I mentioned in a previous entry that I’m actually going to make it to New Zealand’s North Island for a brief stay. Thursday — 21 October — I’ll be flying from Christchurch into Wellington around mid-day. I’m spending a couple days there, and I really don’t have much planned. I just want to see and experience New Zealand’s capital city, enjoy the coffee, see a few LoTR sites, and hang out with more Kiwis.
Which brings me to the point of this entry. I’ll be in Wellington early Thursday afternoon, all day Friday, and a good chunk of the day on Saturday before my flight to Sydney around 4:30pm. I met a few people from Wellington at Web Essentials, but I only have limited contact information for them. Whether you were in Sydney for WE04 or not, if you’d like to meet up sometime while I’m in Wellington, leave a comment here, or send me a message.
If there’s any interest, we could set up an impromptu casual dinner one night, or drinks, or morning or afternoon coffee. Whether it’s one other person, five, ten, doesn’t matter, I should have plenty of time. I’m staying somewhere along The Terrace, not far from the bottom of the Cable Car track.
On Friday, I’m planning to geek out a little and see some of the sights around Wellington used in filming LoTR, (lots of scenes were filmed around Wellington: Rivendell, Isengard, River Anduin, Minas Tirith, Helms Deep…) possibly with some sort of tour, unless I discover another option to see them. Thursday afternoon might include a visit to Te Papa or a ride up the cable car. If you have some time, and are interested in joining me for any of those, let me know.
Posted in Locations
16 comments (Comments closed)
Have fun! Wish I could go!
Maybe if you take the tour you could advise them on the evils of Comic Sans and blinking text…
I recommend the cable car - its a great view up there.
Probably the only good thing with IE that it does not render the blink tag :S
Wellington?
Have fun - i wish I could be there….perhpas someday someone worth visiting will come to Auckland (the largest, bestest city) ;)
If you ride the cable car, spend a little time at the cable car museum at the top of the line.
Do visit Te Papa if you get the chance: it’s a compact and well-conceived museum. Watch out for the station wagon clad in corrugated iron by Jeff Thompson - although the natural history galleries were my favourite.
Doug, you have a pretty sound knowledge of Wellywood considering. I saw you at WE04 (I’m from Auckland - Wellington’s like Chicago, take a kite and you won’t need a return ticket home) and thought your smackdown effort was appalling, but then David Shea opted out and I didn’t clap for the aussies, nor Joe Clark who was rather grumpy.
Wellington seems to be where it is at standards/css/rugby/and-all-that-wise - in NZ, (a lot of kiwis try to engender a kind of faux parochialism, but I find it hard to denegrate Wellington.)
If you ever decide to make it to Auckland there is a spirited (yet dispersed) group of developers, who would I’m sure welcome you with open IMs.
For sure - sing out if you’re in Auckland!
Heh, I would have been glad to meet you only I’m over in Canada for the snowboarding season :).
Too bad I’m in Auckland and um…just a little young, just a little.
Anyway if you are in need of some good reading material on your flight back, there is a great magazine shop from memory on Lambton Quay at Midland Park called Magnetix. It is just down past Kirkcaldie & Stains at the railway station end.
Remember in Wellington it is always windy. Always. So be prepared for some shoddy weather if you are going cross-country on this LOTR expedition.
Good luck and fingers crossed for some nice weather!
How’s your liking for curry? Thursday Night Curry is generally pretty good for meeting people. Mostly programming and network admins, but there’s a few web peeps in the mix.
Probably already looked it up, but if your looking for a good cafe in the cultural part of Welly, you have to take a stroll up Cuba Street. Purple Onion and Fidels are both good cafes.
There’s also a really good cafe on Oriental Parade called Parade Cafe, just opposite a large gym/pool on the waterfront. They do a nice Cajun chicken salad. Probably about a 10-15 min walk via the waterfront from Te Papa.
Don’t forget to check out Civic Square.
It’s a pity you’re not here on Saturday night. Then you could see some real rugby.
haha I’m from welly, and a friend jsut told me he’s meeting you for dinner tonight. (brendan). I don’t know what this site is or who you are though.. And wellington is not always windy! ok maybe 99% of the time. but yesterday was perfectly cloudless. plus don’t forget Aucklanders, we get more sunshine hours than you per year!
You may have heard about some of the political stuff that’s been happening recently in Wellington. On Saturday there’s an anti-racism rally from Te Papa @ noon (then through town I think). More about it likely to be on http://www.indymedia.org.nz I’ll be there with a bunch of people from the Civil Union Campaign handing out flyers and stuff about that.
New Zealand has been at the top of my list since the LotR movies came out. I recently went to Germany and Switzerland, but New Zealand is definitely next on my list. The landscapes truly does look amazing there.
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