Wellington, New Zealand - Beehive, Parliament House and Coastal drive.

There is no trip to Wellington without visiting the famous Beehive, where the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Ministers have their offices. As you might have already guessed, the Beehive got its name because of how the building was designed. There is a visitor centre on the ground floor of the building if you fancy learning more about its history and some facts about Parliament.

 

A couple of steps beside the Beehive complex is the Parliament House. It is a beautifully designed Edwardian neo-classical building. The entire Parliament ground is very beautiful and well-maintained. I mean just look at this 100-year-old iron gate!

Parliament Building

On the far side of the Parliament Building is the Parliament Library which houses a massive collection of books available for MP's and staff to do their research. The Parliament library is the oldest building among the three and is also the most beautifully coloured. The building sometimes appears pink in photographs especially when the sun hits its surface.

Photograph from: Britanica.com

Panorama of the Parliament square, right outside the Parliament ground.

After visiting the Parliment ground, we drove around the coastal area of Wellington to kill time before our flight. We had around 6 hours to spare and driving around the coast was a more favourable choice than waiting at the airport.

The coast was really beautiful. We didn't really know where we were going, as long as we followed the closest road to the beach, we were fine. Eventually, we ended up close to the Airport and decided to just lounge around for another hour or so to avoid being late. And ohh if you're a fan of the movie the Hobbit, you might be able to see this wee dragon still at the airport.

That's the end of our short trip to Wellington. See you guys on my next adventure!

xxx

Wellington, New Zealand - Cuba Street and Victoria Peak

Cuba street is one of the main shopping streets in Wellington. Restaurants and shops are lined on both sides of the street enticing you to enter their premise. You can easily spend a day there strolling, shopping around, and if you fancy a steaming hot cup of coffee, there are heaps of cute cafes for you to do a cafe-hop. Since time was very precious to us, we only went to Cuba street to have a look around. There were also a number of street vendors selling mouth-watering food that will help fill you up while walking around.

The buildings around Cuba street are mostly old-Eglish designs, they're gorgeous!

At night we went to Victoria Peak to see the city lights of Wellington. The view up there was incredible! My photography skills are extremely lacking and failed to capture the magnificent view. You can go there during the day too, but we wanted to see the city all lit up. Oh don't forget to bring a jacket, it's really windy on top of the peak!

See you on my next post!

xxx

Wellington, New Zeland - City Harbour and Te Papa Museum

Around August this year, my family and I went on a mini-trip up north to Wellington. Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand and it's a charming little city. There's soo much to do in Wellington but we only had 2 days to spend so we basically crammed everything that we can do within those days.

We rented a car for the days that we were in Wellington which made it absolutely hassle-free to travel around; with the small exception of having to pay parking fees. We rented from Omega Car Rental and a guy picked us up from the Airport to the car garage to get the vehicle.

There's no trip up to Welly without visiting the harbour. The harbour is close to the central business district (CBD) and all the shopping streets. The weather was brilliant on that day, a pure cherry on top.

We went there early in the morning during a weekday and there were only a handful of people walking around and doing exercises; it made taking photos of the views real easy!

For some reason, those yachts remind me of a scene in Nemo where a bunch of seagulls tried to eat Dory and Nemo's dad.

Close to the harbour is the famous Te Papa Museum. Truthfully, the only reason why we went to the harbour in the first place was because the Museum was still closed when we got there. It is open every day of the week from 10:00am to 6:00pm.  The general admission to the Museum is free, however, if you are bringing a car with you, the parking ticket can cost you around $4NZD per hour up to a maximum of $20NZD.

There are six floors in the Museum and maps of it can be easily found on map-stands scattered around the building. The first floor has a gift shop, a small cafe and an entrance to the outside garden of the Museum.

Level 2 to 4 are the most exciting floors where all the exhibitions and collections are housed. You'll learn lots about the New Zealand history such as the Maori history, the Gallipoli history and the societal changes in NZ. In some areas flash photography is not allowed while I believe in some (from memory) photography is not allowed at all.

The last two levels are more centred on paintings and photographs. There is also a viewing deck on the 6th floor which overlooks the harbour, it's beautiful!

View from the 6th-floor deck. Sorry for that glass flare; almost a perfect photo.

I highly recommend visiting these two places when you ever get the chance to travel to Wellington.  I felt like a tourist myself; which I guess I was because I've never been to Welly before. Some might think visiting Museums are for "slow-days" but I was actually excited throughout.

See you on my next blog!

xxx