Te Papa and Lord of the Rings

Our day began with a trip to Te Papa, the national museum of New Zealand. This is New Zealand’s Smithsonian. It is quite a nice museum, with a wide-ranging collection. The ground floor is lobby, cafe, coat check, etc. Natural history and geology exhibits dominate.

Also on the second floor is a major exhibit on WW I. Our tour director explained to us that nearly 20% of the male population of New Zealand served in the First World War. New Zealanders considered themselves to be citizens of the UK, and were eager to protect the homeland. However, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) did not join the Brits in France until late in the war. They were diverted to the botched Gallipoli Campaign in Turkey, where they suffered tremendous casualties. Some 58% of New Zealand soldiers were wounded or killed. The war had an enormous emotional impact on New Zealand, and caused Kiwis to no longer think of themselves at Brits, but as a separate and independent nation.

Other exhibits at the museum focused on national history, Maori culture, and the arts. One fascinating modern sculture filled an entire room with “confetti frozen in space.”

The museum docent who took us on an overview tour was knowledgable, but a bit dry and rambling in his presentation, so we were happy to finally be released to explore on our own. After spending more time in the Gallipoli exhibit and touring the botanical area, we left the museum for a bit (it’s free, so we could come back at any time).

The harbor area was hosting the annual “Pacifica Festival” on this Saturday afternoon, and the place was hopping. Vendors and food trucks were all over, and crowds were watching a continuing stream of native dance groups on stage.

After a huge breakfast, we weren’t all that hungry for lunch, but Mary got an ice cream cone and Mark found some local beer on tap. After walking around and then sitting to watch the dancers awhile, we returned to the museum to see a bit more. By mid-afternoon, however, our legs were becoming weary, so we returned the the hotel for a respite.

At 4:30 p.m. we met the group in the hotel lobby to go to dinner. We were picked by a small bus and taken, first, to the top of Mount Victoria. This is the highest point within the city of Wellington, and it offered a rather stunning, 360 degree panorama of the metropolitan area. It was fascinating to look down on airliners landing and taking off from the Wellington airport.

Back down to earth, we drove on to the Wellington suburb of Miramar. This area is the hub of the New Zealand film industry, and we drove by studios where scenes were shot for Lord of the Rings movies, and others.

Miramar made movies, but had nowhere to view them, so some in the motion picture industry bought an old, defunct, 1920s era theater in town and spent many millions to restore it to its art deco past. We got a bit of a tour of the place and it’s memorabilia, including the actual Oscar won by one of the co-owners for editing one of the Lord of the Rings movies.

The Roxy is a destination theater with a bar and rather upscale restaurant. It was our spot for dinner, which was a sort of tapas style, small dish affair. That was unfortunate, because we had only snacked for lunch, assuming another giant evening meal. We did, however, get enough food to keep body and soul together until morning, so we aren’t starving.

The ride home was along the harbor, seeing some of the fancy homes that overlook the water. Then it was back to the hotel to get packed for an early departure in the morning.