Our first stop on this beautiful Saturday morning is the Thorndon Farmers' Market in the Hill St carpark of St Paul's Cathedral - "Wellington's home of local food". It was very quiet this morning but we enjoyed our coffee in the sunshine, a bit of live music and an opportunity to buy some local Fix & Fogg peanut butter (smoke and fire flavour) to take home with us (the label says extra dark roasted hi-oleic peanuts and a sparing amount of organic Marlborough sea salt flavoured with organic NZ chillies, smoked paprika and natural manuka smoke!)....hopefully Abi & Ella will be impressed.
St Paul's Cathedral is adjacent to NZ's Parliament buildings - a real pastiche of design and function....Bowen house, the Beehive, and the actual parliament building look OK together - especially in this bright blue sky sunshine.........
....... but the Gothic inspired, parliamentary library building next door is a bit of a mismatch (but a picturesque one).
On such a beautiful day, we decided to join the majority of Wellingtonians on the harbour front, and walking the two or so kilometres from Thorndon to Oriental Bay, Wellington's inner city beachside suburb.
On the way we stopped off at the designer's market under Frank Kitt's Park on the waterfront where I enjoyed supporting some local contemporary jewellers.... but back on the walk, the views were just as jewel like.
Our mandatory lunch stop pics were taken at Beach Babylon today, a laid back cafe with a retro Hawaiian vibe (very popular here granted NZ's Polynesian heritage). I tried a Tuatara beer - another hand crafted beer from the Kapiti coast. We finished off the beach experience with a delicious feijoa gelato from the nearby Kaffee Eis.
It was so spectacularly beautiful on the harbour today - we could have walked all day........... That Gothic styled building overlooking Oriental Bay on Mt Victoria in the pic below is St Gerard's Church and Monastery.
... and the young Maori warriors were out again today, practising their dives.... with much noise and laughter too!
We finished off our waterfront sightseeing at the Museum of Wellington City & Sea - housed in the late 19th century Bond Store, formerly the head office of the old Wellington Harbour Board. We are very impressed with this beautiful city!
From our hotel it was only a quick walk around the corner to Lambton Quay to catch the cable car to the top of Wellington's Botanic Gardens this morning.
We enjoyed great views of Wellington Harbour from the winding paths around the 25 hectares of gardens.
The gardens are full of conifers and native pines including these Pohutukowa trees - and masses of healthy looking agapanthus and hydrangeas.
We decided to walk down from the gardens back to the city..... a beautiful walk through the picturesque streets of Kelburn........
.....giving us a good excuse for eating another wonderful lunch - this time at Floriditas on Cuba Street in the city.....we tried a Schubert Pinot Noir this time with lunch - another winery we saw yesterday at Martinborough.
We spent the afternoon at Te Papa Tongarewa (the National Museum and Art Gallery of New Zealand). The museum is HUGE - over 6 floors. We only focussed on two floors today: the Maori treasures, some early history and the geological exhibit (NZ has amazing (and somewhat scary) geology!).
A view of the harbour from one of the decks at Te Papa........
Outside Te Papa a group of young Maori warriors were diving into the water off the docks surrounding the museum - making a lot of noise and laughter in the process - no doubt celebrating the end of the school week.
While this pair were enjoying the harbour front in a much more sedate way.......
We loved this walkway from the sea to the city - leading from the harbour to Town Hall and Civic Square......
We walked back up to Cuba Street this evening for the Friday Night Markets at the "Left Bank". The place was crowded with a laid back, happy crowd, live music and lots of food stalls: Indian, Moroccan, Mexican, Thai, lots of dumplings and even a Bratwurst stand for Rob!
Martinborough is surrounded by vineyards and over 20 cellar doors, most within walking distance of the township. We decided to tandem bike it yesterday morning - in perfect cycling conditions: light cool breeze and very clear conditions.
This would have to be one of the prettiest wine regions we've visited - the vineyards all look like well tended gardens - it's easy cycling too - with the roads all flat and few vehicles.
We can see the vineyards are pretty busy this morning with teams of people out netting the vines - in readiness for ripening and picking next month.
This region specialises in Pinot grapes(no wonder as it is rarely very hot here!)
...and yes there are a lot of sheep on the North Island even in the midst of this wine country.
After a few hours of picturesque cycling - and not too much tasting - as we find that a bit of a challenge before lunch (especially being in charge of a bike) - we finally stopped for lunch at the picturesque Palliser Estate winery on the main road leading in to Martinborough.
In the warm sunshine it seemed that a 2015 Rose was the order of the day - and a great choice with its intense strawberry flavours and watermelon undertones!
...and a superb NZ cheese platter to set off the gorgeous flavours of the Rose. Our lunch was made even more enjoyable with the company of two US tourists from Washington DC. They were both articulate, intelligent and insightful older guys - we had a great conversation about the situation in the US (as well as sharing NZ tourist tales).
After lunch it was just a little over an hour's drive south, through winding mountain roads, to Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. We had to return our rental car to the airport and make our way back to our city hotel - so it was quite late in the afternoon before we ventured out for our first walk around the city. We started at the government building, corporate and "big shops" end of town but fairly quickly came to areas of inner suburbia that reminded us a lot of the timber San Francisco style houses....perched high on the hills overlooking Wellington Harbour.
with some Art Deco in the mix....
Around the groovy Te Are area it is a bit more urban grunge...........
With a real mix of architectural styles around Hannah Lane and the Egmont precinct.
We made it all the way up to Aro Street - past the famous "Garage Project", Wellington's premium boutique brewery (in the premises of a former garage!).
.........Before settling in for a tasting at the crowded Garage Project Bar just a bit up the road from the Brewery. Rob had a lot of advice from the friendly locals (everyone is SO friendly here) about which beer to try......
We ended up with a Garagista (me) and a Red Rock Reserve with Nitro (Rob).......
.... and then a delicious meal of whole flounder with cherry tomatoes, raisins, oregano and lemon with a glass of Te Kairanga Pinot Noir (from one of the vineyards we cycled past in the morning) at Cafe Aro, just opposite. We managed to stagger the just under 2 kms back to our hotel, after another wonderful day in NZ!
St Paul's Cathedral is adjacent to NZ's Parliament buildings - a real pastiche of design and function....Bowen house, the Beehive, and the actual parliament building look OK together - especially in this bright blue sky sunshine.........
....... but the Gothic inspired, parliamentary library building next door is a bit of a mismatch (but a picturesque one).
On such a beautiful day, we decided to join the majority of Wellingtonians on the harbour front, and walking the two or so kilometres from Thorndon to Oriental Bay, Wellington's inner city beachside suburb. 
Our mandatory lunch stop pics were taken at Beach Babylon today, a laid back cafe with a retro Hawaiian vibe (very popular here granted NZ's Polynesian heritage). I tried a Tuatara beer - another hand crafted beer from the Kapiti coast. We finished off the beach experience with a delicious feijoa gelato from the nearby Kaffee Eis.
It was so spectacularly beautiful on the harbour today - we could have walked all day........... That Gothic styled building overlooking Oriental Bay on Mt Victoria in the pic below is St Gerard's Church and Monastery.
... and the young Maori warriors were out again today, practising their dives.... with much noise and laughter too!
We finished off our waterfront sightseeing at the Museum of Wellington City & Sea - housed in the late 19th century Bond Store, formerly the head office of the old Wellington Harbour Board. We are very impressed with this beautiful city!
