A Royal Encounter

After tramping up and down the 20+ km Tongariro Crossing, we were pretty ready for some down time. We had also heard that Wellington was a beautiful city in the southern most part of the north island (and was where we had to get into the ferry and cross to the south island) so we spent the next 3-4 days there.

The first morning we woke up to rain. Nothing new as it had been raining on & off for the previous week & continued to be a common theme over the next week or so as well. So we quickly made some oatmeal in the back of the van under the shelter of the door and hurried off to our first appointment, attemting to see the royal couple, Will & Kate, as they do a public walk through Civic Square just before they leave New Zealand. We decided to try to arrive at Civic Square (downtown Wellington) around 8-830. 10 minutes onto our highway drive we hit quite the traffic jam and spent the next hour bumper to bumper all the way to Wellington which put us a bit behind scedule but not too much. The royals were scheduled to arrive around 11:30am.

In town we realized it didn't matter how far away we parked, we were going to have to pay. So we parked at the museum for $15 for the day and made our way to Civic Square in the rain. You can imagine my excitement and zest as I realized the next 3 hours waiting for the royals would be done in the cold rain. That picture Karina Peterson put on Facebook shows precisely how I was feeling for the entire 3 hours.

At Civic Square, we found a rather good spot on an inside corner to see Will and Kate as they signed their names in a special guest book and then would walk towards us on their way out. I probably asked "are they here yet?" more than all of the 5 year old girls next to us, but without the same enthusiasm. $4 hot chocolate (for a small) helped keep me nice and warm though while we waited!

The anticipation, and number of people wanting a glimpse, grew very quickly and we realized it was good that we had arrived early for something for the first time in our marriage. The one guard who had been scoping the place out I am sure was Liam Neeson's brother. As were all of the police stationed many stories above us on the rooftops. Just before they arrived, the Liam-look-alike went over to a couple little girls in princess dresses in the crowd and got down on his knees and and invited them to present Kate & Will with some flowers as she entered. Then finally, after several fake oohs, ahhs, and claps, Will and Kate and more security and media than you could shake a stick at made their way towards us. I don't remember the last time I saw that many photos taken at one time of 2 people! They meandered around, shaking a few hands here and there before the guest book signing.

Then Kate made her way to our side and said hi to a group of young girls- whom Milessa was just as excited as- just before she took a few more steps our way and was given the honour of shaking Milessa's hand and saying hello to! After that it's hard to recall what happened as Milessa was in complete shock. I mean the kind where her hands were shaking so bad she couldn't even take a picture. It was at this point that the nice photo of me and Kate on Facebook was taken as I laughed at Milessa's reaction to the whole ordeal. What a way to start our time in Wellington!

Orc model at Weta Caves

We then went to the Te Papa Museum since we heard it was one of the best free things around. It was definitely worth it. We saw many displays including the only complete Colossal squid (490 kg) on display anywhere.

After that just because we love them so much, we went to visit a chiropractor for Milessa on our way to Weta Caves. Weta Caves is one of the businesses that many films use for their graphic and costume design. LOTR, King Kong, Avatar, and so many other big films use Weta Caves. It was pretty awesome to see how it all comes together for films. That night we went to bed pretty early as the adreneline from meeting Kate was just too much.

Lyall Bay

The next day was very chill, & rainy. We used libraries for internet and sat with our van lights on for just a little bit too long at a Telecom hotspot... and killed the battery at 23:30 in a parking lot in Porirua on a public holiday when nothing was open. Thank goodness we were in New Zealand and everyone loves everyone! The second car with 2 locals I flagged down (the Domino's Pizza guy didn't have cables) stopped and said they could help us in spite of having 2 little babies in their car. However he didn't have his cables. So without hesitation, he popped his battery out, stuck it in our car while we started it, then swapped the batteries back. All without complaint or anything and we had a good chat with them afterwards.

Hobbit's Hidaway

The next day we decided we would try to see a few sites where LOTR had been filmed. We started at Mount Victoria, which is a fairly iconic 200m mountain in the city. Views from the top were brilliant as you could see most of the city. Somewhere in the mountain park we found the place where the Hobbits hid from the Naz'gul horse guy, and where the hobbits fell face first near mushrooms. After that we made our way to Shelly Bay where multiple scenes from LOTR and King Kong were filmed (Peter Jackson really loves NZ apparently). We then went south to Lyall Bay, a beautiful surfer's beach, and other nearby LOTR scene locations. This is apparently where Aragon and Pippen learned to surf, we didn't though because it was so late in the day.

After that, we drove north towards our free campground and tried to find a few more LOTR sites. One of them was the rock quarry where Helm's Deep was constructed, and another river that was used in the Elven city scenes.

The next morning we tried to go to a coffee beanery and see how it was made, but on this Saturday, maybe because it was Easter weekend, it was closed. So we headed over to the parliament building where we got to have a tour. It was very nice, made completely of stone and material from NZ. It was also very interesting to see the anti-earthquake system they had there. Since they are very close to a fault line, in 1992 they went under & re-did the foundation of the building placing it on some type of rubber lead springs isolating it from most ground movement during an earthquake. We then saw a 150 year old church down the road made completely of 4-5 different kinds of wood from around NZ, including Kauri wood, which is now endangered and can't be cut down anymore.

We then made our way to the Interislander ferry crossing and loaded onto the barge. The views from the top deck were absolutely stunning, but really didn't show up well in the photos unfortunately. Though tempted to buy massive and expensive meals on board (because that's what you do on ferry's right?) we decided to just share some fries and play cards :)

Said to be one of the most beautiful ferry rides in the world

Right off the ferry I started driving the direction that felt right before we ever looked at a map, because I prefer to just go. 5 minutes later when Milessa convinced me to stop so we could find a free campground nearby on the correct hi-way, lo and behold, we had just happened to stop right beside the one free campground in the area! I knew I didn't need maps. That's when I realized how truly awesome we were. With Wellington done and the south island about to start, we went to bed. Or, went to van, more appropriately.

The view from Mt Victoria of Wellington

Trolls at Weta Caves

Hedge hogs in the wild. How weird is that?!