Day 4. Cable Cars and Cuba

First adventure of the day was finding the cable cars as we set off from the hostel without bothering to find a map – figuring the best way to get to know a city is to just walk it and get a little lost (Axel and George didn’t agree with me and Cara on this one). We found the cable cars really easily, after nearly getting run over, and got the student fare so instead of it being $6 return (which is really cheap anyway) we got it for $2.50!

The distinctive red cable car ride only took 5-10 minutes but it took us to the top of a ridiculously steep hill and up to beautiful views over Wellington (Mount Victoria is on the other side of Wellington). After a couple of pictures we went up to the observatory and just sat down on the grass at the top of a hill overlooking the city and just soaked up the sun and the views.

After chatting and lounging about for an hour or so me and Axel set of to find Cuba street! It’s just a street filled with some more alternative shops, nearly everything was privately owned and it was really fun window shopping and dawdling in the ‘op-shops’, flipping through the pages of some old books and browsing the menus of various cafes and bistros. We finished our afternoon on Cuba street with a drink in one of the many coffee shops, and just whiled away the hot midday sun in the shade sipping our drinks.

After wandering the city for another hour or so we bumped into Cara and George again and we set off in hunt of dinner, there was sun race on tonight, and obviously it’s bonfire night too, so most of the restaurants were packed! 

P.S pictures are on there way they're just a pain to upload!

Day 3. Mount Victoria & Weta

After another lie in me and Axel went up to Mount Victoria, a point just above Wellington that's meant to give some if the best views of the city. It really was a great view in that you could see the whole harbor and the city - it was also a pretty lovely day as although there were clouds it was really warm.

 The View 

(My favourite picture from Mount Victoria)

 The Track down to the city

Wellington City

 Wellington lives up to it's name - The Windy City!

The harbour and the city 

Next up we drove to Weta Workshops, the place where a lot of the prosthetics and props were made for The Lord of the rings. We watched a demo video and then got a tour around the work shop and it was really surprising just how many films they've worked on; not just LOTR but avatar, the last Sumerian, iron man, tin tin, narnia... We weren't allowed to take photos inside but I did get one with the trolls from the hobbit outside Weta Cave!

 Just ignore my hair in these pictures.. By the time we got to Weta I'd given up

The drive from the workshop back to the hostel took us along the harbor road and after parking the car back at the hostel we walked back down and just enjoyed the mini beach and harbor views for a while.

The mini beach

For dinner we all headed off to in search of the Mediterranean Food Warehouse (a restaurant that runs cookery courses and sells wholesale food as well as meals) as there was a deal on Mondays and it sounded really good! The map however took us on a massive detour up endless hills, after over an hours we finally found it! The place was very quirky as it was basically 8-9 tables in the middle of a shop surrounded by shelves of food. The food was delicious as they had a proper wood burning stove for the pizzas, and it was a complete bargain. On the way back we ignored the map and decided to trust our own sense if direction and we ended up back at the hostel in under 20minutes!

P.S back at the hostel we went into out room to find a man stood there in his underwear, which was a bit if a surprise, and now the room is really smelly...

P.P.S he also snores