Due to the fact I had 3 nights in Wellington, I had another free day to explore Wellington today. I was tempted to the catch the bus/train somewhere as there are apparently lots of nice walks and bike rides in the surroundings towns, but I instead opted for another day in the main city. Due to this I was in no rush this morning and laid in until about 9! When finally getting out of bed, where surprisingly I was first up, I headed out into town, first stop my new found WiFi hotspot outside my hostel. Wellington has free WiFi everywhere!
My plan of action for the morning was to go to the beehive which is New Zealand's main parliament building. I yesterday found out they do free tours round this and the surrounding buildings free of charge, so I was in! Arriving just before 10 as this unique piece of architecture, I had to go through some real tight security. It was just like going through an airport with myself being searched, and my bag being x rayed. Luckily I got through and from here booked myself onto the tour starting at 10.
Being by far the youngest in the group, we started our tour round the beehive building which was the most modern building. Designed to maximise natural light potential with the windows, the working space all operates around a lift system. Our guide rightfully described it as a doughnut building. We were only allowed to look at the banquet hall here, as the rest of the building was important offices including the prime ministers office! It was funny though because one old man asked about the curtains and then wanted a demonstration on how they opened!
The next part of the tour took us through to this old mansion like building. It was nice talking to people in my group here who despite being considerably older were interested in talking to me. Outside of my personal life, the fact I knew some stuff about politics from when I studied it resulted in me having a political conversation with this guy from south London! When entering the mansion we headed down into the basement where we watched an interesting film about how the building is earthquake proof. It was actually really interesting and in addition we could see the construction with our own eyes. To put it simply the building is on stilts, and the original foundations now have a gap with the ground! In the event of an earthquake the building can move 30cm each way.
The next part of the tour took us round various parts of the building which included corridors with pictures of past prime ministers, artwork and a sculpture representing past links with other countries. There was a lot of historical analysis at this point. Next up was this room where people can present their views to the pm. More impressive was the decoration in here which included Maori weaving and carvings. We then went into the main chamber, the equivalent of the house of commons which showed all the politicians seats. Apparently you can watch debates as the general public. We also saw the room where they open parliament, which has been done by the queen on occasions! The final part of the tour took us to the library. All in all the tour was very interesting, although I couldn't quite take all the political knowledge in!
After leaving the parliament buildings, I went to the cathedral which was a pretty modern building. There were some interesting stained glass windows amongst other things here. After leaving here and walking past many places of worship, I checked out the large westpac stadium. I'm tempted to go to a rugby match here for the atmosphere, I'll just have to see when I pass back through Wellington! From here it was back along the harbour side, passing this massive cruise ship and also this boat which had just come back from exploring Antarctica. One thing I haven't mentioned yet either is the Easter egg hunt they are running around Wellington where they give a map and you have find a number of eggs in the given area. I have seen so many!
By now lunch was well overdue, so after heading back to the hostel I spent the early afternoon sorting out a few more important things. I have now booked all my buses for the deep south section of my trip. By now I had more or less exhausted Wellington of its free things to do in the centre, so I opted for an afternoon of geocaching. This took me out along the harbour side and through the main city centre as far as the main railway station. I found 8/12, mainly because I can never find caches in city centre areas because my gps wanders about because of the high rise buildings.
By now time was getting on, so after yet another walk harbour side, this time back via Cuba Street, it was back to the hostel. I passed a fully kitted out Saints fan en route! After a while relaxing in my hostel room, some new people checked in and things went from finding out they were from Brighton, to finding out one of them was the sister of someone I worked with at Tesco. Funnily enough we knew lots of people in common! To top things off, after coming back from dinner where I had pasta, I met some people from Shoreham in the lift!
Since getting into the hostel that evening, it had been heavily raining and I really needed to get to the new world supermarket to get food for tomorrow. I eventually braved it, which I guess was Wellington living up to its Wet and Windy Wellington nickname, finding out en route I could get to burger king in the dry! I got slightly wet in the end but I got lots of bargains just before it shut. It was then back to hostel ready to sleep for an early start tomorrow morning to go to south island.
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