Paul Petch

Wellington Weekend

Amy’s boss shouted air fare and accommodation for us back in October (better late than never to blog huh) to visit Wellington as a thank you for some recent projects that she had just competed. Nice eh. Flying into Wellington we could not believe how sketchy the landing was, but once on our feet it was quite obvious that the constant strong winds were to blame. For our whole stay the wind was absolutely relentless! I suppose Wellington being known as the “windy city” says it all!

We kind of took things easy for the two nights we were there and spent most of the days on foot exploring the city and surrounds. The ocean walk way was fantastic with a few places to eat and enjoy the seas views (and chair toppling winds), while the city centre was not to far from our hotel either. We walked most of the Victoria Park tracks on the Saturday which were fantastic and offered some stunning views of the city and surrounds and some “old school” biking tracks if the need arose. The days walk also highlighted to us just how far Makara Peak and the bike park was from the city centre- and that when I visit during the Summer to ride- that accommodation closer to the park would be in order. For the remainder of  Saturday visit we lazed about drinking coffee, ate tasty lunches and dinners in random restaurants/ cafes and then saw a flick at the local cinema.

The 1920’s cinema called the Embassy was right in the middle of the city and this place blew our minds with its original Art Decco decor throughout. Some highlights were the large marble staircase in the foyer that leads you upstairs to the cinema and the toilets……yes…..the toilets. Obviously back in the 1920’s these parts of an establishment were more than just somewhere you go toilet as they were lavishly decorated with timbers, glass and marble. AMAZING. We got there early for District 9 and had about an hour lounging about on the comfy seats while drinking diet cokes ans resting our tired legs from the days walk. Everywhere you looked there seemed to be reference to Lord of the Rings (LOTR)- and when we ordered a toasty sandwich- we were even given Gandalf instead of a number! After inquiring about all of the LOTR “stuff” we discovered that Peter Jackson himself had invested alot of money into the cinema including a world class sound system in anticipation of the LOTR premier. Being a local Wellingtonian and regular visitor to the cinema, this made alot of sense.  Anyway, once inside the actual cinema, nothing prepared us for the viewing area…..it was absolutely AMAZING! Aside from being huge, it was just like the rest of the building and totally period….with one major upgrade….big comfy seats! I can’t recommend the Embassy enough…this place is officially our favorite cinema and need I say, well worth the air fare just to experience it.

Aside from the wind, we were quite lucky with the weather and were blessed with a fair bit of sun for most of the trip. Sunday we were greeted with horrific rain and storms after a museum visit and we were worried about canceled flights it was that bad. Check out was a 10am and our flights were mid afternoon so we spent a fair bit of time lounging about in the hotel foyer worrying about the flights, before heading off. We really liked our brief Wellington visit and it’s a really nice city- bloody windy though :) I can’t wait to get back there over summer to mountain bike too.

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5. Makara Peak helmet cam – Ridgeline track Wellington

This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 7:36 am and is filed under Featured, Ramblings and tagged with amy, makara peak, travel & places, wellington. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.