SWellington

Wellington is not having much of a summer, and it's been cloudy throughout our 36-hour stay. Despite that, it's a very likeable city - it feels like Auckland's more sophisticated little brother, with plenty of good bars and quirky shops.

And quirky museums, too

 Wellington is apparently the nation's capital when it comes to beer and live music (as well as being, um, its actual capital). We decided to put this to the test on a grey Wednesday evening. After happening upon an open mic night we headed for one of the few advertised gigs, at a long-established (but apparently recently renovated) spot called the Bodega which does host reasonably big-name acts at times. Wednesday was not one of those times and we saw about 20 people there all night.

The bill was, shall we say, eclectic. First up was a blues band, Charcoal White, and they were actually excellent - 9/10 and well worth a bigger crowd. They were followed by an accordion player doing covers of things like "Sweet Child O' Mine" and his own compositions such as "I'm Really Awesome". If I describe this as an 'only in NZ' experience I hope nobody will be offended - he was actually good fun (although 15 minutes would have been enough), and there was no crowd to turn on him. The headliners then produced enough noise to drive us out - but we finished the evening with an Irish band in an Irish pub.

We explored central Welly the next day - the gloomy weather and mizzle suggested it wasn't worth exploring the coast.  Easily the most high-rise spot we've seen, as Welly tucks in between hills and a bay so doesn't have Auckland's room to sprawl. The sun popped out very briefly as we took a tram up the hill and walked down through the botanical garden - Mums would have loved the flowers.  (Hint - don't get a return on the tram, by the time you've walked halfway down the hill to the roses and begonias, you won't want to walk back up.)  Also squeezed in a little shopping, as I carelessly left Lilly briefly unattended while I was distracted by the excellent bookshops here.

We also popped into the Museum of Wellington, which was celebrating its 10th birthday with a collection of curios from its collection, and spent a couple of hours in Te Papa, the museum of NZ (it's huge, and they're justifiably proud of it - it's very well presented and pleasingly interactive, from the colossal squid to the little computer games* - although the simulated earthquake is a little underwhelming).

They call this a 'colossal squid' for some reason

* We discovered that if Lilly was an alien colonising Earth, she would have barely survived because she didn't pack her chocolate bar tree; and if she was project managing a building in an earthquake zone she would have spent lots of money reinforcing everything but failed to insure anything. Although this latter game was sponsored by an insurance company it turned out reasonably well.

We rounded off the evening with dinner in Mac's Brewery*, an attractive red-brick building at the harbour, and a cinema trip to see A Serious Man** - would have liked to see more of the nightlife but we had an early start to get the ferry to the South Island.

* Probably my favourite NZ brewer, partly because of their attractive design sense and tongue-in-cheek descriptions, but mostly because of their good beer.
** Pleased to catch this as I just missed it on leaving the UK. Somewhat baffled by it though. At this point it would be an anticlimax for a Coen Bros film to actually have an ending.

Had a good time here all round - wish we had a bit longer.