The Discovery
15 days · Auckland, Taupō, Hawke's Bay, Wairarapa
Subtropical one week, alpine the next, with nights on stations few travellers ever see.
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North Island
Wellington
A compact capital of good food and theatre, on a harbour, in the wind.
North Island · Culture & history · Food enthusiasts · Couples
Wellington is, by every measure that matters, one of the world's great small cities. Compact enough to walk across in an afternoon, consequential enough to spend a week in and still feel you've missed things. The city sits on the southern tip of the North Island where the wind comes off Cook Strait and the harbour frames everything, hills behind, water in front, a cable car threading up through the suburb of Kelburn to the Botanic Gardens.
Te Papa Tongarewa, the national museum of New Zealand, is world-class in the truest sense, a building that takes the country's dual Māori and Pākehā heritage seriously and presents it beautifully. Wellington's restaurants and cafés punch well above the city's size, a short walk from one to the next, and the coffee is taken seriously. Weta Workshop, the studio that built the props, armour and creatures of The Lord of the Rings, offers private behind-the-scenes experiences that are unlike anything else in the world.
Among its moments
- Te Papa Tongarewa, private behind-the-scenes museum access
- Weta Workshop, private creative studio tour
- Wellington waterfront dining and craft beer scene
- Cable car and Botanic Gardens
- Mount Victoria lookout, harbour panorama
- Wellington Museum, the city's history in an 1892 bond store
Wellington in photographs
Journeys through Wellington
Reading on Wellington
The whole journal- New Zealand wildlife: where to find the rarest species on Earth
Conservation, 7 min read
Near here
All thirty regions, on the map