Touchet travelers: February 4, 2024 Wellington, New Zealand Day 46 of 138

Today is Sunday, and we are pulling into Wellington, New Zealand. This is the Capital of New Zealand, and the Southern most capital in the World. We have two planned excursions today, so it will be a busy day. First we are doing the Te Papa & Highlights of Wellington. This is a bus trip around the capital city including the Beehive, which is where the Parliament meets.

This building, and the museum we are going to next are the two safest buildings in the area. They have been built to withstand the most powerful earthquakes. The Beehive, in the picture above, is 10 stories high, but has 4 stories under ground that are suppose to move with the shaking of the ground. Lucky for us, we did not have to test this out.

The area around the Parliament has many styles of architecture, and art.

The Old St. Paul Catholic Church has a story associated with it from the War. US soldiers were stationed near by, and one Sunday morning one of the young men got a pass to come to church. He met a family there who had a daughter. They got to talking after the service, and he was invited home for a meal and family time. He went back to the base and told his friends about his day, and the next week, the church hosted 300 service men look for a home cooked meal and some socialization.

Our guide told us that the women from the island flocked to date a service man. They liked how they looked in their uniforms, and they liked the presents they received including chocolates, flowers, and the most prized was the nylons.

Our next stop was the Te Papa Museum. It had a great permanent exhibition for a WWI battle of Gallipoli. It had large displays of renditions of the men and women in the war. They have put a time line, shown examples of the clothes and weapons used, talked about the success and failures. The Weta workshop which we will see later today did the work on the large displays of the people. They are respected for their work around the world.

Next stop was Mt. Victoria summit. We were able to see 360 degree views of the port, and surrounding area. It was a beautiful spot. My pictures ended up above.

We arrive back to our ship with just enough time to have a quick lunch and we are off again. This time for a Lord of the Rings tour of the Weta workshop they have made some great advances in Computer Generated Imagery. They have worked on such films as The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and Avatar. Pictures we were able to take include

We then drove back to Mt. Victoria summit, and saw areas used in the filming of the Hobbit. Out bus driver and guide worked on the Hobbit movie. He had great first hand stories.

We returned to our ship just before we were to leave the dock and head to our next port of Nelson, New Zealand.

If you are reading this with only 5 pictures, understand I am experiencing difficulty finding my pictures tonight. I will try again tomorrow.