A Day in Wellington

We were a bit tuckered out this morning but got ourselves together to get the 10:31 train to Wellington from Plimmerton.

The train station, itself,  which is only a few minutes from where we are staying, is a trip.  The outside is very old style

 But the inside is actually a store for everything miniature trains.

The fellow there always suggests a special kind of ticket to save us money.  He is really nice and friendly.

We got into town with a few plans--to go to a souvenir store,  the information office, the cable car and Te Papa Museum.  (We should have known that was too ambitious a plan.) So when we got to town we headed for the souvenir shop on Lampton Quay.  We started on the wrong road and we guided to the right place by a very nice fellow who looked like he might have been a government official.  He said, "Don't you love this place.  We never have wind."  By which we took the meaning that it is normally extremely windy.  The weather has been so wonderful and the locals are all talking about the different weather they are having.  We love it.  We don't want it to change until we are gone.

Lampton Quay is about three streets up from the pedestrian walkway along the harbor in Wellington.  The interesting thing is that it used to be (1840s) the street nearest the beach.  Because of earthquakes and man-made land-fill, you now can't see the water from there.  We shopped for New Zealand products and gifts for a while until we came across the entrance to the cable car-- a funicular really--that travels up one of the many hills here.  As usual for this trip, our timing was great and we were on our way almost immediately.

At the top there was a cable car museum....

and a gift shop with some really cute things, including a floaty pen for Ada (she collects them).  The views were beautiful

The cable car stops right at the top of the Wellington Botanical Garden and has a nice cafe, we were told, so we started down the mountain toward the cafe.  I have to say, it was a lot farther down than we expected and we were getting a little hangry (hungry and angry) on the way.  But there were compensations,like this human sun dial.  Noreen followed the instructions to stand on the current date that was stamped in the concrete with the sun to her back and put her folded hands over her head.  And darned if the shadow did not indicate it was 1PM--it was actually 12:53.

Unfortunately, it was a bit hard to read the time off the phone, but take my word for it.  The Botanical Garden was also beautiful.

We finally got to the cafe and it was great. The food was wonderful--with menu items for everyone.  They served wine and beer and the setting was gorgeous.

right next to the rose garden.

Afterwards, we took our picture next to the pretty waterfall nearby.

I have to admit that the walk back to the city was tough, but at least we weren't hungry.  We got to the information office and booked a Seal Tour Safari trip for the next day, but by then it was really too late to go to the museum, so we did a bit more shopping and went home, exhausted.