Day 49: Wellington, North Island … New Zealand

Friday, 24 February 2017
At Sea — Pacific Ocean … En Route to Picton

No Stats Collected from the NavChannel

The future can no longer be “What is going to Happen?”
It is “What are we going to do?”
~ Henri Bergson …. At the entrance to Zealandia ~

What a great day we had in Wellington.  But before we arrived in New Zealand’s capital — and our last stop on North Island — we had a lovely morning at sea.  The next time we will have time to kick back will be on the last day of February, so this morning was much appreciated.

There are two very popular attractions in Wellington that all first time visitors take in — Te Papa Museum and the Wellington Botanic Gardens.  We explored both in 2015, leaving us wanting to do something different today.  That’s when we decided to visit the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary Experience, which is dedicated to telling the country’s unique conservation story.

As is common for most places in New Zealand, the sanctuary has a Māori name as well — Te Māra a Tāne [the Garden of Tāne] … very appropriate as Tāne is the Māori creator of trees and plants.  Described by Lonely Planet as “an unmissable green experience,” the eco-sanctuary is popularly known by yet a third name — Zealandia.  More on the origins of that name later.

We were joined on our visit to Zealandia by Rosalyn & Piet, a couple from the Netherlands.  I first made contact with Rosalyn on CruiseCritic last year before our trip to the Netherlands and we made plans to meet then so that she could show us around her neck of the woods.  Unfortunately our Netherlands plans went awry, so our meeting was delayed until we joined forces today.

Due to damage done to the Queen’s Wharf cruise ship pier during last year’s earthquakes, Insignia docked at Aotea Quay, the commercial port located several miles outside downtown Wellington.  Although there was a shuttle into town that was scheduled to start operating at 12:30p, our plan was to take a taxi to simplify our transportation to Zealandia.  There was no taxi stand at Aotea, but a coordinator called for a cab to pick us up.  The only problem — the driver could not enter the port.  No matter, one of the port workers drove us to meet the cab just outside the port area.  Despite the rather heavy mid-day traffic, our chatty driver got us up to Zealandia by 12:30p.

We originally had no plans to do a guided tour of the sanctuary.  So glad we changed our minds and bought tickets for “Zealandia by Day” when the woman at the desk asked if we were interested in walking with a guide.  Without the tour, we would have missed seeing all but the most obvious wildlife.  It was definitely worth the NZD $55/person (~ USD $40) price tag.  Group sizes are limited to 10, but ours was smaller with just 8 people.  We later lost one couple to a phone call, so we ended up being just 6 for most of the tour.

Roy — the docent who took us around — was very informative.  First he took us into the small exhibit at the visitor center and explained how there was once a low-lying continent — about half as big as Australia — called Zealandia.  It broke off from Gondwana, which was the grouping of all southern lands that existed 170 million years ago and included South America, Africa, India, and Australia … as we know them today.  As it moved, Zealandia stretched out to become long and thin.  Most of the land mass became so thin that eventually it sunk below the ocean, leaving behind portions of what we know today as New Zealand.

Roy’s brief discussion on plate tectonics was followed by a 7-minute documentary that highlighted the arrival of humans and how that changed the ecology of Aotearoa [New Zealand], an isolated and unique land where there were no mammalian predators to inhibit bird life from flourishing.  Over the following 700 years, that paradise of flora and fauna was almost destroyed … by introduced mammals like rats, dogs, and cats … and humans.  Zealandia’s mission is to turn back time … if only in the sanctuary valley overlooking the hustle and bustle of Wellington.

Once we stepped outdoors, Roy asked us to open our bags and do a visual check to make sure we had no predators hitching a ride into the protected area.  We felt a little ridiculous searching our bags for rats, but did as directed.  In the meantime, Roy pointed out the fence that surrounds the sanctuary valley.  Invisible to visitors except in one or two places, the fence is designed to keep rats and other mammalian predators out and serves to provide a safe environment for endemic birds — some of them once thought to be extinct on mainland New Zealand — and reptiles to flourish.  As we wandered around the paths, Roy pointed out the critters … some of them so well camouflaged that we would have walked right by them if not for him.

We saw the Wellington Green Gecko that is part of a breeding program here, as well as the Tuatara — a reptile that is the only kind in its order.  The birds were plentiful, though the dappled light of the forest often made it difficult to photograph them.  Our best views were of the Kākā, a nationally vulnerable large parrot that is thriving at Zealandia.  As well, we saw the female half of the non-breeding, non-releasable elderly Takahē pair that has been relocated here to live out the rest of their lives.  The Pied and Black Shags were on branches along the edge of the lower dam — one nest had two chicks that had not yet fledged.  We also saw a number of Hihi, Saddleback, Kererū (a type of pigeon found only in New Zealand), Tūī, Bellbird, Kākāriki (a locally rare bright green parakeet), Whitehead, North Island Robin, Fantail, and Brown Teal.  The “rooms” at the “Wētā hotels” were occupied by the insects for which they are named.

The Kākā is a nationally vulnerable parrot found only in New Zealand.

Our 2-hour tour took closer to 3½ hours.  No one complained about the extra time … us least of all since the ship was scheduled to be in port until 11:00p — a rare occurrence.  The 4:15p shuttle was just about to leave Zealandia when we ran to the stop to see if we could catch it.  Alas, there was no room for us.  We didn’t want to wait 45 minutes for the next one to come around, so Roy drew us a map of the road to follow to walk down to the top station of the cable car — about 30 minutes away.  We could have taken a detour to get to the station by way of the meandering paths of the botanic gardens, but our feet screamed no at the thought of all the extra steps that would have entailed.

The ride down in the cable car — more like a funicular with several tunnels en route — was a short one.  Since there was no ticket booth at the top station, we went to the one at the bottom station to pay the fare of NZD $4/person (~ USD $2.88) and get the tickets that we scanned at the automatic turnstile to exit.

Once outside, we parted ways with Rosalyn and Piet, who went off to wander around Wellington a bit more.  We went into the grocery store adjacent the cable car station to get some apples, but the lines were long with locals shopping on their way home from work.  Instead, walking past the cruise ship shuttle bus stop at the corner of Lambton Quay and Brandon, Mui and I went to Astoria, the closest of the eateries he had looked up when we were planning our day in Wellington.  At 5:00p on a Friday evening it was a bustling place with people enjoying a glass of wine or other adult beverage at the tables outside.  The few tables that were empty were in the sun, so we sat indoors for our meal.  Mui ordered the fish brandada — a loosely formed fish cake topped with spinach and red peppers and a poached egg.  I ordered the penne with spinach, which I washed down with a locally brewed pale ale described as having “… a few luscious notes of mango, guava, lychee and pineapple …” — the food was OK; the beer was the best part of the meal for me.

We skipped desert at Astoria for ice cream elsewhere, but there were no shops to be found nearby.  Our feet just would not walk over to the waterfront several blocks away.  So, we hopped on the shuttle back to the ship and had ice cream at the Terrace Café instead.

With Insignia’s late departure, we could have gone out again after resting a bit.  But tomorrow’s another day in port.  Picton is just a couple of hours across the Cook Strait from Wellington, so with no morning at sea to rest tomorrow, we figured it would be best to do so now.

The few photos I uploaded into the gallery for today start with this link.  I apologize that there aren’t more … I have neither the time to process them, nor the patience to work with the slower-than-molasses internet speed to upload images.

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