By the numbers
3 trains
26,244 steps
18.08kms
Today is the last day in Wellington and I was having
a relaxed day of it all as I wandered to the train station. I had taken my time
as I was trying o get some photos I had taken online and they were taking a
very long time. Seems that the hostel’s internet since it is free works very
slowly and allows you to do stuff when it wants to. I was able to get an all
day rover ticket that let me go on any train all day, which is pretty good in
itself and a conductor comes along and punches holes in them. Today I was
heading to Mana Station and Porirua both near Wellington.
Mana Station, which is two stops after Porirua had
the remains of the Paremata Barracks that were built to head off the conflict
with the Maori. I found the Barracks pretty easily as they were near the
marine, but I wa wondering how close until I walked through the park. They were
built in the 1850s and fell down during an earthquake. I wasn’t there for very
long as I wanted to get the train to Porirua. I may have had a little bit of
time before I got to the hospital tour, but I had a reputation for getting
myself lost. Lost I did get as I really was not sure where I should be heading
to after I got off the train and there was no map to tell me. I found a nearby
Maccas where I had lunch to use their wifi so I could find a map to find out
where I was meant to go. Funny thing was the road I wanted was just across the
road.
I knew the area was a hospital, but it wasn’t actually
fully sign posted unless I had to walk to the main buildings before it would
be. Wandering up I was wondering how far this place actually was as I followed
the signs for museum. It did not take long before I found it and I waited for
around 10 mins before the guy opened the door. The tours are once a week on a
Tuesday, which is why its ended up being a mid week fly home. What I did not
realise at the time was the whole area with the Porirua Asylum was actually
very big and very self sufficient with the patients being allowed to work as
well. The heating was all steam pipes and later normal bar heaters were installed
once there were no patients left. Buildings over time were knocked down and
replaced, the war interrupted expansion plans and the main asylum building did
end up being condemned after an earthquake in the 1950s I think it was. There
was no real medical book keeping by the nurses as an example was shown that
over 6 months patient notes were written down around 6 times that was if at all.
Many records were destroyed through a steam pipe leak in the basement. The
patients did do ‘normal’ things as the tour guide told me like the men wanted
to follow the ladies who were going skinny dipping or playing sports with the
navy who would do so with the doctors. Everything still worked even though they
were patients. Some would still be there even though they were good, but people
knew that they would have their episodes so would have to stay. I never knew
they would have a tennis court that still survives til this very day. It was as
though life was going on.
This was well before respite as well since people in
need of care were in the area too. The high secure patients were sent
elsewhere. It was interesting to see how everything changed over time with the
land they had and the township growing nearby. Sometimes the nurses did sleep
on the ward in special rooms if there were no rooms for then in the nurses
quarters. There were accounts of more patients than beds as the doctor had to
step over the sleeping bodies at night to make his way through the building. Another
group of people wanted a tour and there were only two tour guides who were
doing the tours. The equipment used were very different to today’s world
including the dentist equipment. They did not have an iron lung or anything, but
an early X Ray machine. I was not allowed to take pictures, which was
understandable. The whole place was being knocked down, rebuilt or removed
after 30 or so years. If times had been different the hospital would have been
very different altogether. The children of the doctors played in the area
around the doctor houses building forts and cubby houses.
Once my time was over, I headed back to the train
station after a quick wander through the shopping area outside the shopping
centre. I don’t know what else I really wanted to look at other than head back
to the city. There wasn’t much else I really wanted to do other than sort out
my bag before I head off home tomorrow. There were several books that I was
after that I had found so I grabbed them and hopefully now my bag wont weigh
too much, but will be bang on the weight it is meant to be. It has been a
pretty good trip without any real problems at all other than the usual walking
the wrong way type of thing. The heat down in Wellington has been really mild
apart from way up north where I tend to have oiled. The funny thing is I will
go home with a tan. There is still heaps for me to do over here and I doubt I
would have problems or ever be that bored that I will have nothing at all to
do. There are places that I still have not visited like the Wellington museum,
the national library or even the Dominion museum that was pointed out to me
earlier today.
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