Wellington

Got up at 4:30 am to catch the 6:25 am ferry from Picton to Wellington, New Zealand's capital on the North Island. It wasn't my choice to go this early (the next ferry was full) but it worked out well, because it gave me most of the day to spend in Wellington. The ferry trip (the bit I groggily remember) was interesting because a lot of the route on both sides was through long fjords and inlets, so it felt more like a trip down a huge river than one across open sea.






Wellington reminded me a lot of San Francisco: it has wooden terrace houses, forested hills, lots of coffee houses, a compact down town and what any city needs to be compared to San Francisco by a tourist: a cable car.

Te Papa (Our Place) is the sprawling national museum on the waterfront at which I suffered through a cringingly bad tour by an ex-South African guide. Lot of good mixture of modern multimedia and old artefacts.