21st November 2009 A grey day greeted us when we opened the curtains this morning. We could hardly make out the cranes along the docks and certainly couldn’t see the other side of the harbour. Obviously a day for indoor activities, so we made our way to the Wellington City Museum. A former bond store where goods were stored before shipping, the first area we entered had been restored to look as it would have done in the 1800s. ...
20th November 2009 Wellington is quite a compact city, not unlike Cardiff. After a wander around the centre this morning to find the information centre and some internet access, we took the city’s historic Cable Car up to the beautiful Botanic Gardens which overlook the harbour. The Botanic Gardens cover 25 hectares and are a unique landscape of protective native forest, exotic trees, plant collections and seasonal displays. We arrived at the top and took in the view over the central business district from the Cable Car station, before making our way to the Cable Car museum. This small museum details the history of the cable cars that have transported people between the harbour and hills in Wellington for over 100 years. It also has a fully restored original cable car known as a ‘relentless red rattler’ and a fully restored grip car. It also showed examples of private cable cars that people use to get to their homes on the hills. ...