Holiday: Day 15 – Wellington Wander!

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5.25am: Welcome back devoted Reader! 👏

An earlier start today for us as we’ve a long drive ahead…

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Day 15 – Where are we?
(Wednesday, 13th November)

TODAY’S TRIVIA: Wellington is the most southerly capital in the world

Thanks for joining us on Day 15. Back in the hire car, we’re now heading for New Zealand’s capital city – Wellington. It’s our longest drive of this holiday so far, some 325km (200 miles) from where we are now – Napier – totalling about 4 hours behind the wheel. We’re using the SH50, SH2, SH3, SH57 and finally the SH1. They’re known as State Highways (SH) or sometimes Expressways out here. Some are multilane (a bit like our dual carriageways), some are similar to our motorways (the rather excellent SH1 near Wellington, for instance) and others are single lane, twisty little buggers that often made us think: “are we (still) on the right road?”. This combination of ‘types’ always seemed to make the journey time tricky to calculate.

But numbers are my thing, so it was worth a go! Leaving at the time we did and allowing for driver swaps and the aforementioned differing ‘styles’ of roads, we calculated that we’d hopefully be in the Capital by around 1pm (ish) – but don’t hold us to it!! 😲😲😉

7.30am: As we said goodbye to Napier, out came the Sun! In fact, it reminded us of California!

It was good to hit the road early this morning. We seemed to miss all the town traffic and were soon heading south-west. In fact, there was hardly any traffic at all – in either direction! Ann took the wheel first, and we planned to swap every hour-or-so.

The lack of other vehicles made it a really enjoyable journey – the only thing that slowed us down was the roadworks here and there where they were resurfacing the road!

Meanwhile, at this early hour, I kept a lookout for somewhere to stop and have breakfast.

9.10am: A bit of navigating via Google Maps revealed a McD’s in a town called Dannevirke.

9.22am: Dannevirke was certainly an unusual name here in New Zealand, and we learned that the location is famous for its Scandinavian heritage, dating back to 1872, when 21 Danish and Norwegian families arrived to settle in the district. In true Scandi tradition, a Breakfast Burger awaited us! 😋😋. Until we arrived, we hadn’t seen any other person, nor vehicle, since we left Napier! – that was over 100km!!😲

Suitably stuffed, we swapped drivers and were back on the road inside 45 minutes. The food was great but the service, unusually for McD’s, was somewhat lacking! 😖

10.15am: The roads remained almost empty for the next stage of our journey with the occasional vehicle in front – but never for that long – giving the whole road ahead, back to us! 👍.

11.14am: Our next scheduled stop was about an hour later in a quaint town called Shannon. It had a disused railway station (with its own museum) right opposite two EV chargers! – new tech meets old! 🤔

Named after a Wellington businessman, George Vance Shannon, who was amongst those responsible for the formation of the Wellington & Manawatu Railway Company in 1881. He was born in Ireland and came to Wellington in 1865. The station here in Shannon was built in 1893 and it’s the only one of its kind still open for the public to view. In fact, whilst we were parked up nibbling our bananas, a member of the staff tapped on the window. Fearing a reprimand for using their car-park for a picnic, she invited us to nibble on the station seat! Aww, sweet! 🍌🍌. It really was another quaint little town, that really deserved more (of our) attention – but not today! 🤔

11.20am: We were beginning to see more traffic now on the route – we saw a queue of FOUR cars ahead in the distance! 😉. With only about 90 minutes left before we arrived in Wellington, it was turning out to be a much warmer day and outside, the temperature was now a healthy 22℃!

As we hit the final stretch and joined the SH1 that would take us into Wellington, the traffic began to get busier. Nothing so serious as a traffic jam, but we were beginning to run out of fingers (and toes) to count the vehicles. I’m not sure whether these days, driving on any road, could ever be described as ‘wonderful’, but that final stage into the Capital with the blue sky, lush green foliage (and super quiet Tarmac!) was a memorable experience – especially seeing the sea to our left! 👏👏

TODAY’S TRIVIA: Bungee jumping first began in New Zealand in the 80s.

Hello Wellington!

12.58pm: We arrived just before 1pm and that included a couple of stops – so, not bad going! 👍👍. We were booked into a Serviced Apartment at the weirdly named Quest on the Terrace at 120 Lambton Quay where we’re here for three nights.

Gosh, Wellington was busy! We had no trouble at all in locating the Apartment, but actually parking the car was an additional challenge. I dropped Ann off to get us checked-in, whilst I circled the area waiting for the call to find out where we were going to be parking the car. Apparently, the Hotel has some pre-booked spaces in a nearby car-park – so we then had to find that too! It all worked out in the end, but it added another 25 minutes between getting the key and actually walking into the room. 🤪

1.30pm: Hello ‘Room 1’…

For goodness sake, this space is absolutely MASSIVE! They upgraded us to the ‘two-bedroom apartment’ and we shall be playing soccer in the lounge later! 😉. It really is far too big for us to rattle around in, but we’ll cope. Design-wise it clearly has all the space we need – and more – but from a decor point of view, it was all a bit unloved and firmly stuck in the 70s (luckily, the 1970s!). No air-conditioning either, plus a fuse-box that blows as soon as more than a few things are switched on.

The weather forecast for the next few days whilst we’re here is rain, rain and more rain. Of course, that may change, but in case it doesn’t we decided to take in a few of the sights (whilst the fuse-box cooled down!)

The Cable Car

Wellington’s Cable Car was literally just down the road from our Apartment. A return ticket costs us 12NZD each (about £5.50) and rises 120 m over a length of 609 m.

It was only a short ride – probably no more than ten minutes. On exiting at the top, you have wonderful views across Wellington.

At that point, it’s either wait for the next Car down or take the rather pleasant walk through the Botanic Gardens back to street level.

Oh yes, very pleasant!! 👍👍. I wasn’t sure if the duck was copying us or it was the other way around! 🦆🦆

The Views

The Lady Norwood Rose Gardens

3.30pm: If you like Roses, then you’re sure to be impressed by the Lady Norwood Rose Garden. It felt quite weird to be looking at these blooms in all their glory in NOVEMBER, but ’tis the norm in these parts! For history fans, we’re told that the rose garden was named after Lady Norwood who, with her husband Sir Charles Norwood, a former Mayor of Wellington contributed significantly to the development of the city.

3.50pm: Time for our daily ice-cream! Chocolate for me, Mint Choc Chip for Mrs P. 😋😋

The Bolton Street Cemetery

4.00pm: What better way to end our day than a wander through the cemetery? 😲😲. It’s hard to believe but amongst the ‘every day’ parts of Wellington is what’s known as their ‘shared cemetery’ – Anglicans, Catholics and Jews – as well as eminent Maoris – are all buried in the same area (mostly!). When the major Expressway was planned in the 60s, local resistance was such that the Cemetery’s status was ultimately raised, and almost 4000 bodies were exhumed and re-interred.

Quirky but respectful! 👍

4.45pm: Back in the room! We’d taken advantage of the fabulous weather here in Wellington – it’s not going to be like this tomorrow!

Driving in New Zealand – From Napier to Wellington

Road Names: SH50, Sh2, SH3, SH57 and the SH1
Condition: Pretty good roads throughout
Lanes: Sometimes single, sometimes dual (with passing lanes), occasionally four lanes when approaching Wellington
Terrain: Long stretches of very straight sections but with VERY hilly parts both up and down – and occasionally VERY twisty
Scenery: Cows and more cows, with the occasional sheep. Still no pigs!
Filling Stations: Probably about 4 in total
Roadworks: Occasional, but they did slow us down
Driver Courtesy: Everyone seemed to obey the speed limit and no-one was in a hurry (apart from that one guy in a pickup!)
Speed Limits: Mostly 80kph all the way up to the National Speed Limit (110kph)
Police/Speed cameras: Four police cars/one Safety Camera (A Speed Camera)
Total distance: 330 kilometres (Phew!)

Tomorrow, given the weather, we’re going to do things ‘indoors’ including the Museum of New Zealand – see you Thursday!! 💤💤