Wellington

Moving from my lovely WWOOF family, I then went to stay with Bhagee and Vithiya – the other kiwi friends I’d made in India.

A huge thank you to them for their incredible generosity.

It was so cool to be able to catch up, and I got fed! (I’m so shallow) I alllso was introduced to the best coffee in town by Bhagee’s housemate. The intel was as great as the coffee. And what good coffee it was, nutty and fruity. I had the perfect flat white. Saying that, the entirety of wellington had really good coffee. I looked up the independent coffee houses and did myself a tour, and it was fabulous. I think Wellington was up there with Melbourne in terms of coffee, but Wellington was a little more relaxed and a lot smaller.

I have mentioned previously that the interior design of coffee shops makes me incredibly happy. The effort is always made to make it that much more unique appeals to me on a fundamental level. I think it’s because I am nosey as all hell. It’s like that feeling when you are going round your friends house or room for the first time, unashamedly staring at  everything. Band poster you didn’t know they liked? Awesome. That book you had been meaning to read? Borrowed. Pictures of them as a child? Jackpot.

Digressing here, above is a picture of one of my favourite cafes from Wellington. Pretty cool, huh?

Looking back on Wellington it seems I was very focused on drinking, coffee yes, lots of it. But also craft beer. Oh the craft beer. This was quite a big thing for me as I am not usually a beer drinker. But Bhagee took me to The Garage Project, a craft beer mecca where we very happily got tipsy on tasters, I chatted with the lady behind the bar for ages and Bhagee got me the best chips in Wellington to munch on. It was good times, I discovered a love for stout, my favourite being one with a coffee flavour (don’t look so surprised) and a really nice fruity one which was so light and refreshing. Definitely another interest to take home with me.

Millennium Falcon at a Craft Beer bar…

The view form Mount Victoria

I spent a lot of time just exploring Wellington on foot, I got to know it pretty well. I visited the botanical gardens, museum, walked up Mount Victoria and took the cable car up as it seemed like thing to do.

I meant a wonderful elderly gentleman at the top of Mount Victoria, he was retired ex-ambassador army background who hikes all the way the Wellington coast every Sunday. He was a sweet heart and we had a strange if lovely conversation about ghosts.

Speaking of coastal walks, Bhagee and Viddi took on me on a gorgeous one. The featured image of this post is from the walk and is of the long white cloud over the South Island we could just about see from the hills. Aotearoa being the name of New Zealand and it’s most common definition being the ‘land of the long white cloud’. It was a pretty perfect day.

WETA Studios

I am a Tolkien fan – it’s kind of hard not to be actually. He was one of the absolute forefathers of high fantasy. He made the template which today is still recognisable throughout the fantasy genre. I think it was he that helped spark my respect, even fascination, with world building (before my love for Terry Pratchett took hold, before I read any David Eddings). No matter what the subject – if there’s good and detailed, coherent and consistent world building, I am with you until the end.

So when I watched the high fantasy movies derived form such a world and completed with such superb attention to detail…I was blown away. I got a little bit nerdy. I started to learn everything I could about the making of the movie; all the trivia, puppetry, the design and processes involved.

Now moving on to New Zealand where those epics were filmed! And you might see where this is going, I had already visited Hobbiton (the village created for the movie – a now permanent feature for tourist purposes), I had seen Mount Ngaurhoe (mount doom for the purpose of the movies) and now I was at Weta Studios. This being the visual effects workshop that did so much to capture and hold my imagination.

It was always going to be a really cool place and I did not leave disappointed. Only perhaps in myself for not buying the make your own chainmail key chain kit ( I may make my own anyway as I now know how to make it from plastic washers..) I wandered around the shop and admired the figures on display, resisted the urge (just) to swing around some replica Andúril (Aragorn’s sword) and took pictures of the trolls outside.

The most fun was to be had on the tour however, we had a lovely guy brandishing a katana prop and describing his plans for the zombie apocalypse. We walked past their 3D printer, got shown props from a ton of movies I actually didn’t know weta had been involved in and talked to a guy modelling themed guinea pigs dressed up as darth vader, Jack Sparrow..

I was incredibly sad to leave as the place was utterly charming.