We'd been through Wellington for a brief overnight back in March, well before we had any clue we'd be sticking around in NZ.
Passing through Wellington this go-around was a requirement on our road trip up to the North Island. Our stint through Wellington this time was still relatively short, but we were able to cover much more ground within our 1 day/2 nights.
Books Restock
Libraries are our usual source of books for the girls. With our Central Otago library network well out of reach on our road trip, we hit up several used book stores in Wellington to restock for the coming Summer weeks. Hats off to Wellington for their amazing used book store scene! We scored some great reads for both girls (including classics like The Wizard of Oz, The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe and classic Nancy Drew) at Arty Bees Books and Pegasus Books. I was excited when I managed to find a copy of Malcolm Gladwell's Talking to Strangers, which I've been wanting to read for some time. Might need to hit up these shops again on our way back down to the South Island in a few weeks time.
Te Papa
We spent the afternoon at Te Papa Museum of NZ. We had visited back in March and really enjoyed it. We checked out some of the new exhibits, plus a few permanent ones.
Eating Out Overload
We stayed in a hotel in Wellington. Funny enough we figured out that the last time we stayed in a proper hotel was also in Wellington last March! The girls were pumped because that meant meals out at restaurants. There's a decent & diverse food scene in Wellington. We opted to fill our bellies with cuisines that we can't as readily get down in Queenstown like dumplings and Japanese curry. Our final night we went to a really authentic Italian spot, recommended by Andrew & Erika. Eating out was nice in terms of getting to eat "different" stuff, but restaurant fatigue set in fairly quickly. Then again, we recognize what a privilege it is to have the option to safely eat out in restaurants at this point in time/the world.
Sour Beer Fix
We had a little over an hour to kill before our dinner reservation the final night so we went to a brewery that had an impressive amount of sour/gose beers on tap (our fave style of beer). We opted for flights so that between the two of us we could try all the sours/goses they had! The beers had quirky, fun names like Puns 'n Gose and Galactic Gose. The girls begrudgingly wrote in their journals across the table, but then got to try a few wee sips of the fruity sours. We all voted on our favorites. We happened to be texting with Alex & Alyssa in San Francisco as we sat down for the beers. I had a pile of postcards with me for writing, so we texted them a pic of the postcard we were writing for them real time :)
Weta
Ever heard of a weta? Weta are a NZ native creepy-crawlie. It's also the name of a world-renown special effects & props company based outside Wellington. A combo tour of the Weta Workshop and their Miniature Effects space was our last stop in Wellington. The list of films they've contributed towards (wikipedia list) is impressive. Pictures were only allowed in sparingly in the workshop spaces, but we got to learn all kinds of things about how physical movie props are made, everything from swords, to armor, to ogres, to prosthetic body parts. It was especially interesting to hear directly from one of their creative artists and see him at work. He showed us how they sculpt aluminum foil with household tools like spoons to mold all kinds of ghoulish things. The girls were so fascinated that we bought aluminum foil later that day and they proceeded to make all kinds of mini foil creations in the back seat for the rest of our drive that day :)
In the Miniatures studio we saw large parts of the set used on Thunderbirds Are Go, their remake of the 1960s British sci-fi TV series called Thunderbirds. It was super cool to see the sets and we definitely plan to check out some of the episodes on YouTube!
All in, nice to be in a city again, exploring on foot all day and eating some tasty food. A bit jarring to see a bit of homeless folks & city grit again; it'd been a long while. But nice to get a proper city fix.
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