Julia's Birds, Bugs, Bikes and Boats Blog: February 2014

Thursday 27 February 2014

Wellington's Cable Car.

The cable car with Wellington City in the background

The city of Wellington is in the shape of half a bowl if you get what I mean. It curls around the harbour and rises steeply away from it. The university is situated at Kelburn, a steep rise from the city. The easiest way to get up to this suburb is to use the cable car. It has been running for 112 years and is of the funicular type. As one cable car goes up another comes down. They act is a counter balance to each other. For more information check this link: Cable car information

Early days for the cable car

An early cable car is now in the nearby museum

I remember it in the good old days when you could ride on the outside. It was a lovely start and end to the working day to be perched on the specially designed seats and looking out over Wellington as you trundled along, disappearing into tunnels at regular intervals.

If the weather was right, travelling on the outside was a pleasure in the seventies

Nowadays everyone is stowed carefully and safely on the inside, protected from the weather. At the top the views over the city are incredible. The Botanic Gardens are to one side and Victoria University on the other. The Cable Car Museum is situated at the top as well as a restaurant which makes the most of the brilliant views.

At the top

Ready to climb on board. Note the funicular cable system

View from the cable car

At the moment Wellington's Arts Festival is running and the cable car has got into the action. My visitor and I went for a ride as it was a beautiful day and we wanted to experience the cable car and its Arts Festival addition. It was pretty cool.We got on quickly and sat up the front to get the best view. There are several tunnels and one was done up as a light display which was great fun for everybody. As we went through the tunnel lights flashed different colours in a psychedelic pattern. Only one tunnel was lit up though - we wanted all the tunnels to flash and dazzle.
Once down we did not get off and rode up again for the fun of it. Very, very cool!

The tunnel lit up for a light show

Lights changing colour and flashing

Sunday 23 February 2014

Wellington's Weta Workshop

Gollum from Lord of the Rings at the Weta Cave

Over christmas and summer we have had a wealth of visitors and one of the bonuses is getting to see Wellington City through their eyes and visiting attractions we have not visited for a while.
Yesterday I took guests to the Weta Cave and toured the Weta Workshop, a place where props are made for such films as The Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, the Narnia series, Avatar and the children's series the Wot Wots.

One of my favourite characters was on display - Lonely Dog. He was created by a New Zealander in a series of paintings and Weta Workshop created a sculpture of him.

Lonely Dog

Much is kept hidden from visitors and the shop is too small for what needs to be displayed but it is a great place to go and the guided tour is well worth its modest cost. The guide is usually a Weta props worker who has some spare time. They give their own unique view on what you see which makes the tour always refreshing.

The name weta is taken from New Zealand's large insect

s, the scary looking but harmless creature that inhabits our forests and our gumboots if we are foolish enough to leave them outside overnight.

A Wellington tree weta after which the Weta Cave shop in Wellington is named

We got to peek through windows to see where custom made swords were being created for huge sums of money. We got to feel armour that looked heavy but was created by plastic and foam. Everywhere you looked were weird and wonderful creatures staring back, often distorted and menacing. We were allowed to touch and they had an uncanny real feeling to them. We were not allowed to use photography during the tour, but could snap anything in the shop area.

An incredible collection of film memorabilia is being gathered and the need to find a better place to exhibit it is growing. Weta is also working on creating large sculptures for a sculpture park. Again they are not sure where the sculpture park will be, but it will be a boon to the city when it is finalised.

Wellington is now linked to the movie director Peter Jackson, Weta Digital and Weta Workshop for time immemorial and hopefully the city can embrace our movie fame by finding space for their incredible collection and a spot for their huge sculptures to be displayed.