Woohoo, arrival to Wellington! It was really surreal to be back in a bustling city, since in the time between leaving Auckland and now we’d seen so much wildlife and relatively few people. During watch that morning, we were still seeing dolphins and land was still hardly in sight - and now we were suddenly in the middle of a city. It was cool to see that transition take place.
On the first day in Wellington, there was no particular schedule for the evening, so I spent most of the time walking around. I grabbed dinner with my friends from B house (the group of folks who I shared a cottage with back in Woods Hole) at a really neat place called Ekim Burgers. Their seating area was outdoors (took advantage of the really nice weather!) and the food was served out of a food truck - the whole place just had a really neat vibe to it. We waited for around half an hour for the food since it was fairly busy when we went, and it was totally worth it!
The next morning, we went to the Te Papa Museum and saw more things related to our studies in our MHC class. The museum had a much more modern twist to it than the places we had visited previously - even the architecture of the building itself was designed to make a statement of its own
The museum’s architecture was intentionally designed to embrace the bicultural identity of New Zealand and present the intersection of Maori and European cultures. The rounded, naturally colored left side of the building overlooks the harbor and represents the Māori side of New Zealand history while the grey right side’s grid-like spaces reflect the patterns of European settlement. The space between the two sides both divides and unites Te Papa’s north and south faces, and the exhibition featuring the Treaty of Waitangi is located here.
After the museum, we mustered back on the ship, and heard the unfortunate news of our trip getting cut short. I think that’s a lot to discuss on it’s own, so I’ve written a separate blog post on that here. After spending the afternoon calling home and rebooking flights, I really just wanted some time to pause and reflect, and what better place to do that than aloft?
That evening, we had our last watch meeting. It was a rather quiet one since we were at anchor, so we sat on the headrig together and chatted for a bit. Some folks kicked around the idea of taking the opportunity to go down the Lighthouse Slide in our foul weather gear since not too many people were around (it was fairly dark out by now), and Rocky (our watch officer) let us go for it! I decided to slide down in gym shorts - bad idea, I ended up with a rug burn because of it. I should’ve just stuck with the foul weather gear…
After the watch meeting, Grace (one of my shipmates) brought out a guitar and started playing songs, and two of my shipmates and I sang along to our heart’s content. It was really fun, and some people on the dock took an interest and stopped to watch. At around 2230, one of the watch officers asked us to stop since the captain was trying to sleep, so that was the end of that - it was fun while it lasted though.
The next day, we visited Zealandia, which was a fully-fenced urban ecosanctuary not too far from Wellington. The hiking trails and scenery were extremely nice, and I was astounded by how pristine and open it felt despite being so close to a large city.
I stopped by the Wellington cable car on my way back to the ship, but decided to walk back instead of taking the cable car so I could see the botanical gardens.
The day after was my last full day in New Zealand. In the morning, we all cleaned out our bunks and packed up all of our stuff - it was this moment when it really began to hit me that the trip was coming to a close.
I spent the rest of the day mostly just enjoying the city, with the only scheduled activity for the day being a visit to the MetService to learn a bit about the data and processes that went behind our weather forecasts. Decided to ride the cable car back this time!
That evening, we had a “swizzle,” which was a fun and lighthearted event where people could perform skits, sing songs, or share whatever they wanted to. It was full of tomfoolery, but was a really great way to end the night.
I flew out early the next morning, and am a bit sad that I didn’t get the chance to see everyone before leaving (I departed at 0530, before the rest of the ship’s company was awake). But life goes on - although we may not all be together in one place again, we’re all connected by this amazing experience that will live on in all of our memories as we move on to each of our own life’s next adventures!
Port stop dates: March 13th - March 17th, 2020