New Zealand 2023: Day 1 Wellington

By the numbers:

Bag 14 kg

1 plane

17,491 steps

13.71kms

Movie: Back to the Future 3

The day started very early as I had to be up at 4am to catch the earliest flight I have had to be at the airport for a flight. I was leaving at just after 6am and I had to be there for when the airport opened. I did get there not long after the place opened and all I needed to do was to print my bag tag off as I had done the online thing and went on my way. The Gold Coast wasn’t very busy at that time of morning.  To go through the International we still had to go through two loss of security. Once I got to International, I had to wait for it to open, but I was the third person through.

 

Nothing was really open, but I wasn’t too worried as I didn’t need another coffee even though it was pretty early and got to see the sky lighten from the airport. The time came pretty quickly to board and once I got onto the place the flight attendants spoke about the declaration card. You could now do this online as there wasn’t enough to go around in the physical form. While waiting for everyone to take their seats I downloaded the app and it even scanned my passport, which I thought was interesting. Once this happens the declaration card is linked with my passport when that is scanned. I let the guy in who was beside me, but I had missed his son who was looking at me. The poor kid wasn’t well throughout the flight.

 

The weather in Wellington as we landed was a slight drizzle, but I was hoping it wouldn’t be too bad as I had energy to burn. Everyone was pretty orderly getting off the plane as it was usually every man for themselves, but row by row everyone got off with the people behind waiting patiently. I was looking forward to finding some of the Lord Of The Rings stuff at the aireport that I had not seen before. Just before immigration, I accidentally found a Weta Studios conveyor belt hidden to the side with stuff from the movies they had made. I was happy to see this and the one reason I had wanted to fly into International as I knew they might have some props. I had nothing to declare and I was allowed out pretty easily and took a wander through the airport before leaving to find the bus. The shuttle bus would take me to the train station, near where I was staying. Though first I had to walk in the right direction. By the time we reached the last stop the driver asked if we were still on board. Three of us didn’t realise that it was the last stop as I was looking for a location a little further on, but we had reached the train station.

 

From the train station it was a short walk to the place I was staying and I wasn’t sure if I was going for the walk I had thought about doing as it wasn’t looking nice in the hills. I laughed at the lady who put the price of my accommodation as she added too many zeros. She didn’t realise I had noticed as she was a little embarrassed. Once I dropped off my bags, I decided to take a wander to one of the museums until I realised while I was wandering the very busy Te Papa that I should really be heading back to my room for an afternoon nap as I was feeling really tired. I had seen people lining up early outside a music stadium as I knew there was a band playing tonight, I would have loved to staty in the museum longer, but I was becoming zombified and that wasn’t a good thing. I ended up sleeping for an hour or so in the afternoon.

 

I wanted to find some food and instead went looking at the Embassy buildings for the different countries that were in Wellington like the US one, Thai, India and both the Cook and Fiji islands. The only one that had heaps of security was the US one. Across from the National Archives was a new building being built for that purpose to holding the archives. It will be interesting to see what happens when that is built in 2025. By this time in the late afternoon early evening the clouds had rolled in over the hills and it had gotten cold. I knew I should make my way back as I wanted to eat my food and get out from this rain that had the look that it was going to open pretty soon.