Te Papa Free National Museum, Zealandia Tuatara Sanctuary, Weta Workshop Lord of the Rings, Wellington Cable Car (1902), Cuba Street Flat White & Cook Strait Ferry
📍 Wellington, New Zealand📅 3-day itinerary
New Zealand's capital (since 1865, relocated from Auckland to serve the South Island gold rush) where 215,000 people in a harbour bowl between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range share more restaurants per capita than New York City, the world's first fully fenced urban ecosanctuary (Zealandia, where tuatara — the sole surviving Rhynchocephalian reptile, unchanged for 200 million years — roam freely 2 km from the city centre), and the most creative film production infrastructure in the Southern Hemisphere (Sir Peter Jackson's Weta Workshop, maker of Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, King Kong and Avatar).
Te Papa Tongarewa's 495-Kilogram Colossal Squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni — the Largest Invertebrate in the World, Caught in the Ross Sea Antarctica 2007, Preserved in a 5-Metre Tank) and the Carved Meeting Houses (Wharenui) of Māori Taonga, Both Free, Both on the Wellington Waterfront
Zealandia's 8.6-Kilometre Predator-Proof Fence (the World's First Fully Fenced Urban Ecosanctuary) Where 300 Tuatara (Sole Surviving Members of the 250-Million-Year-Old Rhynchocephalia Order — the "Living Fossils" Separated from the Lizard Lineage Before the Dinosaurs) Live 2 km from Central Wellington
Weta Workshop in Miramar Where the 48,000 Pieces of Lord of the Rings Armour (the 20,000 Hand-Woven Chainmail Shirts, the Foam Latex Orc Prosthetics Applied to 300 Performers Daily for the Battle of Helm's Deep) Were Made by the Same Workshop Still Producing Props and Models for Current Film and Television Productions