Wellington

On Sunday 8. November, the day after we finished our three day long Abel Tasman hike, Marcell and I drove to Picton Harbour and embarked on a journey with New Zealand´s "Interislander", the ferry that crosses between Wellington on the North Island and Picton on the South Island.  

The boatage itself was with over $250 for the three hour long trip quite expensive, but as this is the only option to get your car from one island to the other, we didn´t really have a choice. But the stunning scenery on the way from Picton Harbor out to the open sea between the two islands made it totally worth it.

Due to a profound miscalculation in the timing of our drive from our hostel in Nelson to Picton, from where we departed at around 10 am, our drive was quite a hassle. We temporarily thought we wouldn´t make it to the boarding on time. But Marcell once more proved his superior driving skills and we made it to the final boarding call right on time - last car to get on the ferry - lucky us.

The first attraction we visited in Wellington was the Weta Cave Workshop, a fascinating atelier where props and requisites for numerous blockbuster movies like "The Lord Of The Rings" or "halo" were designed and produced. Unfortunately we weren´t allowed to take any pictures inside the workshop, so we only took some pictures with these ginormous troll-fellas, emanated right out of Tolkien´s fantasy.
The workshop itself was really absorbing and we had heaps of fun to learn about how props for movies and TV series are designed and produced at Weta Cave.

Afterwards we drove back to our hostel and strolled around the city centre for some time, had delicious dinner in a Turkish restaurant and drank a cold beer in one of the adjacent bars.
The next morning we got up pretty early and explored Mount Victoria, a 250 metre high lookout hill, located at the outer southern boarder of the city, from where we had a fantastic panorama of Wellington and it´s harbor.

Unfortunately it was already time to leave Wellington behind us and decamp for another adventure: Mount Taranaki, also known as the lonely mountain.