Wellington: part the first

Welcome to Windy Wellington! Except when we were there, there was hardly any wind and the sun shone ALL the time! We arrived on the 27th in the afternoon and straight away headed into town and up the famous cable car, wandering down through the botanical gardens to town. The gardens are absolutely lovely, have a variety of local and "exotic" plants and gardens of several different styles, my favourite being the scented garden. Fantastic! That evening was our first spent under a real roof and in a propper bed since the hotel in Kowloon and we slept very well!

Wellington est connue pour être une ville avec beaucoup de vent et un temps très mitigé. Personnellement on a découvert Wellington sous un ciel bleu et du soleil tous les jours. C'est une ville magnifique, avec son légendaire Cable Car, ses jardins botaniques superbes, son port et ses quais tres jolis. C'est la 1ere ville où on se sentirait vivre en NZ. C'est une grande ville, mais toujours à taille humaine.

The following day we visited a collegue of Séverine at his lab which is part of the GNS Science institute. Incidently GNS stands for Geological and Nuclear Sciences and the redundant second "Science" was added by some executive who thought that GNS was too short a name on its own! Afterwards we had a nice wander along the quaysides in Wellington harbour, having taken advantage of a free parking space a little way out of town. Anyway, as we headed back to the van we suddenly realised that it was no longer there and then, and only then, noticed the signs reading "Urban Clearway 4-6 pm" (it was 3 pm when we parked and 5 pm when we returned.) Our van had been towed meaning that our "free" parking space cost us about 10 times what we would have paid in a normal place. Doh!!

Une matinée fut également dédiée à aller au labo du GNS où j'avais rendez-vous avec un collègue pour découvrir l'institut et aussi profiter de ma venue pour discuter d'un projet. Ce fut une matinée très intéressante et surtout fructueuse car je suis inclus dans un projet financé sur White Island (volcan actif au nord de la NZ) pour travailler avec eux: je dois faire des analyses pour eux à Clermont et l'année prochaine je suis invitée à faire du terrain sur White Island (acces très restreint au public), à discuter avec des collegues à Wellington et à aller faire des analyses avec eux à Melbourne en Australie!!!! Donc super enrichissant et valorisant pour mon boulot et super pour des vacances ensuite ;)

Le seul petit hic de ce jour là, c'est quand rentrant du GNS, on est allé découvrir à pied le centre ville de Wellington. On a donc garé notre van en ville, mais apparement "mal garé", car quand on est revenu: ben y'avait plus de van.. Donc ce fut cher "la place de parking". Le lendemain du coup on a tout fait à pied (15km!!! ah mes jambes!)

One of the best things about Wellington is the amount of parks and reserves within and just outside the city boundaries. Our third day there (the 29th) we visited the Zealandia Wildlife Sanctuary (Karori Reserve) where many species of endangered endemic species of birds and a few other genus such as tuatara (reptiles) and weta (giant insects), although we saw none of the latter. For the sheer beauty of the reserve, Zealandia is worth a visit, but add to that a chance to see and hear many of the birds of this part of the world is one not to be missed. We've surely mentioned this elsewhere in the blog, but probably the most enchanting thing of the voyage for us is the range of birdsongs that one hears everywhere, so to have that all in one place was fantastic.

That evening we ate with a couple who Séverine befriended whilst she was in Hanover, Jen & Kevin. They've only been living in Wellington for a few months having just started jobs at GNS(S) and Victoria University, respectively. We had a really nice meal with them in a Korean restaurant (there appear to be lots of Koreans living in NZ) and this rounded off a really wonderful day. However, having walked all around Zealandia, walked from town to where they live (in a district called Brooklyn which is, of course on top of a hill!), back into town to the restaurant and then, because we missed our bus, from town back to Mike and Emma's house, we were well and truly knackered by the time we got back!

On est vite dans la nature avec ses forets, la mer et sa réserve d'oiseaux. Le chant des oiseaux ici est très particulier: ils sont très différents, tres rigolos, inhabituels, c'est super amusant. On a donc visité cette réserve où on s'est baladé en découvrant les différentes espèces d'oiseaux et j'ai vraiment vraiment adoré!

Wellington also hosts the national museum (Te Papa) where we saw a Maori cultural show and had a wander round the exhibits. The show was longer, larger (in terms of performers) and more involved than those we had seen previously though we should probably only have seen one or two cultural shows in our time here as they were fairly similar in content despite all being very entertaining.

That evering (being a Friday) we went out for drinks with M&E plus a friend of S from her PhD days, Marc-Alban (Marca) who works at Victoria Uni. We went to the only Welsh bar in the southern hemisphere (allegedly) and then on to some "secret" bars that only the locals know (and anyone they drunkenly tell) includeing Alice (think "through the looking glass") where every drink is some sort of a coctail served in a teapot with cups and saucers. All good fun!

Wellington est également une ville culturelle: on a donc visité le Te Papa (le musée national) qui est très intéressant.

On a été hébergé très gentillement chez des amis de David de Bristol: Mike et Emma (les même que la dégustation de vins!), un accueil super et quel bonheur d'être au chaud dans un vrai lit! Cela nous a donné aussi l'occasion de retrouver des amis: Jen et Kevin (amis américains connus à Hanovre) dans un bon resto Koréen, et Marca (ancien thésard de clermont) qui nous a fait découvrir les bars secrets (aucune insigne sur les portes, longs couloirs tous noirs et enfin.. on arrive à un petit bar fort sympathique) et la vie nocturne très active de Wellington en compagnie également de Mike et Emma. Très bonnes soirées!