Despite the rainy forecast we awoke to mostly clear skies. The capitol city of Wellington earned it's nickname "Windy Welly" today! We were only going to spend one day here so we started with a healthy breakfast at Fidel's around the corner from our cottage on Cuba Street and spent pretty much the whole morning walking. At Fidel's I'd had a "short black" but since it was "Fidel's" it was also Cuban coffee and I was ready to zip around!
The waterfront area was bustling with people and we walked as far east as Oriental Bay before turning around and heading to the CBD (central business district). I'm glad I was paying attention to my surroundings because I happened to glance down an alleyway when I spotted "tram open here" in big letters. The red cable car that runs from downtown city level to the botanic gardens has been running for over 100 years and is a city icon. It is a single-track tram except for one section that has a double track loop where cars going in the opposite direction may pass each other. Riding up it seemed like there was exactly enough track on the loop to perform this operation! We overheard one passenger telling her friend that when the cruise ships come in, thousands of people immediately make a beeline for the cable car station and the line backs up onto the main street. People wait hours for a five-minute tram ride! Luckily for us, it isn't the "silly season" yet (as described to us in Blenheim) and we didn't have a wait at all.
We took a slow stroll to the bottom of the hill through the gardens and eventually made our way back to the cottage for a quick snack break.
Lovely day in the capitol city
Downtown waterfront
Boat sheds downtown, Oriental Bay
"Monkey Puzzle" tree
I thought this was somebody's acid-trip topiary but it's just an Australian pine tree.
Same difference?
The executive building of New Zealand Parliament aka The Beehive
Hipsterland, Cuba Street
We stayed in the historic cottage pictured left
Nerd-alert: Probably my favorite part of the day was when we visited the Weta Workshop which is a few minutes outside of downtown Wellington. They are the production company responsible for all of the props, costumes, and effects for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. They also did the more recent Narnia films and District 9. Honestly, we were mostly there for the Tolkien stuff. I hadn't booked in advance so we had to wait a while before our tour was available. Never mind, because there's lots of cool things to look at in the gift shop!
King Theoden armor and [over-the-top] detail - actual costumes from LOTR
Life-size figure
Bilbo's prosthetic feet from The Hobbit
We did the regular workshop tour rather than the more expensive behind-the-scenes tour but it was still about an hour long and boy, was it fascinating! No pictures allowed though because we were told there was stuff on display for films that haven't been announced or may never be announced so to prevent the "big scary American lawyers" from coming after Weta we were asked to keep the cameras put away.
I will say, however, that there was a Halo Warthog vehicle that was built for a short film to see if any studio wanted to make a feature film. Instead of Halo, the director of the short film was allowed to make District 9. The Warthog was so successful when it accidentally drove through a real brick wall rather than a foam one that the American government wanted the build plans. However, since Weta was given only six weeks to make all the props and vehicles for the short film, nothing was written down during the creative process so the vehicle sitting in the workshop will only ever be one-of-a-kind. Occasionally it is driven in the Wellington streets for weddings but always with a police escort because it has a gigantic fake machine gun on top.
Speaking of police, did you know that a 7-foot Wellington policeman played Sauron in LOTR? We saw the costume and held his mace prop. Our tour guide works in the paint department otherwise called "the department of lies" because they can truly make any material look like any other material. It was difficult to tell the difference between real plate armor and plastic stuff.
We had an explanation of how "forced perspective" film techniques were used for the LOTR films but I didn't realize that when Peter Jackson made The Hobbit films for 3D he had to employ digital techniques to blend the "big" and "small" characters, which meant that for example while everyone was feasting at Bag End, Ian McKellen had to sit at a tiny table all by himself. One of the kids on our tour asked if Gandalf "ever got lonely" and the tour guide said that in fact Ian McKellen broke down during filming because he's a Shakespearean actor and was forced to do most of his scenes alone for the sake of 3D.
We saw a "miniature" of the castle from one of the Narnia films...let's see....got to hold different examples of the real and plastic chainmail that is made there. When it comes to extras there is a small group of local women who literally knit a mail-looking sweater and then the synthetic yarn is slightly ironed to give it a rough texture look. During LOTR filming Viggo Mortensen insisted on wearing full chain mail if his character was wearing mail (of course he did, that Aragorn fella). No plastic stuff for that guy! He would also go on runs with his very real sword "prop" and was arrested twice for doing so.
We held a prosthetic hand for Bombur from The Hobbit and it was really really wiggly and creepy.
Hans swears he saw an Elder Scroll prop so...coming soon??? It was made for E3 2011 when Skyrim was exhibited.
Like I said, it was very cool.
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