A Miser's Guide to Wellington

New Zealand is an expensive place to get to, and the pain doesn’t stop when you arrive. Expect North American-level prices for most everything.

It’s only fair, as they have roads and social services to pay for, and want a decent living wage, just like us. This isn’t a cheap holiday in other people’s misery.

The sticker shock really hit home for me when I went down to the Visitors’ Centre and started browsing the brochures. As a life-long nerd, a Lord of the Rings tour was on my list of must-dos. Hobbiton’s too far away from Wellington, but I had heard there are many sites around the city where Jackson shot scenes from the movie.

The second-biggest Gollum I'd ever seen, at the Wellington airport.

So I was dismayed when I saw a day tour of LOTR sites would set me back about $200. Even a four-hour tour would set us back more than $80. Scratch Rivendell from the list, I figured.

Now, everything in the tourism business everywhere is geared to separate you from your money, which is understandable. But our goal is to go as far as we can, as slowly (and cheaply) as we can. After a little while, I started to find that Wellington could be experienced for nothing- or for less than the price of a coffee.

So here are some tips for the more miserly tourist:

1. National Museum

As in Europe, many of the great museums in Wellington are free. Te Papa is a striking architectural wonder on the waterfront. You can find plenty of info about it on the web, but if you are like me (ie too lazy to bother), research on a place is done when you get there. So I more-or-less stumbled upon the museum as I wandered the streets… and was amazed to find out there’s no charge to enter. Five stories of exhibits- admire 13^th century European art, drool over 1950s motorcycles, feel an earthquake, see a giant squid- there’s plenty to do there.

2. City Art Gallery

Just across the square from the visitor’s centre, another amazing free facility. See mostly modern New Zealand art, special displays and exhibits. A good way to get the feel of the country’s contemporary art scene. And again, free admission!

And don’t forget private galleries- Wellington has dozens of them.  Odd, unusual, eclectic, commercial, and at reasonable prices for consumers, I found many great little galleries, co-ops and art collectives within a few blocks of Cuba Street. Speaking of which…

Actor Elijah Wood took a piss in this Cuba Street
water statue. Classy, eh?

3. Cuba Street

You don’t have to spend money to enjoy the vibe of Cuba St. A dying shopping thoroughfare before someone had the bright idea in the 1960s to turn it into a pedestrian mall, the five blocks or so are alive today with buskers, hawkers and great shops, restaurants and services. The odd drunk too, which adds to the general 'teeny-bit seedy' feel to the place. All right in the centre of downtown.  Cuba Street is a great place to anchor all your other Wellington activities from, as many bus routes take you past it, and every local can point you in the general direction. Given that Wellington's downtown was designed with Victorian sensibilities (ie streets rarely meet at right angles, and change names several times over the course of a few blocks), having an anchor is a good way to orient yourself.

4. Botanical Gardens

Work with me, work with me...

Started as a Victorian garden, upgraded by the Edwardians, expanded by the George-the-Sixthians, and maintained by the modern Elizabethans…  the Botanical Gardens are an oasis in the city, not to sound too cliché about it. But really, when you can walk in the cool shade of massive Monterey Pines and groves of native silver ferns, stroll a rose garden or wander through the Dr Seuss- plants of the succulents terrace, it is a great break away from it all. Right on the edge of the downtown, just behind one of the busiest shopping streets in Wellington.

5. Museum Hotel

You have to pay to stay but before you get thrown out by the concierge, stroll through the lobby of this funky hotel, just down the street from Te Papa. The owner’s eclectic tastes in art and decorating are everywhere, and almost make you want to cough up the $200 for a night’s stay. Almost…

6. Visit the path to Rivendell

Elijah Wood stood here once, though it's not known
if he took a leak here as well

So you want to charge me to see the LOTR sites? Well, how about I just take an easy walk halfway up Mount Victoria (on the other side of downtown from the Botanical Gardens) and find one site myself? See where Frodo and the hobbits had their first encounter with a Dark Rider, just after leaving the Shire. Geeky but cool.

7. Weta Cave

I have to admit, I was a little underwhelmed by the Weta Cave, which really amounts to little more than a glorified gift shop in the movie studio’s industrial area, in a part of town called Miramar. They have a couple of maquettes from Weta productions (LOTR, King Kong, etc), costumes, props, and the usual T-shirt offerings. Still, getting to handle a ray gun was pretty cool.

8. Parliament Buildings

I watched about three MPs almost get tossed out of the NZ legislature in the 10 minutes I sat in the visitor’s gallery. Parliamentary debates are always a lot of fun (even if the particulars of the debate escape you) and the excitement of media scrums still itches in this old news hound. Like many legislatures, it also has great paintings, statues, and history in its bones. Don’t bother to bring your kids, but great for political junkies.

9. Walk the Harbourfront

Wellington has done an amazing job with its waterfront, and you can walk about two or three kilometers from the industrial port to an upscale residential neighbourhood, and still get sprayed by waves. 

While you’re at the waterfront, check out two other great (and again, free) museums. The Portrait Gallery, despite its stodgy name, has offbeat and interesting exhibitions. While we were there, the inevitable Hobbit-themed show was on. And our biggest disappointment was the City and Sea Museum- in that we ended up getting there just at closing time, and could easily have spent many long hours exploring the social history of Wellington. Next time, C&S!

And cheap-ish things to do:

10. Wellington Zoo

Let’s face it, what you really came to NZ for is see a goddamn kiwi. The flightless bird, the size of a small turkey, is quite endangered, and only comes out at night. You have two ways of seeing one in Wellington.

 Zealandia  is a noble attempt to sequester a valley in town from introduced species, allowing native species to rebuild.  It’s a huge project, massive in scale and scope. It’s also hideously expensive (I paid $60 for two day-passes, and saw a duck). If you want to see a kiwi, you have to take the night tour. That’ll set you back $150 for two people.

Then there’s the Wellington Zoo. Drop about $20 per person during regular working hours, and you wander beautiful gardens and see all sorts of great animals, in non-depressing enclosures. And, you go into a dark building, let your eyes get adjusted, and voila! A kiwi, which thinks it’s nighttime. Thanks, WZ!

11. Cable Car

A funicular trolley (that’s one run by cables, and runs on rails, rather like an angled elevator) operates right from downtown Wellington, taking passengers up the hill to the top of the Botanical Gardens, and for great lookouts over the city. It’ll set you back a couple of bucks, takes a few minutes, and gives you that very British, well-polished-wood feel of the Golden Age of the late 19^th-20^th-century. Well worth your time.

Across the harbour from Wellington, a gorgeous beach

12. Bus to Eastbourne- or anywhere

Wellington has a great bus system. For about $9, you can buy an all-day pass, and ride anywhere the system will take you, which is most of Wellington. We found it the best option for travel in Wellington, and easy to figure out. The drivers even still make change. How quaint!

You can really travel far with the bus routes. Take the 83 to Eastbourne, and it will take you all the way around Wellington Harbour. Walk on the beach, enjoy the upscale neighbourhood, and return in time for dinner!

  

Coffee Confusion

What could be easier than ordering a coffee at McDonalds?

“I’d like a large coffee please,” I say to the woman behind the counter.

“Certainly sir. A toll whait?”

Now, ‘tall white’ is apparently a NZ phenomenon, the local flavour you might say. Not even sure what it is… I just know that when I go for a coffee, I want coffee. Curiousity and cross-cultural experience are for after coffee. A local warned me, though, that this is the land of coffee snobbery. Having been to Italy, I thought  I was prepared to navigate it.

‘No thanks, just a black coffee please.  A brewed black coffee. Large.”

“Brood?” It seems to stump the woman, who I had assumed may have gone to some sort of coffee-making training that involves brewing.

“Yes,” I reply. “Just a regular large coffee.”

“Toll than?”

“Sure,” I say. Eventually one gives in to company terms- though it took me about three years to pass the word ‘vente’ from my lips at Starbucks.

“One shat or two?” She asks, satisfied with the size issue being settled.

Not pictured: $4.50 in my pocket

“No, just a large brewed,” I say, wanting to avoid the cost of an Americano.

She looks at me, hand on the hissing-hot water thingy, perplexed. We seemed to have reached an impasse.

“Just a regular black coffee,” I repeat.

Flummoxed, she just starts making a coffee of some sort.

“Do you want some hot wotta on the side?” she asks.

Now it’s my turn to be confused. I would have assumed hot water was part of the recipe. “No, just fill it to the top with coffee please.”

She stops the process. “Some people want hot wotta to top it up if it’s too strong,” she explains, as if to a child… or a strange person with an odd accent, likely American.

“No, just make the coffee, and fill it to the top. Sure, two shots,” I add, giving up to her needs, hoping for a speedy end to the confusion

“Certainly,” she says, seemingly satisfied. “Room for milk?”

“No, just black,” I say again. “And fill it to the top.” No sense leaving room for error.

“Certainly.” She hands me what would be the smallest cup available at a North American coffee shop. “One toll bleck.”

 I take it. From the heat inside, the coffee is about three fingers deep in the cup. At least an inch of space remains to the lip of the cup.

“Would you like sugah with that?” She asks.

I shake my head no, give her the $3.50NZ, and leave the store with my five minutes’ worth of coffee drinking.

 Maybe next time, it’ll be easier ordering a toll whait.

Storm approaches

The old woman on the bus turned to us.

‘You’re not from here,” she said. “You should know, there’s a gale blowing in.”

“Just thought I should warn you.”

You could feel something in the air- see it too. Clouds had been racing across the sky all morning, clipping the tops of the surrounding hills, moving low and fast.  The smell of rain, the air crackling with the nervous energy of an approaching storm.

The weather office had been warning for two days that the South Pacific was about to unleash its fury on Wellington. Now, the trees on the hillsides were doing that slow, wide sway you see in TV coverage of hurricanes in the southern US.

Wellington, from the outlook atop Mount Victoria

Wellington defines itself by its wind. Locals take a perverse pride in it. And here we were, first day in the New Zealand capital, about to witness a real howler. Even the locals seemed edgy.

Our house-sit host told us gusts of 130 kilometers/hr weren’t unusual… in fact, were hardly commented on. The geography of Wellington- on the strait between the North and South Islands, built on hills facing south and east, the wind-tunnel effect of the tight valleys and tall buildings- all serve to reinforce the violence and chaos of the moving oceans of air.

We got off the bus downtown and walked down the street. Women walked together, one hand on their skirts, the other gripping their light jackets. Spring in Wellington.

We pass by storefronts- dozens of unfamiliar names, offering any manner of goods and services- until we see a movie theatre. The boy wants to see a show. Still a bit jetlagged, I give in to the idea of sitting in a comfortable chair for a few hours. We go in as the sky darkens above us. I’m not sure what it will be like after the show.

But it’s still just threatening after the movie, looking uglier but still holding up. We make it back home just as the sky starts to spit.  The wind pushes at our backs, seeming to rush us along. A power drink can tumbles across the street in front of us as we climb the porch. A few recycling bins have tumbled over during the day.

We close the door behind us. The single-pane windows rattle, the walls thrum with a sub-sonic vibration in synch with the howling sweeping around the building. Feeble ghost drafts touch us in synch with the stronger gusts. Air tight we are not.

But as night falls, we curl up on the couch to wait out the weather, listen to the howling, snug in our unfamiliar surroundings.

The Eighth Vertebrae

The dog owner sits down on the floor of her kitchen. She dips her hand into the dog bowl, still steaming from the hot water she’s poured in to warm up the half-pound of processed meat that is, literally, a dog’s breakfast. She pulls out a raw chicken neck, shakes off the excess water, and offers it to the greyhound looming over her.

The dog sniffs, and nudges the raw meat with her nose. She snarls and growls, bares her fangs menacingly, but takes the offered treat. The owner dips her hand into the dog-stew again to fish out another neck.

“And that,” she says to me, “Is how Eddy likes to eat in the morning.”

“Sure, sounds good,” I say. Not going to happen, I think.

It’s our first house-sit in what we are hoping to be our new lifestyle. Travel the world, take care of people’s pets, and in exchange stay in their homes for free.  Great in theory, but the reality is now setting in.

We have two greyhounds to take care of for the next three weeks, as the owner holidays in Australia. We’re in Wellington, capital of New Zealand, in an upscale part of town.  And if I have to do that every morning, poor Eddy is not going to make it.

It’s not like the greyhound has a lot of reserve fat to live on. Though it eats close to a pound of meat and kibble a day, the animals are thin as rakes. Eddy especially, the 12-year old alpha female of the pair, is anorexic, even by greyhound standards. A thin film of skin is all that covers her back leg- you can wrap her skin around her Achilles’ tendon.  And her vertebrae poke up supermodel-like through the fur on her back.

“Keep an eye on those bumps,” the owner cautions. “If you can see eight vertebrae, you have to take her to the vet.”

The author, with dogs. Ed is on the right.

I count six vertebrae visible, and one starting to poke through. Eddy’s back becomes the barometer of my anxiety over the next few weeks.

But they are dogs, I figure, and won’t starve themselves to death. 

I hope.

The owner leaves, and we begin the routine.  A walk in the morning, set out their beds on the back deck for the day, head out to the city to sightsee, return for an evening walk. It’s actually pretty simple: greyhounds have massively huge appetites, but require little exercise; a 20-minute walk wears them out, and then they settle in for six hours’ sleep.

Then Eddy decides to go on a hunger strike. For three days she sniffs at her bowl, looks at me, and walks away.  Her seventh vertebra starts to loom. I am constantly on the search for the eighth to appear.

I pull out the secret weapon, and buy a cooked chicken at the local supermarket. And some ham.  Eddy sniffs, and starts to gulp the food down. Koplah, I think. That’s ‘success’ in Klingon, for you non-Trekkies.

The walks begin to be the highlight of the day, if not for the picking-up-dog-crap part. We explore the forested hill above the house, spotting exotic trees and birds. The dogs begin to understand my commands and we tangle up less often. And while Eddy can’t afford it, I think I’m starting to lose a few pounds.

 Greyhounds are sleek, beautiful, gentle creatures. Their beauty belies a sad reality- that they are fodder for the gambling industry, that grinds through them for sport and money (the other hound we’re caring for, Robbie, is a rescue dog, a three-time winner that faced death after breaking her foot in a race).  They are designed to race. They can’t climb down stairs easily, can’t sit down on their haunches, and suffer aches and pains constantly from their body design.

They are finicky, like their routines, but are playful and easy-going. It’s a shame we have to keep them on leashes- every once and a while, spotting a cat or a rabbit, they lunge, and you feel their power. You long to just let them loose, see them as they are meant to live. But as the owner pointed out to me, you don’t want to be trying to catch a dog that can run 40km/hr.

The weeks pass quickly, and the owner returns.  (“They killed my dog!” I imagine will be our first house-sit review will say). But when she walks in the door, the dogs are healthy, wagging their tails and looking well-fed.

“They’ve never looked this good after someone’s taken care of them,” our owner exclaims.

Job done, mission accomplished.

On to our next house-sit.

First Thought

Come, my friends,

 ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.  

Push off, and sitting well in order smite  

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds 

 To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 

 Of all the western stars, until I die. 

 It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: 

 It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, 

 And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. 

 Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’ 

 We are not now that strength which in old days 

 Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; 

 One equal temper of heroic hearts, 

 Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 

 To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield 

. -- Alfred Lord Tennyson, Ulysses