So it was time to say goodbye to the stunning South Island with its vast & beautiful landscapes and head to the North where we'd been told we'd find some Maori culture and history. After a quick stop in Picton, a small seaside town, we caught the Bluebridge ferry to Wellington. A bit of a smelly affair thanks to the sheep being transported across with us in cattle class.

Wellington is a commercial & business hub but without the feel of a big busy metropolis, so we thoroughly enjoyed our time back in a city but without the hustle bustle.
We even got to experience the 'Windy Wellington' that everyone talks about thanks to a couple of blistery, hold tight or you may take flight, type of days.

So what's there to do in Wellington...
-Shopping around Cuba St and Courtney Place.

-Great views of the waterfront from the square outside the Civic Centre and Library with the added indulgence of yummy cakes and pastries at the Library cafe for some high tea!

-Walk along the harbour and across the bridge which has 1000's of padlocks attached to the hand rail all inscribed with the names of couples and their messages of love... ahhh!!!

-Saturday mornings are an exceptionally good day to be on the waterfront. For us it was one of those 'what Saturday mornings should be like' kind of mornings... Great weather, families bustling around the harbour doing various fun activities like dragon boating, kayaking (practicing getting out and back in when it capsizes), jumping from the dock into the cold water and for us with nothing to do but soak it all in and eat good ice-cream.
There was also an amazing Saturday market with locally produced goods... All inspiringly creative... jewellery, ceramics, leather good, lamp shades, buttons and clothes.

-Te Papa museum, a vast interactive and informative museum of NZ's history. We learnt about the earths core and how earthquakes happen, even getting to feel what it would be like in a house when an earthquake is happening. We saw a giant pickled squid (with eyes the size of footballs), learnt about the Maoris and how they first came over from Tahiti and the Polynesian islands. Te Papa explains everything about NZ's ethnic diversity and the changes over the years beautifully and very objectively.

-A weekly comedy night where well known New Zealander Steve Wriggly was mc'ing and proved to be very funny. The comedy acts themselves got better as the evening progressed.

-Bus to Weta Caves, Peter Jacksons props & costume design company. A real haven of treasures for a true Lord of the Rings fan. Massive ugly trolls to welcome us outside and lots of memorabilia and merchandise inside the 'cave'. An hour long tour of the actual workshop was so insightful, from design to finished model/costume/prop it's amazing the amount of creativity, detail and imagination that goes into it all.

-We even spent an afternoon catching random buses out of the city centre and seeing where they took us. So after a couple of hours we got to Lyall Bay and got a glimpse of the 'Wellington' sign (similar to the Hollywood one) with the wind sweeping it away... Cool.

- Consuming lots & lots of ice cream... classic vanilla, old favourite mint chocolate chip, sweeeeeet cookies and cream, hokey pokey honeycomb and yummy white chocolate and raspberry.