Cricket fans pouring into the capital are in for lots of sunshine and entertainment in the lead-up to today's Cricket World Cup match.
The Black Caps will take on England at the Caketin from 2pm - the first game of the ICC Cricket World Cup to be played in the capital.
The teams will play to an almost sellout crowd of 34,500, and fans who want to snap up last-minute tickets have been encouraged to get in quickly as there are only a few left.
Join our live coverage of the Black Caps v England from 1.30pm local time
There should be "brilliant cricket weather" for the match, with clear skies and light winds in the capital, MetService meteorologist John Law said.
"We have some morning cloud first thing, but the game doesn't start until 2pm so we should find that cloud has cleared out in plenty of time, and it looks like a fine afternoon," he said.
"It's a great-looking cricket day ... definitely a day to take the sunscreen and the hat."
Yesterday, the Black Caps enjoyed breakfast at the Bolton Hotel before a 10am training session at the Basin Reserve.
The whole team then had a "massage window" in the afternoon.
The team goes into today's match as favourites, with the TAB paying $1.52 for a Black Caps win as at 3pm yesterday. England were paying $2.55 to win.
A TAB spokeswoman said New Zealand were currently second favourites to win the tournament, paying $4. Australia were the favourites at $2.50, while South Africa were the third favourites at $4.50.
One punter has placed an $11,111 bet on New Zealand to win today's match, which would pay $16,666.50 if the Black Caps are successful.
Wellington City Council spokeswoman Kate Barker said although there were no public TV screens for fans who had missed out on tickets, she promised a day of entertainment at Civic Square.
"We are encouraging fans to come down to our Village Green Fan Hub in Civic Square from about midday - we will have a fan trail leaving Civic Square at 1pm, led by the Wellington Brass Band."
Ms Baker said the fan trail would then make its way towards the stadium along the Wellington waterfront.
Face-painting and other entertainment on a makeshift pitch in Civic Square would be available in the lead- up to the match.
Cricket oracle hops over to NZ's rivals
Can Butterfly Creek's insect oracle correctly predict the outcome of today's cricket match? Black Cap fans will be hoping not.
Cricket Cricket - the Herald's Cricket World Cup predicting cricket - has predicted New Zealand's winning streak will end today in Wellington and England will triumph.
The cricket's prediction prowess has been impressive so far, picking three of four matches correctly.
It predicted New Zealand would beat Sri Lanka and Scotland, and that Australia would beat England. However, Cricket wrongly predicted Pakistan would beat India on Sunday.
Kiwis will be hoping Cricket has stumbled again on its latest prediction. The insect selects its picks when its keeper places two orange segments in front of it, with a flag of each of the countries playing placed in the segments.
It then hops on to the orange it predicts will win and has a drink. Cricket Cricket will be making picks for Australia v Bangladesh and South Africa v India tomorrow.