Wellington Things to Do Tips by craic

I love this place! Not only do they have an interesting line up of new movies but they also host film festivals. The Human Rights Festival is on at the moment but I went to see I'm Not There. (Great performance by Cate Blanchett but frankly I thought the movie was a narrative mess. Or maybe I am too old.)
Anyway - they also have a great licensed cafe - so you can be civilised and your group can have a snifter of something or a coffee, just as they prefer.
The balcony looking out onto the mayhem of the Courteney Place is the place to be in the more salubrious months.
And then once the movies are finished they kick off a dance party with a dj (maybe just on Friday and Saturday.)
The movie house is old and venerable and devil may care. Just a little worn around the edges, reeking with presence and mana.
As I say - I just love it. SUPPORT IT.
Three cinemas. To get to the Bergman and the Brooks you wander a maze - quite fun.

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Directions: Right in Courtenay Place. You can't miss it. Next to Boogie Wonderland and across from The Establishment.
Website: http://www.paramount.co.nz/movies.html

Oh I do love the Botanic Garden. I always have. We often went there when I was a kid and always arrived via the cable car. And roamed around, feral as.
But now I am living across the road from them and my slightly mobility disadvantaged mother was visiting so I took her to the rose garden and begonia house. Because they are designed to be enjoyed by the mobility disadvantaged. (More of that in the next tip.) The begonias amazed, as always (it is slightly too late for the roses to be seen at their best) and then I found out there is another section (I don't remember this as a kid) with a water lily pond. That was even warmer than the begonia house. I suggested to my mother (as there were benches dotted around) that a homeless person when the Wellington winter was doing its worst might do a lot worse than spend her days on a bench contemplating the water lily pond.
A great bad weather choice.
And there is a cafe attached.
And a shop. In which I found a delightful tui pin for $6-50. One of a range of NZ birds but I had to have the tui because I had just seen a tui in a pohutakawa tree right opposite our Parliament House (The Beehive) in the centre of the city.
My aunt tells me that is because of the great initiative the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary has undertaken. (More of that in another tip.)
Oh - also toilets with Disability Toilets emphasised.
Everything that opens and shuts as it were.

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Phone: (04) 499 1400
Address: Tinakori Road, Wellington.
Directions: Enter from Tinakori Road, at the top of Bowen Street
Website: http://wellington.govt.nz/services/gardens/botanicgardens/botanicgardens.html

My mobility disadvantaged mother was a little worried when I suggested a stroll in the Lady Norwood Rose Garden and Begonia House so I nipped across the road and checked out availability of toilets, smoothness of paths etc. Check check check. Great.
PLUS - two free mobility devices!
I did laugh. I was going to talk her onto one of them - This is your future! - but when we got over there they were both taken. (Seems you have to ring up and book them.) And a son was trying to suggest to his mother that foot off the accelerator and a tiny bit of steering might help!

Ring - 499 4444.

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Phone: (04) 499 1400
Address: Tinakori Road, Wellington.
Directions: Enter at Tinakori Road, at the top of Bowen Street. A set of stairs or a wheels friendly incline (steep, this is Wellington.)
Website: http://wellington.govt.nz/services/gardens/botanicgardens/botanicgardens.html

I entered at the Founders' Gates in Tinakori Road and walked uphill to the cable car and descended to Lambton Quay. (One way $2-50)
Please do it the other way around unless you want a workout.
I have always enjoyed this place although we always called it the Botanical Gardens and I was surprised to find today what it is really called.
I noticed they have guided tours regularly with some expert discussing herbs or conifers or whatever. Free but a koha (donation) invited.
Kids' playground, great views from the top, cafe, (at least one cafe), and a cable car museum (free entry - gift shop) with one of the really old cars that I used to ride as a kid. Oooooh flashback. Proustian moment.
The paths are smooth and wide and wheelchair and baby vehicle friendly - but do expect steep. This is Wellington.
The cable car is also wheelchair friendly. We had a wheelie tucked in safely on our ride down into the CBD.

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Phone: (04) 499 1400
Address: Tinakori Road, Wellington.

It is so strange coming back to my home town and finding so many of the buildings have changed their use. Those that are still there of course.
One of my most important sanctuaries was the Wellington Central Library so I really wanted to recapture the magic. The hours I spent in here trying to make sense of really difficult things - like the poems in the New Yorker.
Well, now it is an art gallery (contemporary) but it was free so although I wasn't in the mood for contemporary art I popped in and golly - no memories of library left - (well, just one, going up the stairs) but I was enraptured and refreshed by the Russian film on 3 screens - now what was it called? I'll check the brochure.
Ah yes. Last Riot by a collective called AES & F.

And Reboot - The Jim Barr & Mary Barr Collection.

Both showing temporarily.

Now, this is what a gallery should do. No solemnity or heavy prices. Pop in for ten minutes and get refreshed and inspired.

Had an interesting discussion with a security guard about Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party - and a piece of DVD art that was showing of a young person playing a violent video game. One of the most confronting and intimate pieces I have seen in a long time.
I was sure it was a boy aged between 14 -16 - when they are a little androgynous (but beautiful).
She was adamant it was a girl.

I shall be taking many friends and relations in to view the piece and then pop the question.

Boy or girl?

UPDATE I did the guided tour and it is a 14 year old boy. I thought as much. Though several people on the tour were surprised by that info. They had thought the subject was a girl.

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Address: Civic Centre
Directions: PS Free guided tours Saturday and Sunday at 1pm. No bookings required.

There is nothing more pleasant than joining the locals in their passegiata along what used to be working wharves and is now the place to be. I have been here three or four times and it has never lacked for people.
Many of them being extremely vigorous on bikes or skates or skateboards or learner drivers in their hired pedal car thingos (my brother thinks they may be called crocodile bikes). So look out for yourself. If you are elderly and a bit shakey carry a walking stick and wave it vigorously at anyone who looks like speed demon.
You can hire kayaks, skates, crocodile bikes etc or climb a rock wall, attend a concert in the arena there, there are several art galleries and museums. Cafes and bars and restaurants galore. Playground for the kiddies with supersafe slides and things (this is 2008). And a view of the harbour and refreshing sea breezes. This is Wellington and it specialises in refreshing sea breezes.
Much much more - the more I go there the more I find out. More tips coming soon.
But the point and purpose of it is - I think - the stroll and the stopping and chatting and the taking of the air.
The true passegiata.
It's long, would take maybe an hour from end to end, - and then if you are really in the mood - continue your stroll around Oriental Bay.

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Website: http://www.wellingtonwaterfront.co.nz/

It's not creepy - old cemeteries usually aren't - and it's free - and it is very close to the CBD.
I have got ancestors buried there so it is of particular interest to me. Some parts are wild and overgrown, some are quite sunny and well cared for.
Way back when a motorway was mooted there was much dissension - this place was so historic, and there was also the sticking point of exhuming graves.
But it was done. The car rules.
I seem to remember the exhuming happened at night - over 3000 people are now buried in a vault (including some of my ancestors) under the memorial lawn. Their names are listed in the chapel. And their headstones are grouped nearby.
I was interested to discover that this town cemetery - as opposed to church graveyards - was quite a new liberal free thinking idea when the Pakehas arrived to settle NZ. All denominations in together. But this grand concept did not last for long and various religious dignitaries lobbied for separation of religions - and succeeded. I was also interested to find out that Jewish settlers were allowed to own land.

Although everyone I know has always called this the Bolton St Cemetery it appears its correct name is the Bolton St Memorial Park. But it could take some time for that to catch on. If ever.

What is saddest is the headstones of whole families of little children wiped out in a scarlet fever epidemic.

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I love this. It is like a treasure hunt. There are 15 carved quotations from NZ writers including some of my favourites - James K. Baxter, Katherine Mansfield, Denis Glover.
And they are scattered around in odd and unusual places. You have to stumble upon them. I mean, you can get a map showing where they all are, but I think it is more fun to stumble upon them.
Though it can be a bit chilling. I was going to Te Papa for an appointment and I suddenly realised I was walking on Bruce Mason. Now he was a guy I really liked - he is dead now alas - and it quite gave me gooseflesh.

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