Day 38 - Wellington is the capital of New Zealand. It has a bit of a contest with Auckland as to which is a more livable place. Today our ship was docked from 8 o'clock till 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Shuttle buses ran us into the city as we were docked at a working port. They took about 15 minutes because of the rather heavy traffic.
Downtown was clean and well organized. Similar to other cities on this trip, volunteer tourist guides were at many street corners ready to help with any questions. We first headed to snap a picture of the "Bee's Nest" building near the Parliament. We walked along a high street back towards the centre of town and noted where the tram funicular started.
Next, we made our way to the waterfront and walked along nearly to the National Museum. I'm impressed how bilingual signs offer the site names in English as well as Maori. We came back through the Civic Center and soaked up a bit of free wifi. It seems the city government offers it all over the downtown area.
We paid 7.50 roundtrip each for the tram funicular up. We walked pretty much around the free botanical garden. The whole back side of the hill is cultivated wilderness, so close to the center of the city. This was one more reason which added to my positive attitudes about Wellington. It is modern and the city core is relatively compact. Most of the CGI for the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films was done here.
It was windy and I guess it always is. I could easily live in Wellington.