Capital Punishment

Our time in the capital of NZ, Wellington, was short and that's probably for the best. Unfortunately, our experience was one of frustration. The minute we arrived in Wellington, we could tell that parking was going to be an issue. Unlike other big cities where it appears that most transportation is public and most vehicles are yellow (taxis), Wellington seemed to have none of those and was packed with peoples cars. As we checked into our downtown hotel, they told us they had only a handful of spots for the several hundred rooms. We were told to park on the street. It was 2 hour parking, so we paid for 15 minutes to unload our bags before deciding what to do. We came back out, reloaded the meter with 2 more hours and headed to Te Papa - the National Museum of NZ. We enjoyed the state of the art, interactive Ourspace exhibit, but weren't thrilled with the High Ride which I blame for what I think is a broken rib. The worlds only colossal squid on display was disgusting, but the city view from the panoramic windows completely made up for it. As Americans, we could not believe what an impressive museum this was and that the ticket price was $0.

After a stroll through the waterfront and Civic Square, we returned to our car with 6 minutes to spare on our meter, but it didn't matter as we had received a nasty-o-gram from the Wellington police. That's right, we got ticketed before our meter expired. Apparently, you can not re-load meters here. I suppose the ticket with a timestamp before the expiry time is worth the fine as it's a memory we'll visit often with laughter.
One thing we really enjoyed in Wellington was the cable car ride we took at night. We had the cable car nearly to ourselves and enjoyed the views for the relatively short ride from Lambton Quay to the top of the lookout hill at the botanic gardens. We had a great view of the skyline at night and enjoyed stargazing. We got a kick out of the different constellations here including the Southern Cross.

Riding back down and into down, we headed for Coutenay Place where all the nightlife was. We enjoyed a seriously delcious meal of pizza, pasta, and garlic bread at One Red Dog. The 2+km walk back to the hotel was well worth not dealing with the stress of driving (and the potential for another ticket). We even found one of those famous red telephone booths. Figured you couldn't walk past and not take a photo by it!