This was the only stop on our trip that Rich and I went one direction and Rich’s brother and sister-in-law went a different direction. Obviously, I will be showing you what Rich and I saw. I will just mention that my in-laws went on a day long tour of the Lord of the Rings/Hobbiton scenes, which were filmed in the area. The locals call it “Welly World” and it is on the East side of the city. Weta Group is a movie industry in New Zealand. They not only filmed Lord of the Rings, but also Avatar. James Cameron, who directed Avatar have dual citizenship with Canada and New Zealand as he is there often for filming. Weta was named after a large insect native to New Zealand. We took a tour of the Wellington area for the day. However, one of the places we stopped was the Weta Workshop gift store, where we had a few photo ops….If you are an artist, it looked like a very cool place to work.
Our driver and guide, Kelvin, had a lot to tell us about New Zealand and about Wellington. New Zealand is about the same size as Japan in land area. The population of New Zealand is 5-5 1/2 million people. The population of Japan is 17 million people. There is not a lot of flat land in New Zealand….lots of hills. Wellington is made up of four cities . All the trees in the area are evergreen. Grassfed cattle is the biggest export from the area and a lot of dairy is exported as well. New Zealand is the first country with free trade agreement with China. There is a section of 600 acres up in the far hills of Wellington called Zoolandia. There is a fence around it and citizens take turns, two weeks at a time, to make sure the section of the fence assigned to them stays intact and clean. This Zoolandia is to keep the mammals out such as stoats, rats, and possums, and allow the native flightless and flying birds to procreate in a safe area. It took 2 years to develop this “predator free” fence. They cleaned up the area after putting the fence up, which took 6 months. Then the scientists reintroduced rare birds again. Kaka is one of the rare birds that is making a comeback. Most citizens have rat traps on their properties. Kelvin said 10 years ago he was catching a rat every other day. He hasn’t caught one in 7 years now. The country is aiming for no predators in the country by 2050. It is a tall order, but the citizens of the country are all on board. Kelvin stated that there are more Samoans who live in Auckland than actually live in Samoa. He told us that Australia is better at cricket but New Zealand is better at rugby. We stopped briefly along the coastline to stretch our legs and also at a higher distance, stopped to take photos of the coastline.
About 80% of the flora/fauna found in New Zealand is unique to the country. Many of the roofs are made of metal. That is so they are more earthquake proof. We stopped at a local diner for lunch and I ended up having fish and chips, which was the special. The fish was warehou, which is a local fresh caught fish and was so good. I asked several times for ginger ale, but was given ginger beer (non alcoholic). I have to say I really like the ginger beer in New Zealand and Australia. As with most of their products, they have catchy names and then a funny little paragraph on the back.
Wellington is known as “Windy Wellington” due to the stiff breezes that are forever present. Often flights inbound to Wellington are diverted to Christchurch on the Southern Island, due to high winds. It is the capital of New Zealand and is on the southernmost part of the North Island. It is the 2nd largest city in New Zealand with a population of 430,000. Wellington because the capital in 1865. There is a cable car ride to the top (which we took) and walked for a good half hour or so through the beautiful botanical gardens back down, ending in the rose garden. The cable car has been there and running since 1902. Did that make me nervous? Maybe.
One of the really nice places we stopped that we would highly recommend, especially if you are military, is the national war memorials (or ANZAC – which stands for Australia and New Zealand Army Corps). The one in Wellington is amazing. They actually celebrate ANZAC day, similar to our Veteran’s or Memorial Days on April 25th each year. Nearly every town has some kind of ANZAC memorial. The National War Memorial in Wellington is located in Pukeahu National War Memorial Park. It was dedicated in 1932 to honor the WWI fallen heroes and has a 50 meter high bell tower and a tomb of the unknown soldier. In WWI, New Zealand lost a generation. Over a century later, they still remember and honor them. At the park, they have memorials from several different countries represented there. The Australian memorial consists of 15 red sandstone columns along with interspersed gum trees. There is a stain glass tree for the British memorial, and if you stand in just the right spot, you can see a WWI British soldier saluting through the branches. It represents an intertwined Royal Oak and a Pohutukawa tree. The Turkish memorial is of two hats cast in bronze, one from New Zealand and one from a Turkish soldier along with a quote from Ataturk to the grieving mothers of the ANZAC soldiers. The hat on the left is from New Zealand (called the lemon squeezer) and the hat on the right is Turkish. The country of Turkey and New Zealand are close. Turkey has a big commemoration on April 25th on New Zealand’s behalf. The U.S. memorial is a granite tablet inscribed with a 1943 ANZAC day radio address from the U.S. Secretary of the Navy, commemorating WWII bonds. It looks as it the words are part of ripples on an ocean. The Belgian memorial is a steel sculpture of a laurel wreath, representing friendship. There is a sculpture similar to this one in East Flanders, Belgium. There are 8 countries that have their own memorial areas in the park, but they were the ones that I photographed. What was somewhat hard to take in was that there were a bunch of older teen boys skateboarding through this area. It seemed to many of us to be disrespectful, but our driver Kelvin stated it was just accepted at this point. There was a lone statue off to the side which represented the Māori mothers who stayed home and lost their menfolk – they lost their souls. It spoke volumes. The Māori were the most decorated warriors in WWII.
With Wellington being the capital, we stopped at their house of parliament. There are four buildings in total that have been used as government buildings throughout the years. You can obviously tell the one they call the beehive. New Zealand has led the world in women’s rights. Women have been able to vote since the 1890’s. It was the first western country to allow women to vote. Kate Sheppherd led the women’s suffrage movement and her face is on the New Zealand $10 bill. In contrast, the last westernized country to allow women to vote happened in 1973….Switzerland. The NZ government in a nutshell: it is an elected democracy with a monarchy. King Charles III of the UK is the king of the country (both NZ and Australia). They have one house – parliament, like our congress. When you vote, you vote for 2 things: your local representative and the MMP (mixed member proportionate) – or the party you would like to rule. The prime minister is the head of the biggest voted in party at that time. The ruling party must have 60% of the parliament. You cannot take away any members, only add. Their voting cycle is every 3 years. The only interesting part is if you are of Māori bloodlines. You have to be at least 1/16 Māori to vote on the Māori role in parliament. Māori is 17% of the New Zealand population and they have 18 parliamentary members. What was crazy was there was no police presence or guards anywhere. Kelvin stated there are usually only armed police in airports. The government is federal and city – there are no provincial or state governments.
In 1943, U.S. Marines were shipped to Wellington for a year to learn about beach landings and jungle warfare. It a local Anglican church, St. Paul’s, there is a U.S. Marine flag and a 48 striped U.S. flag hanging from the rafters. The church is old and so very beautiful.
Messina Musings 