After a great night's rest....
...and a delicious breakfast...
...we headed off to our pre-booked tour of Weta Workshop, just over the hill:
You wouldn't really notice it was there unless you were looking for it; it's very unobtrusive in the middle of a suburban neighborhood.
This was our tour guide, Connor, an artist at the workshop. The set in front of which he is standing is the backdrop for the Weta revival of a 60s kid show, The Thunderbirds (Cory knew about it; I didn't-). We weren't allowed to photograph much of what he showed us within the workspace, but in the gift shop we could photograph as much as we wanted. Again, if your are not a Tolkein fan, you better just skip right through this part...
After lunch, we explored Wellington City.
The Te Papa Museum is pretty amazing.
Seriously--a giant snail shell.
A Giant Squid--reminds me of the aliens from Independence Day....
The displays for this tribute to Gallipoli were created by Weta Workshop. This man is about 6x larger than a normal person.....all of the models were so big...making the exhibit very emotionally effective.
Not sure why this one was displayed---comic relief, maybe?
After Te Papa, we walked about the city center; this particular area is called The Terrace:
We were looking for this cable car system when we climbed all of those stairs....we ended up going back down and walking another few blocks before finding it.
Saw some guys playing cricket--and a great view of part of the harbour.
This is a human sundial...
Wellington is very hilly...this was our view from the top of the Cable Car looking the opposite way from the harbour:
Cool wierd-looking plant--
The LOTR did not film in this park, but this path reminded me of the one the hobbits hid by when the Dark Riders came.....wait! What's that in the distance???!!!
Wellington has a real eclectic feel to it; lots of funky architecture and art,
mixed with old Victorian, Modern and Art Deco buildings.
We were wiped out by the time we walked back to the car!
We headed back to Miramar and had dinner in another Seatoun restaurant and walked around the town a little.
Look who we found!
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