Wellington Botanical Garden

On our way over to the cable car ticket booth on Lampton Quay, we passed a statue of John Plimmler, the father of Wellington, and his dog Fritz in front of the stairs that bear his name.There are statues and art all over the city, sometimes with plaques, sometimes not, I wish we had time for a guided walking tour. 

We bought round trip tickets and rode to the top. From there, we walked all the way down to the bottom of Wellington Botanical Gardens. Today, the sun was out, and the wind was down. A lovely day for a walk in the park. My thought was to have lunch midway at the Tree Top Cafe, but it is closed on the weekends in the winter. We continued down then back up and over to see the rose gardens, (all cut way back to stubs, getting ready for spring) and the begonia house. 

This set of green houses should be more accurately called tropical plant house because they were filled with all the native and exotic plants I know from home including Spanish moss and stag horn (Platycerium). Stunning. 

We had coffee and a cheese scone with butter, a Wellington specialty, to fortify us for the trip back top. A sign said 25 minutes to the cable car. We took somewhat longer. I recognized kaka parrots and tui. I’m sure I saw a couple of fantails, but I’d like a local birder for confirmation. I asked other walkers but didn’t happen upon anyone who was particularly knowledgeable. Very nice but not birders.


On the way to the top, at the Guide Grove, planted by Guides in 1932, I saw a wood pigeon roosting in the top of one of the old trees. I must create an eBird list for the day. We rested at the Krupp gun, a trophy from WWI, and I took a picture of Wellington harbor. We opted not to visit the Carter Observatory and its planetarium. I’m sure nice, but we were too tired to absorb any knowledge. Tired, and proud we’d walked so far up and down. We did have a bit of excitement when I realized I’d lost my phone. Fortunately, it was on the bench where we sat, looking out over Wellington Harbor. As I raced back to it, Grant called and spoke to a nice gentleman. He’d left his at a McDonald’s, so he was entirely sympathetic.

A visit to the Cable Car Museum, the ride down, and walk to the Crab Shack for lunch was about all we could do after that. My seafood chowder with an American Pale Ale and Grant’s seafood curry and hazy ale hit the spot. Plus 2 warm mini baguettes, one saved for later.


The British Royal Navy was giving tours of the HMS Tamar, their “greenest” ship. The line was short, but my legs were tired. I didn’t think there would be any elevators. A shag was sitting on the floating dock after we’d watched it diving for several minutes..

We walked back to the hotel, stopping by New World for supper food and to take on the train tomorrow.

A rest, then shower before walking to the Circa Theater to see Lizzy, a punk rock opera about Lizzy Borden. We could understand most every word the 4 singers sand, and it was so nice to have a live band: bass, drums, cello, guitar, and keyboard.


Steps: 14,379


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sick Chicken and Presidential Debate

Image
Our dual missions today were to get chicken Helen Reddy to eat and to be sure I could watch the presidential debate. The later would be by myself because the others are studiously avoiding thinking about politics.  First, we worked in the garden some more, making great progress on uncovering the row of native grasses back to the first set of native shrubs. I put some cardboard down where I cleared out. We will have at least one more session to get the rest done, all the cardboard laid, and the sawdust put on top.  Betsy and I reseated a screen that had fallen out. To keep it in place, she hammered in a nail so the wooden piece that overlaps the screen can’t fall too far down. I had to shimmy up parkour style, putting my back against the water tank and walking my feet up the foundation so I could use a hook on a pole to pull the piece into place. I guess I  thrilled I’m still strong and agile enough to do that. Next up, a bath, then lying on the bed to stream the debate on...
Read more
Image
  When we came for Betsy’s wedding in 2007, Sally, Spaulding and I, with my nieces, took what we fondly called the Bus Ride From Hell, a long day trip up to Cape Reinga and other stops, driven on rough roads by a young maniacal driver. I definitely wanted to repeat it because I wanted Grant to see where the Tasmanian Sea meets the Pacific Ocean. It is the most amazing thing I have ever seen, these two bodies of water, different colors, have bumped against each other for millions of years, yet the color line holds. I was and am amazed.  This time, we were taking a 44-passenger bus rather than a 16 seat van. Our driver, a 72-year-old Māori who told us to call him Huey, had been driving for 40 years. And the roads have been upgraded.  Only 14 people on our tour including us: Fiona from Ireland, a Japanese couple and a single young woman from there, a young NZ couple, and 3 couples from Australia who have rented RVs and are touring around. It was raining as we left. The weath...
Read more

Tiki Tour of North Shore

Image
The weather was fairly good so we decided to take a tour of the bays along the Pacific Ocean north of Kerikeri. First stop was Mataurin Bay. Of course I had to pick up shells, including a 4” scallop, a limpet, and both sides of a clam. No sea glass.  Next stop was Kaeo Bay. Not many shells, but a family did bring their lambs to the beach for an outing. Both sheep had been abandoned by their mothers for some reason, so they were being raised until they can be returned to the farmer. A sweet pet for a while, but no need for lamb sitters if they went on vacation. Our third stop was Tauranga Bay. No shells, some rocks, a dead shark. Most importantly, this area is a protected nesting site for variable oystercatchers and red-breasted dotterels. We saw both along the shore. I tried peering into the roped off grass area with my binoculars, but I couldn’t see any nests. May be a bit too early.  This stop was also a good site for Keith to fill his buckets with fresh seaweed which gave t...
Read more