They call Wellington the Windy City and after today I think we can understand why! Although it looked quite nice this morning, it was actually spitting with rain and by the time we got to the front it was quite persistent, thank goodness it wasn’t like that last night for the fireworks! We decided to walk round to tourist information to pick up the walks leaflets for the heritage walks around the city, then we would go round the museum to try and avoid the rain. As it turned out by the time we found tourist information and picked up the walks we wanted the rain had stopped so although it was overcast we decided to do the walk while it wasn’t raining which was a good decision as apart from a few spots it didn’t rain much while we were walking. There is a heritage walk that starts at the railway station and takes you all around the harbour area, describing the buildings, their use and both the original location and when they were moved as a lot of the harbour front area is reclaimed land. Luckily most of the walk although along the waterfront was with the wind on our backs, but when the wind gusted it was almost strong enough to knock you off your feet! The harbour has been described as more of a lake than a harbour, this is further supported by the fact that the harbour has an entrance that is shallower than the inner basin. There are a number of stories associated with the buildings around the harbour, I think my favourite is about the bond store which was completed in 1892. In 1890 the Wellington harbour board (WHB) commissioned the design and build of a head office and a ‘bigger, more effective bond store with concrete floors’ to replace the wooden structure from the 1860s. It turns out that the bond store held goods on which customs dues hadn’t been paid. Enterprising thieves were know to bore through the wooden floor to steal goods and especially siphon liquor out of casks. We walked all the way round to the overseas passenger terminal which was built in 1964 as a disembarkation point from the European travellers but unfortunately it was quickly superseded by air traffic. It was next to Oriental Parade which was named for one of the early immigration ships to Wellington in the 1840s. Originally it was used as it was remote enough to be a quarantine station. Rather battered and worn down by the wind we decided to head back into town to find something for lunch, but the wind funnels through the streets making it even stronger than at the front so in the end we went back to the waterfront and had lunch in a bar overlooking the harbour. After lunch we planned another walk but as soon as we started the rain started up again so we went to the museum instead. We decided to do the earthquake section today and Maori section tomorrow. The museum was really interesting but not very interactive so it took a lot of reading of information boards rather than demonstrations of how all these things occur and the effect they have, all the same we spent quite some time in there and when we had finished looking round we decided to head back to the apartment which was a good thing as a storm seemed to be coming through as you could hear the wind and rain bashing against the window – I think it is safe to say we won’t be sitting on the balcony this evening!
