Pg 2 - Wellington Happenings - as of 16 March 2013 - The Final Posting

Wellington is just a happening place all the 

year long it's hard to know what to add

Lots going on this season in Parliament

The Governor General's home was open again for tour
 and a concert on the lawn that we didn't attend.

We continue to wait for our invitation to dinner and nothing came.

Tradition is one of the Kiwi strong points!

All below this point is pre-January 2013

We've had lots going on the past few months in Wellington!  Just a sampling....

For example the Guy Fawkes fireworks celebration.  This is a traditional English event commemorating the actives of this individual who in the 1605 tried to blow up British Parliament.  It's a tremendous fireworks display that goes on for 15-20 minutes.  We chose this year to watch from the top of our apartment.

There are bronze statues randomly located throughout town.  

Here's just one example...

We also found another direction from which to view Wellington.  This one showed a number of larger estate homes that all might be excited to see.....

All below this point is pre-November 2012

Most of our Wellington Happenings are as separate posts this go-around.  Here's just a few items:

We found a new vantage point from which to view Wellington.  This is about 6 or 7 miles away looking to the north from above Pitone.

Who said the life of a missionary is dull?  We got to go to the Paraparaumu golf club and play two rounds of 18 holes.  We won't ask about the score, but if the depth of the trap below is any indication, my score soared higher!....I did get out in 1 stoke!  By the way, this is a tradition "Links" course!

The stance looks good, the view is fantastic and yes, the stroke got me within 10 feet.  I missed the birdie, but achieved the par!  Thank you 7 iron!

We actually haven't seen too much in the past three months here in Wellington.  The weather has been cold and rainy (remember, it's winter down in the southern hemisphere).  We do have big plans for the spring and summer!

This is the Chilean navy training ship the "Esmaralda"!  I've always had a place in my heart for "tall ships" and this is a beauty!  She comes to port about once a year and stays about a week.  One thing missing though...zero cannons but still absolutely beautiful!

The Wellington Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints held a food drive for a women's home in Wellington.  This is a picture they had me take and the Wellington newspaper ran an article with the picture.  Doesn't quite compare to the Sports Authority 52' trailer filled by the Stake on "Colorado Cares Day" in July, but a good effort none the less.

Back in 2008 to 2009 Elder & Sister Chatterton from Auckland digitised New Zealand Immigration lists.  These lists are now available on http://www.familysearch.org/.  An index is being created and here two members of the Wellington Stake are soliciting members to volunteer and do indexing.  I've used the resource for some of our Young Single's family history research and it's a wonderful site.

During Christmas 2011 we mentioned the Wellington Inner Faith organization and some of the good things they do to support religion in the city.  This display was in the "City & Sea Museum" and every few weeks the Inner Faith organization hosted open seating discussions on death and grief and how to cope with loss.  I got to be the photographer again.  I'm only showing a few of the many photo's here.

They would hold small cozy gatherings where anyone could come and make a contribution to the conversation.  Here a young lady of Hindu belief expresses here thoughts on grief.

These four represented their churches at one of the discussions.  I'm not sure of the names associated with the first two, but Guy Sartorelli (black top) represented the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Puspa represented the Hindu believe.  She's actually the head of the Inner Faith group and does a very nice job with all activities.

=================================================================

(everything posted below is pre-July 2012)

Between January and April we saw a number of mighty cruise ships.  None were quite as large as the Queen Elizabeth III.  Here are a few pics we got of the beauty.

  

These little tugs take care of all the maritime traffic in Wellington Harbour.  They are near 50 years old and rule the roost when it comes to moving incoming freighters and cruise ships to dock!  We affectionately names one of them "Tommy the Tug".  Of course he's the more handsome of the two with twice the power!

This is an old map of Wellington showing the city around the bay.  In reality, most of the downtown area would have been under water 150 years ago.  The land was all built up creating space for the city to surround the bay.

The beauty of Wellington desipe the weather continues to impress.  In Jan-Feb these trees bloomed all across town and it was quite the scene.

 The housing in the in the area, especially on the hillsides is pretty neat!  Here's just an example of two homes above the Botanical Gardens.

Everything below this line was posted prior to 2012
==================================

Cuba Street

Cuba street is a unique few blocks where all the college kids hang out.  It's been here decades and is part of the scene!  You met there to eat, drink and have fun!

Here's a view of two of the blocks on Cuba street!  It used to be open to autos until about 10 years ago.

Our favorite...cheep...restaurant is found on Cuba.  It's called "The Oaks" and you can buy yummy oriental food for about $10 per plate.  Doesn't hold a candle to "Panda Express", but it's the next best thing.

There are artists on Cuba Street.  This guy was really good drawing a Moari that was posing for him.

It's a place for political demonstrations and there's even a McDonalds just around the corner.  And what do you have across the street from McDonalds?  Yes, we have our Burger King!

There's fun slides for the kido's.

Lots of "Want-a-Be" musicians!

We've got stand up comedians and here's our Mime Artist.

Not quite the "Pan Handler", but selling balloons???

Here's Cuba's version of a water fountain.  The individual buckets fill up, tip over and fill the bucket under it.  This goes on and on!

Wellington Home & Garden Show

We took off an hour early one afternoon to catch the annual Home & Garden Show in the Rugby Stadium.

Every home and garden in New Zealand must have a lamb so the show was no different.

These are eggs.  Did we tell you that in the grocery stores, eggs are NOT stored in refridgerated units.  They are kept out in the open just like you see here!

Ann and Kathy stopping at the gold and silver cleaner.  Ends up that I dropped in my ring to be cleaned.  It was your typical Home and Garden vendor.

The show would not be complete without some guy that likes the camera more than he likes selling product!

Now aren't these cute little watering cans for the garden or plants?

Now this was really cool.  The woodwork on these tables and chairs was second to none!  The price was likewise...over $8,000 for a unit.

Every Home and Garden show has to have its plants.  These were all for sale and very "Tropical".

Downtown Soccerball Handling Tournament

While shopping for Christmas we came across this tournament for handling a soccerball.  It was a bigger deal than you might imagine.  These three are the judges and they come from the national soccer team.

These eight are the finalists.  The second from the right is the reigning champion.  They each gave demonstrations with handling a soccerball with head and feet and back.  It was indeed rather amazing.

This guys specialty was tossing the ball about 5' in the air and then catching it on his forehead without a bounce!

This guys footwork with the ball was unbelievable.  He would have kept the ball going for hours without dropping it from his feet.

This contestant was great standing with his feet!

Here's the reigning champ.  He was good with his feet, head, back, chest, heals, behind and pretty much put everyone to shame...I still reigns as champion!

Misc. Updates

Most of the churches in the area look just like this one does.  They are made of wood and pretty ornate inside.  The vast majority are Anglican.

There's even the extreme water fountain along the bay.

If climbing is your cup of tea, then Wellington has the climbing wall of all climbing walls!

Cruise ships are a big deal in Wellington.  The season generally runs from about the end of November to the end of March.  They can be huge like this one is, over seven floors for passengers and total over 15 stories tall from the waterline.

Here comes one into port.  We'll see some 30 or 40 over the course of the summer.

Another big deal is helicopters.  For $200 you can have a 15 minute tour of the town by air.

Along the bay is pretty much something for everyone!  Here's the "Playground" for the kids.

Here's the inside of the stadium where Rugby is played in Wellington.  The stadium seats some 30,000 plus and is really nice.

We've talked about the log exporting, but had to mention it again.  It goes on, day after day and ship after ship.  You can see how full this ship is getting!

Every day two sets of three ferrys navigate their way back and forth to Picton on the south island.  We looked into taking a ride and it's about $50 each way for the 3-hour ride!  A small auto is about $400 each way!

The Thistle Inn is famous in town for having been in Wellington since the early 1800's.  It's right across the street from the "Archives" where we work and we've eaten there once.  Very nice!

Trains continue to amaze....

The only train company in New Zealand is "KiwiRail".  Here's the Wellington terminal.

These large locomotives move all the cars around.  We've seen a number of them at the Wellington station.

Here again is the train station.  Pretty large and yes, our Archives are just below the tall building on the right.

Guy Fawkes Day - 5 November

Each year on the 5th of November the English celebrate what is known as Guy Fawkes Day.  It commemorates 5 November 1605 when Guy Fawkes was found guarding a pile of gunpowder under the "House of Lords" (Parlement) in London just prior to it blowing up and possibly killing King James.  It started out as "Gunpowder Treason Day" but changed to its' present name and is celebrated in most of the old British Kingdom by shooting off a bunch of fireworks.  Here in Wellington it started at 9:00pm and there were supposed to be 100,000 in attendance.  Each citizen is charged something like $2 in taxes for the cost of the event.  We had to attend and here's a short pictorial view...

We came early, about 8:15pm and got a ringside seat where we could see all the happenings.  We're on an overpass that leads to the park and bay.

You can just see 3 barges out in the bay from which the fireworks will be launched.  The bay was super calm for the event, but the hills around Wellington were abuze with activitiy.  Mostly fireworks.  During the year this is the only "Official" time allowed to purchase fireworks. 

You can for sure see the three barges here.  The fireworks were the best we have ever seen.  It was 15 minutes of non-stop launching from the three barges.  Mostly the three were in unison so it really looked pretty cool. 

I could have posted about 100 different pictures, but we've all seen firewords.  These seemed larger and higher that we've seen previously!

 Had to do the above in the largest view I could offer.  It speaks for itself.

We'd never seen "Happy Faces" in fireworks, but here they are!

This was the finale that went on for about 5 minutes.  Tremendous, hope you enjoyed!


Ferry from Wellington to the South Island

There are two ferry companies to select from Wellington to the South Island.  Each company operates two ferries and the trip takes about 3 hours one-way.

Here two ferries from competing companies pass each other inbound and outbound in Wellington Harbor.

Here's one of the ferries out in the open sea (Cook Strait) headed to Wellington from Picton on the south island.

Once in port they off-load passengers, cars and....

trucks!  The fee for a single car one way is $300.  The best deal is to travel over on foot and rent a car on the opposite island.

Homes in Wellington

Here's a typical home out in the the communities that surround Wellington.

Here's one of the nicer homes that overlook the bay.

Here's the community Mt. Victoria that's above the bay.  Some very desireable property!

Here's another one of the homes overlooking the bay.

Here's a shot of a typical hillside in the Wellington area.

This home is also shown on the "Apt" page.  It's right across the street from our apartment and is pretty typical of the area.

Most of the housing areas have a park of some sort nearby.  This is really nice for the young children.  Here you can see the slide that runs about 50 feet down the hill.

Ocean Surfing

A community surrounded by water has got to have it's surfing.  This is a small window of what was about 50 different surfers on the south side of Wellington by the airport.

The waves aren't too bad !  This is looking to the south.  You would think that you'd see the south island, but it's actually off to the right about 30 miles.

It's not just the surfers.  Here's a rowboat getting in on the action.

And here's a wind surfer.  This guy is way out in the bay and we watched him for about 30 minutes.  Must be pretty strong!  The wind was really going and he worked it up and down, back and forth!

Train Station

Every European town has it's train station and Wellington has to be included.  This is a pretty busy station with dozens of tracks.

Here's a view of the individual train platforms.

Here's the inside of the train station showing the platform entrances.

Look here, what do you see from down on the train platforms???

You see "The Archives" where we work.

Shipping

Shipping is huge in Wellington.  There are container ships in and out of the port daily.  Here's one taking its turn waiting to dock and load up.

Here's a ship taking on a load of logs from New Zealand.  These logs, when you get up close are about 18" in diameter and when the ship is loaded, it's bow is almost under water.  This ship supports four hoists of its own.

This is a closeup of the ship loading!  Those piles of logs are some 20' tall and there's a loader that grabs a bundle of them and takes them over to load on the ships.

Yachting

With Wellington Bay has to come a yacht club.  There are plenty of sail ships and basic seagoing ships.  It's not like Newport or Ft. Lauderdale, but there's more sailing.

Here's some of the close in-bay sailing.  The entire bay was full of this kind of action.