and left wishing we had more time, but we had a ferry to catch. 

Lunch with new friends

We then took the ferry from the North Island to the South Island.  This was a 3 hour venture where we were able to get some school accomplished as we were served biscuits with butter, cream, and strawberry jelly!  We were impressed with how smoothly the ferry process went in a campervan.  Once on the South Island, we started the incredible and winding journey up and over mountains with breathtaking views over bays looking out into the ocean with random rock formations, all while mom  was white-knuckled and offering tense cheers on dad’s great driving, and letting out an occasional gasp when she felt we were over a bit too far left.  Thankfully, we pulled into our freedom campsite in the middle of a beautiful inlet called Double Bay, just as the sun was setting and everything was quiet and picturesque.

Campsite at Double Bay - first night on South Island