Outside of Auckland, North Island
Wellington, North Island
You will want to visit the other main museums while you are here. Wellington Museum of Sea and City has maritime exhibits, especially on whaling and fishing, and a great interpretive feel to help capture what it was like to live there at different eras. It is a great way to pass a rainy day, and believe me, it rained when I was there!
http://www.nzmaritime.org/home.html
Then there is the national museum, the great Te Papa, ‘our house’, filled with treasure and artefacts, whole traditional houses and store houses, and with a remarkable glen next to it to help you explore the plant life of New Zealand.
It shows the seismic history of the islands, and the whaling industry as well.
http://www.tepapa.govt.nz/Tepapa/English/
Wellington is pretty in a unique way, though I have to admit I really preferred Auckland. It just seemed more spacious and less claustrophobic. I think it also might bave been because of the earthquake activity—it is a bit like LA, always on the move, and the day after I left they had the largest quake ever recorded.
So I don’t think it’s any wonder that I felt so ‘unsettled’ when I was there that after a couple of days, I decided to head to the South Island for a little day trip-which turned out to be the ride of my life!
The Interislander ferry runs a passenger service to and from the islands across the Cook Strait and through the incredible Marlborough Sounds. There is a free bus from the train station that takes you to board the ferry about 30 minutes before you are about to leave if you are a foot passenger.
What should have been about 2 hours turned into a 5 hour ordeal in a ship like a bucking bronco. I wasn’t ill myself, because I am a good sailor, but some people turned inside out they were so ill.
Then the boat was delayed for the return journey, so I should have been back by eight PM, and I got back to my back packers hostel Lodge in the City at 2 in the morning. The employees still on duty were so kind they got out their own cars and drove us home themselves from the by now bleak and desolate ferry terminal.
But the trip was well worth it, for the views were magnificent, and Picton, the docking point, is a charming town with great food, wonderful walks, and more attractions than you might imagine.
Picton has a small railway line that will take you to Blenheim and points further south, and it is a gateway to wine country around the area, and the lovely beaches on the north part of the south island.
I ate the most superb food at Le Café on the Main Street, overlooking the channel so you can watch all the waterside activity through the plate glass windows, and lunch was the most fantastic fish and chips.