New Zealand Day 17

New Zealand  Day 17  Monday 03.02.14

We decided to have day without driving today and stayed in Wellington itself.  We started with a cable car ride from Lambton Quay where we were staying up to Kelburn a suburb on the hill above.  There are other stops on the way but we went right up to the top and got out for a stunning view of Wellington.

Cable Car near top of hill

View from top of cable car ride at Kelburn

We had a coffee in the cafe there again overlooking the city below.  

The Botanic Gardens of Wellington are sited on the hillside, so you can walk down from Kelburn through the gardens (or up as some runners were doing - we went down).  They contain lots of well established trees some are very unusual, mostly from new Zealand but there are others.

In the afternoon we went on a tour of the New Zealand Parliament buildings.  The original part is of a traditional  Victorian style but a newer part was added in the 60 /70s and is often referred to as the Beehive. 

The Beehive

 We were taken down to the basement where we were shown how they have had considerable structural alterations to withstand an earthquake as Wellington is very near a major fault.  unfortunately we were not allowed to take anything in with us so no photos of the interior.

Our last stop on our Wellington tour was the Wellington City museum.  We arrived there at 4.40pm and it was shutting at 5 so we hope to get there tomorrow as it looked very interesting.