Project Honeymoon - Day 11: A Day in Wellington (the Capital City)

Picturesque Oriental Quay

WETA Cave - Drove along picturesque Oriental Quay into Miramar where WETA Cave resides.  WETA is a NZ Special FX company known for its work on Lord of the Rings.  On our drive to Wellington from Napier our map showed places where LOTR was filmed.  I kept nudging Hubby to see if he was interested in seeing any of them.  The best part of the movie trilogy for me was Viggo (aka Aragorn) so I was indifferent about seeing any LOTR filming locations.  I just wanted to make sure that Hubby wouldn't miss anything he may regret later.  Although he wasn't interested in filming locations either, he really wanted to see WETA Cave.  Various tours will take you there, but we decided to drive there ourselves; admission is free.  The site itself is quite small, about 800sqft.  They have movie props, books, collectibles, and a theatre which plays a 20 minute video of WETA history.  As the video describes, they built WETA Cave so that visitors could get a taste of what actually happens at WETA.  Previously, tourists would try and peek over the fence just to see wharehouses and not get much out of the experience.  Despite its small size, we spent over an hour at WETA Cave.   One easily gets caught up marvelling at everything there.  The Golum sculpture is a popular photo op.

Golum Sculpture at WETA Cave

Te Papa Museum - The quality of this museum is top notch...with the added bonus of free admission.  Our Fodors book says one could easily spend a couple of days at this museam, but we only had 3 hours.  If we had more time, we'd totally enjoy spending it at this museum...it's kinda like Science World and the Vancouver Art Gallery rolled into one.  As we exit the museum Hubby can't resist climbing the big rocks out front.

Hubby on a Huge Rock Outside of Te Papa Museum