Wellington

This may be the New Zealand version of early spring - it is 41º south latitude with wind at 25 miles an hour and temperature at 48º F in the rain. Wellington is called the “city of storms” and that seems accurate. Even so, we had a good time.

We took the Lord of the Rings tour. It goes to several of the locations where the movie was filmed. The tour operator and the guide were both in the movie as extras, so they told lots of stories about the filming and the carrying on behind the scenes. Interesting, but we were there for the scenery and we got scenery. The azaleas and rhododendrons were in bloom as were most other familiar spring plants. This is another place where they seem to make a lot of effort to make things pretty.

Wellington is the capital and it is located on a major fault line. Almost all the older buildings have been replaced by earthquake-proof newer construction. When an earthquake happens here, the land is raised up, sometimes by many feet. A sizeable section of town is built on the land that came up from below sea level in the harbor during the last big quake many decades ago. We were in a park that was raised up about 1400 years ago. The “scarp” seemed to be about 30 ft. high.

Auckland makes fun of Wellington for being on the fault line. Wellington makes fun of Auckland for being next to a volcano.