Auckland to Christchurch Road Trip Day 3

Kaitoke Regional Park to Wellington to Picton

We woke up in Kaitoke Regional Park and after putting away sleeping bags made our way up the road to the parking lot for a few different walking trails. One of these trails was to the film location for Rivendell. It was a short 15 minute loop through a small section of the forest. Along the way there were different signs to help recreate, with some very strong imagination, the scenes from the movie. I found it quite challenging to look at tree number 119 and imagine all of the waterfalls from a different area of New Zealand and elvish buildings surrounding it. Further in near the river I focused only on the nature around me; I could imagine it as Rivendell in the foresty sections, not the grandiose waterfalls and buildings parts of the film.

We did another short walk through another part of the forest nearby before we got in the car to finish our drive to Wellington. Our first stop on Wellington was Mount Victoria, a hill in a suburb almost in the center of the city. We parked and walked up a small incline to a circular viewing platform that offered 360° views of the city and harbor. It was a bright sunshiney day and a nice way to start our day in New Zealand's capital city.

After our time at the viewpoint, we decided to walk the half hour or so down the hill into the city center. Allan ended up squeezing onto a tour at Parliament so his walk was extended by another 15 minutes. We hadn't eaten any breakfast and it was 11:00 at this point, so we scarfed some granola bars and he raced ahead to make sure he got to Parliament in time for his tour at noon. I took my time walking into the city stopping at the wharf for some pictures before walking to Hannah's Lane to see some of the trendy shops, cafes, and restaurants. I then walked back towards the wharf to a cafe called August for a lovely Nutella and hazelnut honey pastry and a coffee. Breakfast or lunch at this point, I'm not sure when it's a pastry at noon!

After my coffee and snack, I completed the walk back to the wharf to the Te Papa Tongarawa Museum. The museum is a top sight in Wellington. Allan has visited the museum before, but there's always something new, so he met me here after his tour in Parliament. Before he got there, I explored 3 of the floors. The first area I went into was about nature in New Zealand. It was beautifully done and very interactive for children and adults alike. There was a large screen explaining about mana and Maui and how they contributed to the formation of New Zealand. Many class cases had native New Zealand flora and fauna, including 5 different varieties of kiwis and a large wall of different marine creatures. A touch screen has all the different creatures and animals to provide more information about anything you want to know in cases or on the wall. If you walk across a yellow bridge, it connects to a garden area outdoors with the different plants native to New Zealand. There's also a bird nest area I enjoyed that tells you about native birds, endangered and extinct. Towards the back of the section there was an area devoted to volcanos and earthquakes. New Zealand is uniquely positioned on two tectonic plates, the north island on one and the south island on the other. The way they interact creates interesting, but also devastating effects for New Zealand. Finally, there's a marine biology section and it has a giant squid! I only spotted that while on our tour later on, but it was pretty crazy they've got a dead squid preserved there (definitely looks like it's seen better days).

The next floor up is the Blood Earth and Fire exhibit about human impact on New Zealand. It has displays about New Zealand prior to Maori settlement as well as after and New Zealand after the white settlers came. The difference is pretty stark in the amount of natural forest that's been destroyed. Slash and burn was common practice in New Zealand for new white settlers. It sadly destroyed many forests and many kauri trees were cut down during this period too. The floor showed how agriculture impacted New Zealand for better and for worse. This floor also has a display about pests and quarantine practices that New Zealand has used to stop non-native species impacting the habitats for the native plants and animals.

Continuing on through the museum, the next floor was the Maori floor. This one has a lot of hands-on displays. There was a cool section all about Polynesian navigation and Waitangi Day which we learned about when we visited Waitangi. There was also a treaty section that was beautiful with a huge almost stained glass treaty and pillars. It was great to know all about it before walking through that section. There were 3 different types of buildings in the Maori exhibit: a sleeping house, a meeting house, and a food store. The sleeping house was a grass shack with windows where people would crowd in for sleeping together. The meeting house was gorgeous with intricate carvings and some nice colors. The house is still used if you book an appointment. Finally, the food storage was also surprisingly intricate with detail and carvings. There was a ladder that led to the inside at the center of the food store. It was also on stilts to keep the animals and water (floods and such) from impacting the viability of food.

I left the Maori section to head back down to the entrance to meet Allan. Our tour started soon after he arrived, and it was a private tour because nobody else was booked on! The woman took us around the different areas of the museum briefly explaining the purpose of each section and some of the main highlights in some of the exhibits. For example, we visited the tectonic plates display, the squid, and the meeting house. She also took us into a foyer area off the side of the Maori floor. Here she showed us the modern meeting house and beautiful stained glass window that can be opened up to allow entry to a courtyard. The non-traditional meeting house came under some criticism, but I can see what the architect was trying to achieve by including all different peoples that have come to call New Zealand home. One of the final stops on the tour was an iron anchor that looked more like wood hanging on the wall. I hadn't noticed it on my way in despite it hanging in the main foyer. After this she bid us farewell and we went back down to the second floor.

The second floor has the nature area, but also has a special temporary exhibit about Gallipoli. Peter Jackson and the Weta Studios put it together with the museum and it was pretty incredible. The huge statues and interactive displays made it all very real and our things deeply into perspective by making you feel a part of the whole event. There was a timeline running along the floor to keep you updated with how far into the battle campaign you were and there was a ton of information to read from first hand accounts to historical video and science displays with how some of the bullets and shrapnel entered and impacted the body. It was a lot to take in, and if we'd had more time I easily could have spent half a day in just that one exhibit alone. The ticket to the museum does give you two days to visit which is great, but we sadly were moving on from Wellington and I wouldn't be coming back tomorrow.

After leaving the museum, we walked through the city to Fortune Favours Beer and had some burgers and a couple of beers. The burgers were meh, but the porter and sour we shared were nice. Not many craft beer places were open today, so choice was severely limited on a Monday afternoon. We finished our beers and began the walk back towards Mount Victoria where we'd left the car.

On the way to the car, Allan spotted some Lord of the Rings locations on Google maps, so we stopped at them along the way. The first one was Frodo's reading tree. This was a huge tree with a perfect book towards the bottom to sit/lie and enjoy nature (and a book of you have one!). We continued the walk up the hill to the Hobbits Hideaway where the Hobbits hide from the Nazgul early on in their journey. The tree isn't there, but the ledge is with a dedicated LOTR bench to mark the spot.

We finished the walk back up the hill to the car, stopping to check out the view of Wellington at night at the Mount Victoria viewpoint, and then headed down the hill. We arrived at the ferry check in with plenty of time. We drove up to check in, and then sat in the loading lane for about an hour before we drove into the ferry. It was oddly dead so it took no time at all for all the passengers to get loaded. Once we parked, we grabbed some things to occupy our time for the next 3 or so hours. We spent most of the time planning our trip around the South Island and fleshed out the route and some things to do along the way. It was a draining three hours, but with it being dark on the ferry crossing, there wasn't much else to do anyway.

Just before midnight, we were due to arrive, so we packed up and made our way back to the car to drive off. Luckily, disembarking was just as quick as coming in and we were away without much trouble, or traffic, as we made our way through Picton to our hostel for the night. We arrived at Atlantis Backpackers and were welcomed by an oddly cheerful woman at 12:30 at night. She showed us where the bathrooms were and explained about breakfast in the morning before showing us to our room. She also gave us a couple of good stops to hit on our way down to Christchurch tomorrow. Once she said goodbye, we both had quick showers and turned in for the night. The bed was pretty comfortable, but I might be biased after sleeping in the car 🙈.Read more