Thursday the 18th was a road trip day from the ski area surrounding Mt. Doom to our final destination on the North Island, the capital city of NZ, Wellington. We left bright and early after breakfast and arrived in time for a late lunch, which was momentous due to it being the first burger, of the trip and really the first burger since the end of June at least. A little side note about burgers in NZ. Seems that any sandwich served on a bun is termed a burger here, so a chicken breast on a bun is a burger or a piece of fish on a bun is a burger not just a beef pattie. But this spot in Wellington was pre-approved by Alex and carried his stamp of approval and he is yet to be wrong on all things food & drink. So we start with a few photos from the end of the car trip…
However, some folks got a preview of some of the highlights of the car trip. We drove Highway 1 that goes the length of the North Island and there were no major cities on our way to Wellington. Fantastic farm country with rolling hills serving as grazing areas for some of the 30+ million sheep in NZ and hundreds of dairy herds. Also some areas taking advantage of the volcanic soil to grow vegetables for the country. We saw all kinds of fruits and vegetables being advertised, from asparagus to zucchini. Several towns had even erected monuments to honor their special crops, like the giant carrot surrounded by a playground of many veg. The sign along this giant carrot told the story of the giant’s creation, it started with this phrase….”several farmers got together in a local bar…”. I’m fairly confident that most of the monuments we passed on the highway had similar founding stories.
Walking around Wellington we came across some very cool street art in this city that Alex calls the Austin of NZ.
Our last event in Wellington, before checking into the absolutely posh Bolton Hotel, was a visit to the Weta Special Effects Movie Studio. This is a Peter Jackson owned special effects shop. We were able to take a tour of the operation that is responsible for all of the CGI and physical special effects, costumes like body armor and weaponry for the Lord of The Rings movies, and other huge movies like Avatar and King Kong. It was scheduled for 45 minutes but we ran long, someone….Bonnie….kept coming up with great questions about the process that extended the tour to an hour. Someone….Bonnie….may have a second career in making movie magic as it involves a lot of skills that she loves.