Middle Earth Day 5. Wellington’s Sunken ships, cable cars and Te Papa.

Middle Earth Day 5. Wellington’s Sunken ships, cable cars and Te Papa.

Today is the last day of my stay in Wellington and I didn’t really have any plans other than to visit the archives and the museum of Te Papa in town. I have one file that was not available to view the day before as they had to fix the shelving in the stacks, which I should have asked if I could have looked at. That would be a fun job going underground to retrieve files every half hour or so. The day looked really nice from the window as I could see some blue sky and I knew my day was about to get started.

One pie and a coffee that is supposedly meant to be carbon footprint free, the coffee not the pie. I was heading to the national archives centre where I was going to visit via the information centre to get some ideas on what else I can visit. On the way I actually found the TAB to be open where I met a guy called Brad who helped me. Several doors down I seen the closing time for a strip club and that was 8am. If the TAB opens at 8am then there must be some repeat business, right? There is still plenty for me to see in the city that I have not done yet. As soon as I step foot within the building the fire alarm sounds and while I cant exactly ignore it everyone has to leave. I turned to the builder who was doing some work and said ‘we blame you’. He responded with ‘everyone else does’. I began following the info people before changing my mind when I seen the nearby offices emptying as well so I turned around heading for the archives centre.

I noted that I have to do the Cable Car sometime as I had only done that the first time I had ever visited Wellington and I was hurrying along to the archives looking around me at some of the buildings. The archives had the file I was after and I made some more copies on my camera, but I found I could still take digital copies or photocopies of the files if I wanted. I had not paid attention to that before. Other files I was able to order and then I headed to the helpdesk guy to ask about the dreaded restricted file I was wanting access to. The guy was really helpful as we looked at the naturalisation record and looked at the others who were mentioned. It was likely because there was no death recorded of the German ancestor who had vanished. We looked at the file another way and then he went seeking permission for access. I was able to get access and he thought that the others who were naturalised at the same time might be friends. When looking at the record when it came around an hour later it seemed they all simply worked in the same workplace. Some more looking up and will see what I can find about those other Germans at a later date. I had been told its common not to have a birth town such as someone putting Greek in the naturalisation for example. That was until after a certain date and then needed more info. By this time I was ready for an early lunch of baked potato and then off again.

The destination I was heading towards was the Cable Car as I knew I had heaps of time before heading elsewhere like the information centre yet again. It wasn’t very long before I was in line to get the Cable Car to the top where the Botanic garden is located. I got  return trip as I really didn’t want to be doing any more hill climbing for at least a little while longer. I went up and seen some of the Victoria University and once up the top I went into the cable car museum where I found there were cable cars for this area that went right into the town of Kelburn, which was nearby. I think there were more places they went to including down to the docks until replaced by other transport. There was the original winding house that was no longer in use as the cable cars had been upgraded during the 1970s. There is more to the story, but I can only remember parts of it. Once out of the little free museum I went for a walk as I seen a sign that I wanted to know the direction of. It was the sign that I had past the day before. This meant that the cable car was that close to the top of the hill so that I could have been able to go up hill without straining myself walking. I know for next time though on what to do and I will go that way again. Before leaving the botanic gardens I had to visit some of the closer things like the Krupp gun that is a relic of WW1 and the observatories where the Met services for New Zealand is located. I was fitting more into my days than I could ever believe though I looked at a map and knew I had visited most of the places as I had been walking around Bolton street cemetery and the rose gardens too.

Once I had gotten the cable car down to the bottom I still had trouble scanning my ticket as the scanners had something against me going up too. I wasn’t too worried as I was soon freed. I wanted to head to the Old Bank building where since 2008 I had been told there is an old ship in the carpark. Before going there however I wanted to take pictures of the stairs I had walked up the day before as I wanted proof they were high and steep as they were going to The Terrace an upper street. Every time I had been to the Old Bank building I had not been able to look around as it had been closed at the end of the day. This time around I was lucky as it was open and I just knew I had to go down and outside the centre management strangely enough there was the ship. It had been known as Plimmer’s Ark and it had been once a ship under the name of The Inconstant. Plimber had bought it for a small amount after it had been wrecked and once there was an earthquake it had been left there. It had been rediscovered in 1998 during some work so it was not preserved under the floor with glass to see what it looks like. There had been quite a bit of other relics that had been found in the area and a map to show just how big this boat had been. I was impressed and happy I had found this. If you are in Wellington and want to visit it, take the lift down and its behind the stairs. There are other displays around locally too. Satisfied I went off to the information centre and I was finding it funny as I had visited most of the movie going places for Lord of the Rings and some other locations. I had not visited Katherine Mansfield house yet and that is just a bit far out of my way. Still I got some maps to satisfy me for my trip up north. I do hope they help me in some way or form on the journey with ideas or else I will be left to wander aimlessly if left to my devices.

I was wondering what the quake room actually was since it was outside of the museum and when I went in there was something telling me about the earthquake measures the building had in place. There is more about earthquakes inside the museum and displays of what could happen especially during ones of the past. I was getting a little tired of having sun in my eyes and I wanted a little rest from being outside. Once I entered the museum I wanted a coffee and a plate of chips. I also wanted to visit the information centre to see what they had to say about the Britten motorbike and where it actually was located. I found out when asking that it had been located at the food court where the skull of Stan the Tyrannosaurus is now located. The lady said the bike will be back in February after it was cleaned up as it had been in the same location for 16 years without a clean. Fair enough and I wasn’t the only one who had been asking about the bike either. I ended up with a coffee and a small pie as I didn’t want to walk down stairs for chips plus they had comfy seats at the level I was on. I wasn’t going to go very far and then I explored the New Zealand history with free wifi in the museum taking pics of interesting items and then posting them to see who might love them or be annoyed. I was happy to be taking the museum at my own pace with hours before it closed though I did leave soon after the cup had been raced as that was something I wanted to keep an eye on. Again free museum wifi is helpful and I laughingly called Shrek the sheep a wifi sheep as thats what i had. The YHA wifi sheep keep losing signal though with 300 people in the building you never know. I did see a school group this morning and heard them tonight sing happy birthday. I think we did leave NZ pretty much when the country was having huge problems in the 1980s along with sell offs.

The museum was the last place I visited before heading back to the hostel and watching a helicopter hover over some buildings in the area. I have no idea what it was doing at all. I was looking at the clouds wondering if I was going to get hit with a sudden shower even though I could see it coming. I knew I had to pack my bag as I was going to go leave for a new destination and that was Waiouru and the Army museum where I would have a full day to play with the information I was looking for although I did find a little about the Home Guard in the museum. I think it will be pretty cool going off there and get to see how cold it actually is. My washing has been done and i did find the sock I thought that had gone missing. It was actually in hiding in my bag.