Lunch 2 at "The Deluxe", our favorite cafe in Wellington. A look at our large room at the Carollin hotel...
1/11 11:13pm, Carollin hotel, Wellington
Pleasantly, the construction site next door stayed inactive in the morning, allowing us to sleep till 8am. ~8:30, there was a knock on the door from the hotel owner, asking if they could come in to access an attic space in our bathroom, because there was a water leak somewhere. We obliged of course. The owner here is a very nice man, who will happily talk your ear off about the hotel history, Wellington, and life in general. It almost seemed natural that he'd want to come in at 8:30am to see how we were doing… ;-) After eating a little breakfast in our hotel, we walked into town to check out Te Papa, the giant, free, museum in Wellington. On our way to the museum, we stopped by a clothing store, where Wendy bought 2 t-shirts, and I stopped at a camera store to buy some lens cleaner (which I forgot to bring to NZ). We also couldn't pass up an opportunity to try a (cottage) pie at a pie shop. The apricot, brie, chicken pie was a bit of a let down (and a bit pasty), so now we know not to bother with them. Te Papa is a 6 story, huge museum, with all sorts of science, history, and cultural information about NZ. We spent ~2.5hrs on the first 3 floors, before taking a break to find lunch.
We walked to Capitol restaurant, and had fish of the day (waribu?) and a fried squid. It was alright, but we still had room for more, and returned to the café up the block, where we had muffins and oaties last night (Deluxe café). This time there was more interesting options to choose from. We tried a savory chick pea, sweet potato, and a ton of other good stuff, ball-thing, and a pistachio nectarine strudel tart. Super good! We'll have to come back tomorrow.
Lunch 2 at "The Deluxe", our favorite cafe in Wellington. A look at our large room at the Carollin hotel...
Next we walked back to the hotel, and drove to the Weta Cave. Wendy's navigation through Wellington's twisty narrow streets was spot on. We arrived just in time to watch a 20 minute DVD about Weta's history and behind the scenes work. There was also a sizeable gift shop / museum with props from the movies (LOTR and others), including a life size Gollum and Lurtz. Also notable: The human and hobbit sized Sting swords, Sauron's armor, and a half size wax body of Boromir.
Wow, replica ears of Sam and Frodo, made by Weta! Gollum hangs out near the entrance-way...
There was a wall featuring all the miniatures that Weta made of LOTR. Here is the 1/2 size wax Boromir, that was used in his funeral boat scene, when he couldn't return to NZ to film it...
Here are the "Hero versions" (high detail) of Sting, both in human and hobbit size...
Lurtz stood between display cases of various swords from LOTR: Anduril, the broken shard, Aragorn's first sword, Boromir's sword, Merry's dagger, Arawen's small sword, elf blades...
I chatted with the worker, and found out that the Weta team is under pressure to finish work before the Hobbit starts filming next month. They were given the holidays off, but choose to keep working. The Hobbit will take a full year to film (2 movies), and is still targeting a Dec 2012 release. Also, regarding the Hobbiton set, the Green Dragon Inn will be a real pub and hotel when the set turns into an amusement park.
The life size version of Gollum was very cool...
Weapons from District 9 (with "Please do not touch. Fully operational." sign). The backside of Gollum...
After spending ~1.5hrs at Weta Studios, we drove back towards the city, and up to Mt Victoria lookout, which has a 360 degree view of the city, bays, and ocean.
Then we parked on Alexander Rd, 1.2km from the turn off, and found a small sign pointing to the location where the 1st scene of LOTR was filmed: the "Get off the Road!" scene. I had researched this area, and was happy to find the spot, without need to pay $40-$80 for a LOTR city tour. It doesn't look like the movie now, since they brought in extra props/trees/leaves when filming, but you can definitely see the scene in your imagination here. There is the hill the hobbits tumble down ("I think I broke something"), the road where Frodo says "Get off the road!", and the hollow where the hobbits hide. Pretty amazing it was all filmed in a park in Wellington. It was fun thinking of how the actors, PJ, and a film crew were all here 11 years ago.
Yikes, a "Rider" approaches! Wendy hides below the road, in the exact spot the Hobbits hid from the Black Rider. Yeah, they brought in trees and props to film the scene for the movie...
Another pic from the road. The hiding place is just below Wendy. Take a look at the tree branches above the road. Those slanted branches can be seen above Frodo when he says, "Get off the road!" (I think it's mirrored, or looking from the other direction though). 2nd pic: This is where the hobbits land when tumbling down the hill (Shortcut to Mushrooms)...
The whole hill, road, and hiding spot are all adjacent. I wonder if it gets greener at all in the spring, or if they brought in all the vegetation, or if tourists permanently killed it all...
Then we drove around the coast, looking for possible penguins and seals, but found none. The golden sun at 7pm was pretty against the jagged rocks though.
After returning to the hotel, we walked back down to Cuba street and at a tapas David Cavas place for dinner. We had several dishes, some were bland and some were good. After all the good food so far, this restaurant was a disappointment. Most notable was the fish cooked with spicy coriander and the yummy pumpkin onion spinach gratin. The food was fairly bland, and not a meal to write home about (guess I did anyway).
Back at the hotel, I started researching for our itinerary once we reach the south island on Thurs.
One more full day in Wellington tomorrow.