Wellington, New Zealand
Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog. Todays post is about our last stop of our tour of the North Island. While in Wellington we visited Weta Cave which is the amazing company behind some of Hollywood’s biggest films including Lord of the Rings. We also took a trip to Te Papa Museum where we were blown away with the Gallipoli exhibition.
Day 1 – Weta Cave
We visited Weta Cave as we had heard from friends that it was a really cool place to visit if you were a Lord of the Rings geek, which Sam is, ahem. But to be honest I thoroughly enjoyed it too as I love seeing the creativity and craftsmanship that goes behind making a fantasy film. Weta Cave is probably best known for their work on Lord of the Rings but, have also done a tonne of other big Hollywood films including Avatar. They’re know for their insane prop making and special effects. You can visit Weta Cave for free and there you will find a handful of statues, souvenirs and even behind the scenes documentary of how they do the work that they do.
Weta also offer workshops and tours. We did the Weta Cave workshop tour which was 28 dollars for a 45 minute tour of the workshop. The tour is a guided more in depth look at behind the scenes of what they do. They also offer a miniature effects tour which is the Thunderbirds are go set. They even do workshops where you can get hands on with the team and learn some new skills.
Day 2 – Te Papa Museum of New Zealand
On the second day in Wellington we visited Te Papa which is the Museum of New Zealand. The Te Papa museum was amazing and I would thoroughly recommend visiting. I would say if you were to pick one museum to go to while visiting New Zealand I would pick Te Papa over Auckland’s War Memorial Museum. This is because A.) I think it is better and bigger and B.) It is free whereas Auckland War Memorial Museum isn’t.
The exhibition that blew us away the most was Gallipoli, the scale of our war. As you can see (pictured left) that it features amazing giant wax work figures of soldiers with harrowing stories to tell. The whole exhibition was rather emotional and took us a good hour to go around. The breath taking wax works were made by the amazing team at Weta.
In Te Papa there was also a great interactive modern art section, which is something I thoroughly enjoyed. Watch the video above to see some of the work. The museum also houses a fantastic Maori cultural section as well as your typical museum items.
Come back next week for the adventures of the South Island but in the mean time check out: Cape Palliser, Tongarriro, Craters of the Moon, Rotorua, Hobbiton, Piha, Coromandel, Waitomo Caves and Auckland.
Lots of love, Melissa x
Video credit – Sam Gill
