WETA WORKSHOP!!!!!!!!

Our second day in Wellington, we drove out to Miramar in Wellington to see the Weta Cave...I had read the prices wrong and thought that it was around $100 for a tour of the Weta Cave. Silly me, turns out it was only $24! Woohoo! Before the tour, they showed a quick documentary that went into the history of Weta Workshop from it's beginnings until today and went into the creative partnership between Richard Taylor and Peter Jackson that started the company.

The tour was well worth it...I could have walked around for hours in the small workshop area that they allow visitors inside. Because they are often working on movies and television shows that haven't been released or maybe even announced yet, visitors can only see a very very small portion. They threatened that if we were to take any photos inside the Weta Cave, we will be sued like a gazillion dollars or something ridiculous like that.

***I might add that Don also enjoyed Weta Workshop. I add that because up until this trip, he had always sort of playfully made fun of my Lord of the Rings obsession. While we were staying with our couch surfing host family in Upper Hutt, we had been watching the extended versions of the movies and he realized that he actually really liked the movies! I also want to note that Weta Workshop has worked on many other movies besides LOTR including Avatar, the Avengers, Elysium, Edge of Tomorrow, etc.

 

I was in my glory...

We also decided to go out to eat for the first time since we had been in New Zealand...by go out to eat, I mean sit down and eat a full meal at a restaurant. We had grabbed sandwiches and pastries at different delis and shops but hadn't had a full meal out. Our couch surfing host Veronica gave us a buy 1 get 1 free deal for the restaurant we wanted to go to, Scorch-o-Rama, right on the water a few kilometers past Weta Cave.

The view...

This is my favorite view :D

The one with Peter Jackson's home town

I've heard rumor that Sir Peter Jackson has a replica of Bilbo Baggin's hobbit hole in his Wellington backyard for his guests to stay in so I tried to contact him and asked if we could stay there but never received any reply :( womp womp. Since that never panned out, we found another family to couch surf with who lived in Upper Hutt, which is about 30 minutes north of Wellington. Our plan was to stay two nights there and then take the ferry to Picton in the South Island but we quickly realized that we were grossly unprepared to pack all of our possessions (which were strewn all over the rental car we had gotten in Auckland, I might add) back into our bags, try to see Wellington and surrounding areas all while trying to get ferry tickets, and make accommodation and transportation plans for Picton/South Island etc. So...we decided to stay a couple extra days in Wellington just to do some planning and logistical stuff.

Back to the cool stuff, like what we saw and did while in Wellington...

Our first afternoon there, we walked through the Wellington Botanical Gardens before we went to the top of Mount Victoria to see the beautiful panoramic views of the city. We both love seeing gardens in the different cities and towns that we visit, even back in the US, so since we've been in New Zealand, we've tried to visit every garden that we could find.

Some adorable ducklings that we saw in the botanical garden

It's springtime in New Zealand!

A field of poppies...I was in heaven

View of Wellington harbor from the top of Mount Victoria 

"Where we're going, we don't need roads", A visit to the Southward Car Museum

Hi folks, now for a post from Don. For a change of pace I stopped by the Southward car museum on our way to Wellington, which houses the largest collection of cars in the southern hemisphere. Some new, some old, some just plain strange, the trip did not disappoint. With a whole floor of vintage bicycles and motorcycles, and a basement of rare and unusual (see the white bubble car) 4-wheeled sorts, this was the nicest collection of vehicles I have ever seen. Highlights of the trip included the DeLorean (obviously), gangster Mickey Cohen's bullet proof 1950 Cadillac (complete with bullet holes), and the bright yellow Ariel (more-so the photo of Jeremy Clarkson's face next to it, look close).

Vintage Dodge with fully custom brass body and snakes

Still not sure what this is...

1950 Caddy, armor plated, bullet proof windows

Ariel Atom alongside Jeremy Clarkson.