Wellington attractions guide: What to do with kids in the capital city. Photo / Tim Roxborogh
Has Wellington got its spark back? Between cable cars and Te Papa visits, the capital may just be the spot to visit, writes Tim Roxborogh.
There are some domestic attractions so famous, so obvious and – dare I say it – so clichéd that you just assume you’ve repeatedly done them. Or at least done them once. And if you haven’t, your brain kids you into the patronising thinking of “I’m a New Zealander! How good can this extremely well-known tourist trap really be?”
And then you find yourself waiting in line with a bunch of smiling foreigners at the Wellington Cable Car and realising, “I haven’t actually done this since the 90s”. Or in my wife’s case, “I don’t think I’ve ever done this, I just always thought I had”.
Fast-forward five minutes and you’ve farewelled the concrete and steel of the sea-level Lambton Quay for the leafy surrounds of Kelburn and the Wellington Botanic Garden some 620m away and 120m up the hill. Meanwhile your children – aged 6 and 2 – have viewed it as something of a theme park ride with the steepness of the 17-degree railway line and the fun of the tunnels with all their dancing lasers and coloured lights. Which in turn has the parents going, “How come we underestimated this?”
In many ways that sums up our week in our capital city this summer. I’ve always had a soft spot for Wellington. It is, after all, the city of my birth and a place I feel an easy affinity for. But all those recent headlines of government layoffs, council squabbles and hospitality struggles take their toll. Is Wellington still a worthy place for a holiday? Is it somewhere still to take your children?
There’s something quietly defiant about Wellington. A city known for its rollicking winds and tremors is also so steep and gnarly that it’s home to an estimated 100-plus private cable cars, in addition to the public one we’d just ridden.
There are far easier places to build cities, but Wellington’s geography and topography give it character. Looking out the window as we rode up to the Botanic Garden, everywhere was a tussle between man and nature. Modern office towers stand alongside attractive historic buildings. Houses perch on hillsides, and everywhere trees abound.
Speaking of which, the delightful 158-year-old Botanic Garden is 25ha of local and exotic species and we were on a mission not just to smell the roses and spot the visiting kākā from the nearby Zealandia eco-sanctuary, but to visit the recently revamped playground. Nestled in a valley of green, there are easier places to build playgrounds, but this is Wellington and it’s all the better for it. Echoing through the valley is music from one of the annual Gardens Magic summer concerts, giving the kids on the playground a soundtrack for all the slides, towers and flying fox.
Then it was back up the hill to the cable car, the return ride down to Lambton Quay and a 10-minute walk to our accommodation at the Boulcott Suites. We wanted to do our week in Wellington without hiring a car, and staying right in the CBD allows us just that. What we didn’t count on was having a spacious balcony on the eighth floor overlooking skyscrapers, church spires and the harbour beyond. Our apartment came with three bedrooms, three bathrooms, laundry, living area, full kitchen, separate dining, that whopping balcony and plenty of places for the kids to play hide-and-seek. It was perfect.
I know what you’re thinking. Was the view so good as to render Wellington “unbeatable on a good day”? Well, yes. And with sunshine most of the week we were there, it was reassuring to still feel like Wellington can’t be beaten … on a good day.
It’s worth pointing out that the whole “you can’t beat it on a good day” Wellington cliché only works because it rings true. Like a great Paul Simon or Bob Dylan lyric, a lot is going on in only a few words. The boast of rare beauty against the self-deprecating admission of volatile weather. Simultaneous arrogance and humility.
I keep thinking of this cliché because the sun keeps shining, we keep visiting Wellington’s most obvious attractions, and we keep finding all of them are still worth the hype. Zealandia is a case in point: a world-leading, 225ha, fenced-off, pest-free urban eco-sanctuary where prehistoric tuatara lizards sunbathe and the birdsong is unlike any we’ve heard. A short (and free) shuttle ride from either the Botanic Garden or from close to Te Papa, for a quarter-of-a-century Zealandia has been the accessible, shout-it-from-the-rooftops entrance point to New Zealand’s conservation story. It’s beloved by Wellingtonians and day-tripping cruise-liner passengers – don’t overlook Zealandia if you’re a Kiwi who’s yet to visit.
The same goes for Te Papa, where the ongoing Gallipoli exhibition still has the power to take your breath away after more than a decade. Those 2.4 times human size Wētā Workshop creations of eight real New Zealanders both shock and inspire and it’s good to know the exhibition has been extended until at least 2032.
With children in tow, your holiday planning always involves, “but where is there a good playground?” and alongside the one at the Botanic Garden, we also recommend the excellent Frank Kitts Park on the waterfront.
The walk from Te Papa will take you all of five minutes and if it’s a blue-sky day, you’ll see Wellington at its best, with “manu” bombers jumping in the water, the famed Len Lye Water Whirler, tandem bicycles, outdoor cafe dining, and if you’re lucky, even the occasional breaching orca.
Further clichés were ticked off, but not with any sense of reluctant obligation, but because they’re genuinely rewarding places to visit. Like the Beehive, which, despite any resemblance to a “slide projector fallen into a wedding cake” (as it has often been described), I appreciate. It’s not beautiful, but our most important government building is the opposite of boring. Plus, it has a slide out the front so the kids were happy.
Ah yes, the kids. Riley and Austin had a brilliant holiday and we love them dearly, but it was on Cuba St (yes, we stopped for photos at the Bucket Fountain) when we’d passed about the 20th awesome-looking bar or restaurant where Aimee and I vowed to return just as a couple. Like a pub crawl but more middle-aged and less debaucherous, we want to restaurant-hop on that still awesome, still vibrant strip.
Some cities are all about the hidden gems and it’s not that Wellington doesn’t have those too. But sometimes attractions – like songs – are greatest hits for a reason.
The writer travelled at their own expense.