By Simon Bidwell, Posted Feb 05, 2008
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 Wellington |
Nestled into a tight space between the harbour and the surrounding hills, Wellington has a San Francisco-type feel, down to the weatherboard houses with bay windows looking over the sea. It’s the national capital and its most prominent sight on a weekday is hordes of grey-suited bureaucrats hurrying to work in the central city.
On the cultural flip side, it’s also home to urban hippies and artists who have invented quirky events like the Wearable Arts Awards. Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson started out making bizarre splatter films here and now has his digital media studio tucked away on a hill in the suburb of Miramar. Unfortunately, it’s not visit-friendly, but if you really must relive the almost endless saga of hobbits and elves, several of the key filming locations were around Wellington. The sets have all been taken down, but locals will happily direct you to the relevant spots.
About twenty years ago, some passionate Wellingtonians started bringing back Italian styles of roasting and brewing coffee. Since then, fine espresso has developed into a local obsession, even more so than elsewhere in New Zealand and Australia. There are so many boutique cafes and hole-in-the-wall espresso bars that Wellington may have the lowest density of Starbucks per capita in the developed world.
Wellington has the most ‘urban’ feel of any New Zealand city but also has steep, forested hills and valleys in its midst. Only about 10 minutes from the city centre is a wildlife reserve in which endangered birds can wander around, including the iconic kiwi.
If you’re really interested in strange birds, you can head an hour north of Wellington and catch a launch out to Kapiti island, which is is like Skull Island out of King Kong, with one side an absolutely sheer cliff. This is a sanctuary for all the native birds that could no longer hack the introduced predators on the mainland. There’s the amusing weka which will steal your lunch, the kaka, a parrot that will land on your shoulder and groom your hair, and weirdest of all, the takahe, a fat, bright blue creature that waddles around as though it were computer animated
There was a feel-good article in the Guardian the other day about laughter classes in Tehran.
God knows there’s lots to laugh about. Here’s a comic speech given by the ...
