The ship was docked at the cruise terminal which is right beside Westpac stadium and only a kilometre or so from the city. We didn't have any plans for Wellington - obviously since we weren't expecting to be here! - so we decided to carry out our planned activities for Dunedin which consisted of recharging our NZ mobile internet widget so that we can have decent internet access when we're in port. We did that, then had a coffee, and decided to keep walking around. While doing this we saw a sign pointing towards the NZ War Memorial so we decided to walk there. The memorial itself
was dedicated in 1932, however earlier this year they dedicated an expanded National War Memorial Park which includes a memorial donated by Australia in memory of all soldiers and wars where Australian and New Zealand troops served together. It looks a little sparse now but once the trees grow it will be a quite impressive monument (although of course totally overshadowed by the main memorial)
Behind the war memorial is the Dominion Museum which currently houses a Great War Exhibition created by Sir Peter Jackson. We didn't get to see it today, the queues were really long (I suspect something to do with 2800 tourists and a bunch of cruise ship crew unexpectedly arriving in town). I definitely want to come back to NZ again to do some land based travel, and this exhibit is now definitely on my list. It will be there until 2018, so I have a bit of time....
On the way, we also got to see where Basin Reserve is - one of those sports grounds I regularly hear mentioned but I had no idea it was in the middle of Wellington.
Final note - while at dinner the captain announced that the weather has turned bad again and that we now won't be able to go to Akaroa tomorrow. Instead, another day in Wellington. We might now try to get into the Great War Exhibition.
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