Wellington

I went to Wellington for a couple of days this week, driving up the coast to Westport Airport for a short hop across to Wellington. To give you an idea of the size of the plane: all 9 passengers had a window seat, including a good view through the front windscreen! The flight was very bumpy but all credit to the pilot for a very smooth landing.

Wellington lived up to expectations on arrival, i.e. wet & windy! Fortunately the next day was sunny and warm and I had a good opportunity to see the city. It’s very reminiscent of Cape Town, being built with the CDB in the “bowl”, surrounded by suburbs on the hills. The CBD fronts onto a working harbour, not as vibrant as Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront, but certainly as pretty.

The weather turned to custard on the next day, with an ominously grey sky. I had an opportunity to visit the fascinating “E Tū Ake: Standing Strong” exhibition at Te Papa museum, an exhibition about the cultural and political aspirations of New Zealand society. For anyone visiting Wellington, I’d strongly recommend at least 4 hours at Te Papa museum, it’s a stunning collection of displays and artworks and it’s a massive museum.

In this photo looking out towards Miramar suburb, the museum is the large, modern black & cream-coloured building to the right of the yacht basin.

This next photo shows the Light House on the waterfront, the only accepted Southern Hemisphere entry in the “U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2011”. It’s an interesting example of recreational housing designed on sustainable principles.

I couldn’t resist taking a picture of this model of an owlet at Te Papa museum. One for owl-mad Eloise!

It’s a Laughing Owl, now extinct but it was endemic to NZ and otherwise known as a Whekau or White-Face Owl.

The return journey from Wellington was not what I’d call smooth, but all credit to Air New Zealand for getting their passengers safely back to Westport. After boarding the Westport-bound plane at Wellington, the flight was cancelled due to forecast tornadoes in Westport and we were asked to disembark. I managed to hop onto the next flight to Nelson for an incredibly bumpy ride through stormy weather over the Cook Strait. Once landed at Nelson, passengers had to disembark in torrential rain and run across the apron into the terminal building. Six of us hopped onto the Air New Zealand-arranged shuttle bus which took it’s bedraggled passengers back to Westport in 3 hours through some terrible weather. On arriving at Westport Airport I drove my car back down the coast to arrive in Greymouth shortly after midnight, 6 hours later than expected but safe & sound.

The weather has been pretty rough in many parts of New Zealand over the last 48 hours, with more to come. This news picture (from NZ Herald) illustrates the strong winds in Dunedin on Thursday. One of the ladies on my flight had flown down to Dunedin for a conference. Due to the high winds, the conference was moved to Wellington. So this poor lady flew from Westport to Dunedin to Wellington to Nelson, followed by a long coach trip back to Westport. Just to attend a conference.

The meteorological chart from Weatherwatch.co.nz shows a strong likelihood of small tornadoes around the country tomorrow and, as I write this on Saturday night, the rain and wind have arrived with a vengeance.