The Epicurious Wanderers!

Had a fairly busy day yesterday, did lots of walking as well which is giving the legs a good workout.

Restored Wellington Cable car (circa 1906)

Headed up the hill by Cable Car in the morning, nice gentle trip to the top then a walk around the museum.  The museum has the history of the cable car line as well as several restored and semi-restored cable cars.  Also shows how the line was built and maintained, some really interesting stuff.

After that we decided to walk back down the hill through the Botanic Gardens, this was quite an effort in places as the path was really steep.  It did provide some amazing views of Wellington and the harbour though.  The Garden’s include the original cemetery for Wellington, when the Motorway was constructed a number of the graves had to be moved, as you can imagine this caused much controversy at the time.  The pass through the cemetary though does mean that the graves are well cared for.  At the bottom of the hill the Botanic Gardens are bisected by the Motorway, we crossed the bridge over this at about 12 noon on Saturday, traffic was just amazing.

Wellington Motorway at noon on Saturday

After this we wandered back along the waterfront to Te Papa Museum, this really is something to see. After about 4 or 5 hours we seen enough for one day but hadn’t finished seeing everything!

We then headed off to have a break and plan our next moves.  This involved a visit to Mac’s Brewbar

Mac's BrewBar

for a light snack and a beer or two.  From here we decided to head back to our room for a breather before venturing out in the Wellington night life scene.  I’d heard of a bar called Hashigo Zake, a cult beer bar, and just had to stop in for a few unique beers.  The place was really cool, it’s in a basement under a restaurant in what was once the Wellington Police headquarters.  I wonder if the bar is in the old cell area!  After a couple of beers we wandered off in search of food, we found a South America place Estadio in a side street and settled on a few tapas style dishes to satsify our appetites.  Very tasty it was too!  After that we wandered back to The Malthouse for a few late night drinks, well late for us, then headed off to bed.