Solly & Jude & The World: Last days on North Island

Monday February 29th - Leap day

Having established that we and the van were intact after the gales of the night before, we headed back to State Highway 2 and the road south towards Wellington where we had a couple of days available before our pre-booked ferry transfer across to South Island.

I think this was Dave's favourite road so far (I think you might be right - Dave), following the contours of the lovely countryside, right and left, up and down and with mile upon mile of amazing scenery (see the banner header for this blog). We stopped only once, near the top of an amazing canyon, presumably volcanic in origin and signposted as the site of the Rimutaka Crossing memorial - a WWI march re-enacted in 2015. We also took a few videos of the drive (At some point I may try stitching a load of these together into some sort of funky speeded-up road movie. Maybe. - Dave).

It was only 80-odd km to Wellington, and Dave programmed the satnav to take us straight to the Weta Cave, which is on the Miramar peninsular. Of course, clever though they are, satnavs can't help you find somewhere to park*, and the Cave has no more than about a dozen spaces outside - all full.

*(In fact they can be pretty flaky the rest of the time too, it seems. I lost count of the number of times "in three hundred metres, turn right" turned out to mean "in three hundred metres, keep going the way you're going, and for God's sake DON'T turn left", or similar. That why I still can't be doing with them at home - Dave)

The main road into Wellington

We found somewhere up the hill a good way and walked down to be confronted by the three trolls from the Hobbit films; no doubting this was the place then. Luckily it was daylight, so the trolls were no trouble.

We booked for the Weta workshop tour (the next one was 1pm), and because we had time to spare, also booked onto the 11:45 Thunderbirds set tour. Weta are involved in the newest Thunderbirds Are Go TV series and after taking a few pictures of the wonderful trolls and a monitor lizard model (which Dave thought was from King Kong), we got a minibus trip to the nearby Thunderbirds lot.

The tour was excellent; our small group was taken round a large warehouse by Kimmie, one of the Weta team, and initially shown some models and memorabilia from the original series (Weta boss Richard Taylor is a massive fan/collector, and apparently took Sylvia Anderson to the premier of the first Lord of the Rings film as his wife was too pregnant to attend). We got to see the sets they made for the series, there are varying sized versions of the iconic sets including Tracey Island, classic styled rocket launching sites and the updated Lady Penelope's home. These are used as the set on which the animated/computer generated characters are placed. Plenty of homage is paid to the original series (again Richard Taylor's influence I'm sure), and it's all made from everyday things which are donated or found lying around. Favourite items are sprues (the plastic frames which hold pieces out of normal model kits), mixtures of other unrelated models used to create new things, and previously used/made items remodelled and recycled. They had great boxes full of donated household goods and toys and will doubtless make good use of them in some way.

The highlight, however, was the lemon-squeezer, sited in the Thunderbird 1 launch bay, to replicate that in the original series. Because the sets are so much bigger in the new show, the team had to mould and create an oversized lemon squeezer to fit the bill.

No photos, naturally, but plenty of fun and informative.

The Weta workshop tour started just behind the reception/shop and our guide was one of the Weta painters, Mark. His job, when he's not on the tour-guide rota, is creating effects of texture and various substances on, mostly, plastic. This includes making things look old and worn, as well as making plastic look like all sorts of things including steel, gold, wood and rock. He talked us through some of the modelling processes and some of the hows and whys of the film business, including some insights into the use of body-scanners to make costumes for people who can't pop to New Zealand regularly for fittings, and how many stunt men it takes to make some stars' characters look good on film.

Apparently Weta are branching away from just working on films, and now do things with museum exhibits (more later), charity events, sculptures and anything else where modelling is useful. They have also started a video game section, which our guide was very happy about.

There were lots of amazing and familiar things on show, including some from Lords of the Rings, District 9, Chappie, and the Halo computer-game series - to name a few. The area of the tour is a small fraction of the whole site, which is full of people working hard. In the last bit of the tour we got to see a sculptor working on models for a future board-game based on the David Bowie film Labyrinth - he had made these on spec and sent them to a company in UK who he'd heard were considering this. We also got to see a lady painstakingly adding 'hairs' to a piece of silicon skin.

This was a fascinating glimpse into what they do, although much of it was familiar to me from my (admittedly many) hours of watching the Lord of the Rings DVD extras.

We bought a few souvenirs (I was quite restrained, having already picked up my fair share of Hobbity bits), and then headed off to the centre of town to the next big draw and must-do on everyone's list for a visit to Wellington, according to all the guidebooks - the Te Papa museum.

We parked up (easier than you might imagine as the whole country is geared up for the campervan-based tourist), and, having missed lunchtime, had a beer and massive bowl of wedges at Mac's on the quay. The museum is free and we took our time going round the Gallipoli exhibition - complete with massive and very impressive models by Weta (the human figures probably being close to 12' tall) - and lots of interactive displays with audio and well-made dioramas. A very good and moving depiction of the futility of war, especially in the WWI era, told through the personal stories of a few of those unlucky enough to be involved. We planned to come back the next day, after only having a short time to look at their giant squid and accompanying 3-D film.

March 1st, St David's Day

Instead of heading straight back to the museum, or to another of our considered options, Wellington Zoo, we decided to visit Zealandia, an eco-sanctuary and birdlife park about 5km from our campsite at Lower Hutt, and it was amazing. We spent about 4 hours wandering round re-established forest, other various habitat types and feeding areas. We saw loads of fabulous and rare native New Zealand birds including Takahe, Saddlebacks, Kaka parrots and a Tuatara lizard. There were also lots of more common native birds, Tui, bellbirds, NZ robins and whiteheads, pied shags and several duck species including scoup, Brown Teal and Paradise Shelducks.

This is an amazing place with a brilliant plan to help allow the re-establishment of native birds in a massive area protected from local predators such as stoats, rats and dogs by serious fencing. There were longer walks further into the woods above the lovely lake (for another time), and a wonderful ethical café.

Kaka

A Saddleback (they are fast moving, and rarely sit still)

Whiteheads

A male California Quail...

...and his family

Takahe

A Tuatara

After lunch there, we returned to Te Papa and paid $15 to go into their Dreamworks exhibition. This was a series of models, drawings, pictures and interactive videos from all the Dreamworks films over the last 15 or more years - photography allowed (see the bottom of this blog update) J

We spent another couple of hours in various rooms - NZ photography since the 1880s was an excellent social history of the country and people, stuff about volcanoes and earthquakes featured heavily, and there was plenty about past and present natural history - all presented cleverly and in such a marvellous space its brilliant reputation entirely justified in my opinion.

The coffee shop was worth a visit, and we also made a trip to Bush City - the attached but outside space which had a fake glowworm cave and funky suspension bridge. This is certainly somewhere which would deserve repeated visits, even if you lived locally, a lovely atmosphere and let's face it, free.

Because it was also in the 'must do' things for Wellington, we thought we should take in the Botanic Gardens via the cable car. We arrived late though, so ended up taking the cable car (which anyone who's been to Cairngorm would know is actually a funicular) down to Lambton Quay, had a brief walk round, and then headed back up. It had been a long day, so the Botanic Gardens is now on our list for a future trip.

Looking forward to tomorrow; we have a trip on the most scenic ferry in the world, and are aiming to meet up with our friends Ben and Jackie for tea and a couple of beers. Early alarm set.