Why New Zealand:
When looking for places to visit over the holidays, I saw a shockingly cheap flight to New Zealand – cheaper than any other international destination. Why? Well, two airlines launched flights on the LA-Auckland route (making a grand total of four) and apparently demand had not been met. The catch was that the return flight was on December 30th, so not the most efficient use of the holiday period. I immediately booked the flight.
New Zealand has two main islands: North and South. I decided to focus on a single island to fully give it justice with my limited time. After some research, I chose the North Island because it was cheaper on the ground: it required only a single domestic flight and the car rentals were cheaper. I decided to go south to north because I found a stellar one-way car rental deal for under $40/day (tourists apparently only like to drive south in New Zealand). The reverse or even an Auckland-Auckland itinerary was going for more than double what I paid.
For this reason, I decided to fly domestically to Wellington, at the southern end of the North Island and start my journey there.
Because this was the Christmas travel season, I prebooked all my hostels and the big-ticket activities.
December 22, 2023: Welcome to Middle Earth
My 12.5-hour flight from LA landed in the morning. Getting out of immigration took nearly an hour. This is because New Zealand has strict rules on importing plants and animals and thoroughly checks passengers and their belongings.
I then walked to the Domestic terminal for my 75-minute flight to Wellington where the main airport hall features the two 15-meter-long Giant Eagles and Gandalf the Grey.
While New Zealand is well known as the filming location for Lord of the Rings, Wellington is the epicenter. Not only does it have the most filming locations, but it is also home to Weta Workshops, the now-legendary special effects studios that produced most of the visual effects, weapons, props, and conceptual designs.
Weta Workshops is located in the suburb of Miramar, a 5-minute drive from the airport. The complex has two parts: the Workshop itself and a gift shop called the Weta Cave. The cave, guarded by a troll is open until late, but the Workshop can only be accessed by a 90-minute guided tour. Obviously, I went on the tour.
The tour started out with a history of the workshop. Weta was founded by Richard Taylor and Tania Rodger in 1987. However, their big break came with the 2001-2003 Lord of the Rings trilogy. Since then, Weta has worked on numerous films and TV shows such as Avatar, Chronicles of Narnia, Power Ranger, King Kong and Mulan.
The next room had a demonstration on how Weta makes their props, using a vampire mask as an example. I was shocked by the number of steps.
Finally in the third room we reached the treasure trove of famous props. The center of the room was Sauron with the One Ring just out of his reach in the air. Surrounding him were every types of helmet from LOTR, swords including two versions of Sting (for different perspectives) and various robotic suits including a Power Ranger suit and an alien from District 9. Also viewable were the sword-making room (now an official department) and a large 3-D printer.
After the tour, I drove into the city center to my hostel. The hostel was lively, but one thing stuck out to me: everybody was German. As it turned out at least 90% of the guests were German, between the ages of 18-24 and here on a working holiday visa, a scheme that allows people if under 30 (35 for some situations) to work and travel around New Zealand for up to a year. While people from 45 countries (including Americans) can get the working holiday visa, it seems be very popular with Germans. The visa is a win-win: tourists can visit New Zealand without breaking the bank and New Zealand gets cheap labor to run its service and agriculture industries.
The rest of the day and night was spent sleeping off the jetlag.
December 23, 2023: All Around the Capital
I woke up at 8:00 after sleeping off the jetlag. My first stop was the government center, which I reached by walking up the historic waterfront. Wellington was the start/end of many important/epic voyages including to the Antarctic. Many of those voyages were commemorated with plaque.
I eventually reached the Parliament for my pre-booked 10:00 tour. The parliament complex has three buildings that are the least guarded of any parliament/national government I have seen in the world. To be fair, New Zealand only has 5 million citizens and has one of the lowest crime rates on earth.
The tour began in the brutalist Executive Wing known as The Beehive. This housed the offices of the Prime Minister and the ministries. On the lower levels, there were a large banquet hall, a museum and press conference room which became world famous during COVID for then-Prime Minister Jacinda Arden´s daily briefings.
We then moved into the neoclassical Parliament House. The parliament used to be bicameral but in 1951 the upper house (the Legislative Council) voted to abolish themselves to make the government function more efficiently. Have you ever heard of something so selfless? New Zealand also gave Māori the right to vote in 1867 and was the first country to give women the right to vote in 1893 The now unicameral parliament sits in a wooden-paneled chamber lined with the country´s military escapades (you know it’s a peaceful country because they included the bloodless takeover of Samoa in early WWI). True to the British system, the furniture is upholstered in green.
My overall impression of New Zealand´s government is that they are as functional as government can be.
Next, I walked up the so-called Downhill Path through a historic cemetery and over an expressway to reach the Botanical Garden. While not as impressive as other botanical gardens elsewhere in the world (and in New Zealand), this was free and well-integrated into the city.
The Downhill Path ended at the top of a hill where I caught a century-old cable car back to the city center.
For lunch, I had Malaysian food. Malaysian food is quite popular in Australia and New Zealand but for some reason has not caught on in the US. I do not think there is a single Malaysian restaurant in the City of Los Angeles (there are a couple in OC and the San Gabriel Valley). I ate laksa, a curry noodle soup.
It was now time to visit Wellington´s top tourist attraction: Te Papa, the national museum. This ENORMOUS free museum showcases New Zealand´s history and culture. There were exhibits on the nature of New Zealand (which included the only colossal squid on display anywhere on earth), the people of New Zealand, Māori culture, and art.
However, the most impressive exhibit was on the Battle of Gallipoli, which took place during World War I. Due to the magnitude of the war, Britain asked for Australia and New Zealand to send soldiers and both nations did willingly. Almost 10% of New Zealand´s 1 million people deployed for the Great War including Māori. Together, the soldiers from Australia and New Zealand were known as Australia and New Zealand Armed Corps (ANZAC).
The original goal of the ANZAC troops was to reach the Western Front in France. However once in Cairo, the decision was made to invade the Ottoman Empire which had allied with Germany. The ANZAC and British troops landed at Gallipoli, at the mouth of the Dardanelles and managed to secure the beach and eventually the ridge. One of the Ottoman commanders was Mustafa Kemal who would later become Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish Republic. After 6 months of warfare, the allied forces failed to advance much further and the losses were mounting. So, the decision was made abandon the campaign.
After the war, Ataturk proceeded over a ceremony for the dead where he uttered the famous words “Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives… you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. …Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well”
Today, ANZAC Day (celebrated on April 25th) is a major holiday in both Australia and New Zealand and the cemeteries in Gallipoli are a pilgrimage destination for citizens of both nations. It may seem to celebrate a major defeat, but Gallipoli was the first major battle for the young country and helped give New Zealand a sense of its own national pride.
Still with plenty of daylight and energy remaining, I walked to Mount Victoria on the south side of town. The top has stellar views of the entire region.
The mountain also has the “Hobbit Hideaway” where Frodo, Sam Merry and Pippin hide from the Ringwraith by ducking underneath a tree root. The real scene looks quite different from the movie. Middle Earth is lusher but most importantly the tree root was CGI.
For dinner, I met up with fellow Traveler Century Club member Ben. Ben is American but has lived in New Zealand for the better part of the last decade. He has spent so much time that he has a hybrid accent. Ben and his partner (in New Zealand, the term partner carries no connotation of gender, sexuality, or marriage status) just bought an apartment in the center of Wellington. So needless to say, he is a big fan of the city.
Ben took me out along the main commercial street in Wellington, Cuba St. First, we went to dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant. Ben noted that despite being a relatively small city, Wellington has lots of diversity and amenities that you would typically only find in a larger city, Ethiopian food being one.
After dinner, we went to a menu-less cocktail bar where you tell the server what type of drink you want (liquor, flavor profile, etc.) and they pick a drink for you. For example, you might say you want a rum drink that is spicy and has elderflower. I have been to this type of cocktail bar before, but they are very rare because it takes significant skill and memory from the bartender to pull it off.
December 24, 2023: Zealandia
Perhaps I was more jetlagged than I thought because I only slept for 3 hours. Unfortunately, I couldn´t sleep in because my paid parking was expiring at 8:00.
Checking the weather, I learned that there was going to be nonstop rain for the next two days. This meant that my planned Christmas Day trek on the Tongariro Alpine Crossing was going to be cancelled. With surprisingly little effort, I was able to rearrange the trip. Instead of National Park, I was going to Napier and then to Taupo. I would visit Tongariro as a day trip from Taupo. This new itinerary included about 5 hours of extra driving, but I would still get to do everything I wanted and would get to visit the famed Hawkes Bay wine region.
Once in my car, I drove over to Zealandia, a world-famous bird sanctuary. The sanctuary is in a verdant valley 10 minutes from the city center. Zealandia protects some of New Zealand´s unique birds including the kiwi bird (the national animal) and takahes. Unfortunately, it was raining which scared many birds away but it was still nice to walk around for an hour.
With that, it was time to start the road trip north starting in Napier!
Final Thoughts:
Wellington is a lovely place! There are so many attractions in the compact center and suburbs. The attractions are diverse and include both nature and culture. While the biggest attractions are free (Te Papa, Parliament, hiking), the paid attractions are reasonably priced.
The center walking street, Cuba Street, does not have chains and is lovely. The neighborhoods all looked very cute.
The one downside appears to be the weather. Wellington is known for being a windy city and despite being summer, it was borderline sweater weather the entire time.
All said, I would highly recommend visiting Wellington on any North Island New Zealand itinerary. Because it is the location of the ferry to the South Island, many travelers pass through for a few hours but miss out on all the city has to offer. So, if you are road-tripping to both islands, stay at least 24 hours in Wellington.
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