South Island Bus Adventure Day 2: Wellington

If Auckland is the city of sails, Wellington is the city of wind. Throughout my day in New Zealand's capital city, wind was a constant companion. Sometimes the wind was pleasant, and made good company, other times it was harsh and oppressive. Fortunately, my day for exploring the city was clear and precipitation free, and I didn't have to worry about rain blowing in my face.

My first stop in Wellington was Te Papa, New Zealand's free national museum. It's the "no-brainer" tourist activity in the city--everyone who goes to Wellington for tourism visits Te Papa. And for good reason: it's a pretty good museum, documenting a lot of New Zealand's history, especially its natural and geological history. There are a few odd exhibits--they seemed very excited about a giant squid, one of the largest ever found, that now sits preserved in a table of murky preserving solution on the ground floor. But for the most part, Te Papa was enjoyable to walk around. The museum was on the waterfront of Wellington Harbour, and provided good views of the city from the ground level.

The exhibit on showcase in Te Papa was Paperskin: the Art of Tapa Cloth. The exhibit featured paintings and other sculptural works on and made of tapa cloth, a paper-thin, natural substance. It was a well put together display, with various tapestries of different length and size (some the size of a standard painting, others must have been over 50 metres long) hung in a pleasant, wood-floored gallery. The music piped in to the gallery was recorded by a local artist/DJ, and was composed using PVC pipes and synthesizers, supposedly inspired by the tonal qualities of the art. It all created a very pensive, mysterious experience, especially since the purpose of some of the masks and sculptures was unknown. I couldn't take pictures inside the exhibit, but here's one of the samples from the website.

After Te Papa, I wandered to Wellington's city centre/CBD/business area, where governmental workers and other office types were rushing around on their lunch break. I found a fast-food donburi shop that promised to make my meal in 60 seconds or less. The workers even shouted "Irasshaimase" (welcome) whenever a customer entered the restaurant, which was a nice authentic touch. Sure enough, my kakiage vegetable tendon came in 60 seconds in a very Western chinese takeout box, and I enjoyed it with a non-alcoholic Schweppes Ginger Beer (basically ginger ale). The ginger beer here is much less "spicy" than the ginger brew style beverages they sell at Whole Foods and elsewhere in the US.

I continued to roam the city. I took one of Wellington's other attractions, its Cable Car, to a higher area in the city near Victoria University, but, upon finding nothing but the city's Botanical Gardens and residential areas up there, headed back down to the CBD. On such a clear day, I was able to take advantage of the height to take some pictures of Wellington from a higher vantage point.

I was getting pretty cold and tired of walking around by this point, so I returned to the hostel. I went down to fill up my water bottle in the hostel kitchen, and ran into Denis, my roommate from the previous night, in the lobby. I thought he had checked out the previous night. Denis told me on my first day that he was having problems securing his working visa, due to problems that a certain visa officer in Auckland who had made a mistake on Denis's application that he was unwilling to fix. Denis thought that he would have to move on to Australia, but he received an email in the morning saying that he could possibly get the New Zealand visa after all. This saga led to him sitting in the hostel lobby at 3:00 PM, not having checked out after all.

After we had talked about his visa plight for a bit, Denis produced a brochure for a place called Zealandia from his backpack. "I heard this place is having a 2-for-1 winter special on their night tours," he told me, "and you get a chance to see a kiwi. It would only be $37.50. It's a nice day. Would you want to do it with me?" I looked at the brochure. Zealandia was a bird sanctuary and preservation area just ten minutes from the city by bus, quite near the Botanical Gardens I had walked by earlier in the day. They claimed to be one of the only places in Wellington to have kiwis in the wild, and that you could go on a nighttime tour with them to see kiwis and other birds. Not wanted to pass up an opportunity to see a kiwi, and because I didn't have anything else going on at night anyway, I said sure, and Denis called the place to make a reservation.

Two hours later, we found ourselves hustling for the right bus to the sanctuary. Denis, with a plate of hot fish and chips in his hand, knew the city a little better than I did, and we chanced upon the right bus that would take us to Zealandia. Once there, we joined a group of ten others from various parts of the world, were given red LED Maglites (apparantly the birds get affected by regular white light, but the red light they either can't see or aren't bothered by) and shown a little prepared video and exhibit. Apparantly Zealandia used to be home to the town's water supply, and a private getaway spot for the Governor-General. Now it was being used as a conservation area, and a specially designed fence had been erected outside to keep out rats, cats, ferrets, and other predators. A young guide named Tracey and an older volunteer named Cheryl, equipped with larger Maglite torches (flashlights) led our group into the increasingly dark forest trails.

The air was soon filled with a chorus of different bird calls. Tracey, with her torch, pointed out a feeder where six or seven Kākā, an endemic, endangered bush parrot, were hanging out. They were smart enough to know to step on a little metal bar in the feeder, which would dispense a food pellet. Zealandia had carefully introduced a few Kākā into the sanctuary, and now they were breeding and doing well. Later on the trail, a Kārearea, a New Zealand falcon, flew overhead, much to the delight of the guides, for whom this was a somewhat rare occurance. A loud owl hooted in the background as it got darker in the forest. My camera soon lost all usefulness in the dark.

Just over 20 minutes into the 2.5 hour walk, the elder volunteer Cheryl, who had been at the back of the group to make sure no one got lost in the woods, shouted "Tracey!!" to the other guide. We all collected near Cheryl, who said "I just heard a kiwi over here." We all pointed out Maglites in the direction of a small patch of brush at the intersection of two trails. Tracey moved up along the second trail, and motioned for us to be quiet and follow her. And then, there it was, a real Little Spotted Kiwi, poking around in the brush. We all stood in awe for 15 seconds or so, crouched down on the trail as the kiwi moved around. Then, it ran off across the path, the crowd (myself included) gave a collective "oh!" as we saw it in full view as it crossed the path, and then off into the woods. It was a very cool experience, like seeing something I wasn't supposed to see displayed right out in the open in front of me in the dark, illuminated only in red by the Maglites.

After our initial excitement wore off, I walked with Denis and the rest of the group deeper into the forest. In a path near the water resevouir walked another rare find: a Brown Teal duck, or Pāteke, another endangered bird. According to Tracey and Cheryl, seeing one of these was rarer than the kiwi. We heard tuis singing their complex song in the background. Having seen one before, even I was able to recognize its call. The sanctuary held other treasures besides birds--giant bugs called Wekas and shimmering blue glowworms illuminated themselves in the dark. We even saw another kiwi hiding in the brush later on.

On our way back, Denis and I marveled that such a cool place could be hiding close to the CBD of a major city. Denis said that some other people he knew had spent a lot more than $37.50 on expeditions looking for kiwis, and that they didn't see any. Zealandia was an awesome, unplanned, memorable addition to my trip. If you want to see more about it and more pictures, search on Wikipedia for Karori Wildlife Sancturary.

Coming up next: Wellington - Nelson and the ferry across the Cook Strait