Day 2: Wellington

Having had a good long sleep, we were up at around 6am ready for an early breakfast before heading off to Zealandia and the Botanic Gardens.

The area is quite hilly and we are glad that we took the cable car and the shuttle bus as we did a fair bit of walking once we were there. Zealandia is fascinating as they made a huge effort to rid the area of non-indigenous animals – there are no mammals in New Zealand so any mammals found had been imported over the years – and they have build a large perimeter fence to keep out “invaders”. We didn’t see many of the birds, except the odd fleeting glimpse but we saw some Tuatara which are not lizards although they look like it but they are loosely related to dinosaurs. It was really interesting as well as refreshing to hear a country putting their flora & fauna high up their priority list – if only we could do the same with the grey squirrels, to protect our native red ones. [On a side note, they are also much stricter re food etc being brought into the country and on the flight from Singapore to Sydney the crew sprayed the whole inside of plane before we took off.]

After Zealandia we walked to the Botanic Gardens, where we had a nice wander and a snack. I was still trying to avoid the dreaded garlic, so I had apple pie and ice-cream as that seemed a pretty safe option as well as very tasty, albeit too much for my current crappy appetite. There were some very tame ducks and ducklings that wandered around without a care in the world while people ate – very cute. We had run out of excuses to sit for any longer so it was time for more walking and a few more inclines – by now we were feeling pretty tired so we headed back to our hotel.

As many of the restuarants were still closed, and we didn’t relish trekking around aimlessly, we decided to eat in the hotel. It was just our “luck” that their usual menu was not available as there was only one chef working over the New Year period. I still didn’t have much of an appetite and tried to get something without garlic (as that is the most likely suspect for me feeling this kind of grotty). I chose tomato and mascarpone pasta (without garlic), but the sauce was pre-made and had garlic in it, so I chose margherita pizza and a few minutes later the waitress came back to say that the tomato topping also had garlic, so I ended up with a children’s option of pan fried fish with some salad, which was really nice and just the right portion size for me. Wine and water accompanied the meal – wine for Rob and water for me. Oh, and he had a humungous chocolate dessert in one of these glass jar / mug thingies, just in case he forgets to mention it.

We did manage to stay up a bit later than we did yeserday, which was our stretch objective, but also a low bar.

Rob’s reflections

Went off to sleep ridiculously early, but slept solidly for 8 hours. Drowsed some more until just past 6am, then I went to the hotel gym for a gentle training session to kick off acclimatisation. Nothing crazy, just warm up and some running on the treadmill, slightly slower than had been doing on Tuesday, making allowance for jetlag and good old plain tiredness. Oh, and Lorna said something about my age, but I didn’t quite catch it.

After that had breakfast buffet in the hotel, then girded our loins for some tourism. Suitably protected from the sun, which we hadn’t seen since September, we set off. We took the Wellington Cable Car from its base at Lambton Quay up to Kelburn. There we managed to stop a shuttle as it was just about to leave, which took us to Zealandia. This is an ecological sanctuary for native New Zealand flora and fauna, protected by a mammal-proof fence – just us homo sapiens allowed in. We were an hour early for our guided tour, but they were able to fit us in to an earlier one. This took two hours, and involved us being taken around a small part of the old reservoir valley and told about the various animals and plants we encountered. The site is really big, and you could easily take up a day by hiking around the further extents. While most of the names now escape me, the tuatara sticks – it’s a reptile, but not a lizard, and I recommend going and looking it up. I do remember our guide Andrew asking the group a question, and Lorna using her flower & plant skills to recognise a fuchsia, albeit a mutant tree-sized one. There was beautiful scenery all around and without the paths you walked on you could easily imagine yourself being hundreds of miles from civilisation.

Instead of taking the electric bus back, we decided to walk. Just half an hour found us at the Wellington Botanic Gardens – we went around in some circles before taking a route to the Lady Norwood Rose Garden, where we stopped for a bite to eat. The gardens were stunning, it helps that we are here in their Summer. We stopped at the nearby Peace Garden for a moment of calm – very reminiscent of that in London Heathrow Airport’s level -4 underground walkway; but with a waterfall. Then we took the ‘easy route’ back to the top of the cable car. Glad we didn’t talk the difficult one, this had increasingly steep paths, and no clear end in sight. By the time we returned to the cable car, my legs were pretty tired.

Rather than go out, we had an evening meal in the hotel. Friendly service, but we did have a challenge in the form of “which things on the menu do not come covered in garlic”. I’ll let Lorna tell that tale, but there was a fish-related happy-ending. Today’s objective was to stay awake all the way to 7pm, which was achieved.