The morning of March 18 found us anchored in the Bay of Islands near Waitangi, where the English – Maori treaty that is considered New Zealand’s foundational document was signed in 1840.  We had visited here once before, 6 years ago, which you can see here:  https://baderjournal.com/2016/02/20/waitangi-new-zealand/  And we had seen the actual Waitangi Treaty a few days before in the National Library in Wellington.  While it is certainly worth visiting, the admission to the treaty grounds now costs $75 NZ per person for foreigners like us, so we were happy we had visited it before and decided to spend our port visit in the nearby village of Paihia.  We took the tender to the Waitangi dock then boarded the shuttle bus to Paihia.

     Paihia began as an Anglican mission founded by Henry Williams and his family in 1823.  Henry Williams translated the Bible into Maori and also made the translation of the Waitangi Treaty into Maori, which continues to be controversial to this day because of possible inaccuracies in this Maori version that was signed by their chiefs.  Students at Williams’s mission school played New Zealand’s first game of cricket in 1832 and in 1835, during a visit by the HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin was a spectator at  another match there.  After the mission closed in 1850 Paihia declined to a very small settlement.  Paihia’s population today is about 1,640. 

     The Bay of Islands is a popular vacation spot among New Zealanders.  It was named by Captain Cook in 1769 after he climbed a tall hill and counted 100 islands (there are actually 144).  Zane Grey wrote a book set in this bay after a sport fishing visit and today the area is famous for its big game fishing.  The Maori have been living in this area for some 700 years, since the arrival of the Polynesian migration canoe Mataatua.  The town of Russel, on an island across the water from Paihia, was the first permanent European settlement in New Zealand.

     The shuttle dropped us off at a multi use building containing tourist information and a gift shop that was next to the dock for recreation boats.  This was at the foot of Williams Street, which seems to be the town’s main road.  The bay looked beautiful with boats on the water and there was an interesting wood sculpture of thee dolphins in front of the building.  We walked up Williams Street.

     A little way up we came to the library, which we had visited last time when it was closed.  Today it was open so we were able to see the inside.  The library is in a house built by the Williams family, descendants of the original missionaries, in the early 1920’s.  It became a public library in 2003.

     We continued up the street on our leisurely walk.  We bought some hokey pokey cookies and stopped into a honey store (really, that was all they had) for some Manuka honey, a New Zealand specialty.  We looked around inside a craft show where Mary bought some earrings and when we emerged we noticed a small plaque on the wall memorializing the three local fellows killed in World War II.  We decided not to climb up to the lookout, which we had done on our first visit.

     When we came out of the craft show we ran into our tablemates and friends, Steve and Kelly, who tipped us off that they had visited the old stone church where a construction crew was at work replacing the plain stained glass windows with new ones reflecting local history and culture.  We walked down Williams Street, stopping for some delicious hokey pokey ice cream (the last hokey pokey on this voyage).  When we reached the bottom of Williams Street we turned right to walk down to St Paul’s Anglican Church.  We walked past Paihia Village Green, a large grassy park next to the library that has an interesting Maori sculpture and hosts a farmers and craftsperson market on Thursdays.  On the other side of the street was the waterfront, again presenting a nice view of the bay.

     It wasn’t much further before we came to St Paul’s Anglican Church (also called Williams Memorial Church in honor of the Williamses) set back from the street on the side of the road opposite the shore.  This was the site of the original Williams mission.  The first church was built on this spot in 1823 and this one has been here since 1926.  It is built of local stone and wood.  We were happy to see when we arrived that the stained glass window installation was still in progress.  Three of the new windows had been installed when we got there, and there was an existing stained glass tryptic over the altar depicting New Zealand birds.  A church with stained glass windows depicting local landmarks, events and/or wildlife is always of interest to us, suggesting pride in the locals for their home city or town.  The three new windows included one with Reverend Williams and three Maories whose identities we don’t know, one showing the Williams family with two children (they eventually had eleven), and one showing what looks to us like the front of a Maori waka (large migration canoe) with probably the original church in the background.  Since they were still being installed while we were there these are among the first, if not the very first, pictures of them installed in the church.

     We walked back into Paihia and rode the shuttle back to the Waitangi dock, then tendered back to the ship.  We sailed out through the bay as the sun was lowering in the sky and casting shadows on the rocky sides of the islands.  We also caught sight of the “R. Tucker Thompson,” an 85 foot schooner modeled on a 19th century halibut fishing ship.  First launched in 1985, the ship now  provides day trips for visitors during the season and a venue for sailing lessons for young people during the winter.  It was a very nice evening as we sailed away from our last port in New Zealand.

     When we woke up on the morning of March 17 we were . . . still at the dock in Auckland.  At our age the mountain climb in Devonport the day before was enough to make us want to take it easy today.  We decided to walk out of the port and explore some nearby neighborhoods.  So today was a bit of an anticlimax for us after Devonport and we are afraid it will be that for you too.

     Still on the wharf area we came to a World War I memorial called the Memorial Beacon just before reaching Quay Street. The first WWI memorial in New Zealand, it was first erected on the waterfront at the end of 1915 while ANZAC troops were still fighting in Gallipoli.  The 19 foot tall structure was not a memorial to the New Zealand war dead but to honor the employees of the Auckland Harbour Board who had enlisted in the ANZAC forces for the war.  The memorial was designed with a red glass ball on top containing an electric light to help guide ferries to their proper berths.  Intended as a living memorial, additional plaques were added later to account for newer events (like the armistice in 1919).  The memorial was removed and placed in storage in 1969 and apparently forgotten until 30 years later it was found and brought back to sit in front of the Marine Museum, but without the light and its supporting ironwork which were never found.  In 2022 it was further restored, with a new glass ball and ironworks crafted to duplicate the original, and placed near its original spot on the wharf where we came upon it. 

     We turned left on Quay Street and walked on toward the east.  Today was St Patrick’s Day and we noticed several pubs with patrons, some in green hats and costumes, crowding through the doors as well as at sidewalk tables.  It was till morning(!) but they had drinks in hand.  We did not stop to join the merriment.

     After walking a while we turned right and walked inland a block or two into the Britomart section of Auckland.  This was an area of mullti-story office and residential buildings along with high end shops and restaurants.  Takutai Square was a large grassy park surrounded by tall buildings.  When we were there a very large movie screen was sitting along one side and the lawn in front of it was scattered with blue and yellow beanbag chairs. During warm weather free movie nights are presented here to crowds that sometimes grow to 1,000 or more.  Several eateries were around the edges, some with picnic tables in front.  Throughout this area and the neighborhood there were gray tile surfaced mounds about 2 feet tall with glass tops.  These were a mystery to us, but later we found out that they are skylights for the Britomart train station underground.

     Heading back in the general direction of the port we walked down a pedestrian lane lined with expensive shops, restaurants and even a drag club, before reaching a courtyard with a striking outdoor sculpture sitting in front of some restaurants.  It is called “Pou Tu Te Rangi” (standing posts that reach for the heavens) and dates to 2011.  A pou is a Maori boundary post and there were seven of these carved wooden posts in this artwork.  The artist was Chris Baily, whose grandfather was one of the Maori dockworkers on the wharfs here. 

      Back on Quay Street we walked west, passing an almost 10 foot tall bronze sculpture on the sidewalk called “A Māori Figure in a Kaitaka Cloak.”  It was unveiled in front of the post office in 1967.  Sculpted by Molly Macalister, it was the first public sculpture in Auckland commissioned from a woman artist.  You can’t really see it in this picture, but he is holding a short club in his right hand, a symbol of peace because it is facing down.  Further along we walked through a small park that had a distinctive granite water fountain with a gold handle and a black “vandal shield” on top (intended to protect the spigot from damage and contamination).

     We walked on to Viaduct Harbor, west of where we were docked.  This is a marina for what look like small yachts or sport fishing boats.  We walked all the way around the harbor on sidewalks covered in red, brown and yellow tiles in a Maori diamond like pattern called Patiki, which is used in Maori weavings and symbolizes hospitality.  The pattern comes from the flounder, a flat diamond shaped fish that was plentiful in these waters.  It is quite startling and attractive.  The harbor walk is surrounded by fences, one on the land side and one by the water.  Each of the stone posts on the land side fence has a plaque recounting a piece of the maritime history of Auckland, which were quite interesting.

     On the way back toward town we walked over two draw bridges.  The first was the Wynyard Crossing Bridge, built in 2011 and about 100 meters long.  It has a metal colored railing and opens in the middle to let large boats in and out of Viaduct Harbor. 

     The second was the much smaller,and 90 year old, Viaduct Bascule Bridge, which has a red Maori arched gateway on its western side.  This bridge was involved in a famous incident in 1966 when a pirate radio station denied a license to broadcast in Auckland attempted to take their broadcasting boat, called Tiri, out of Viaduct Harbor to broadcast from international waters in the Hauraki Gulf.  Calling the ship “unseaworthy,” the authorities placed it under arrest, but on the evening of October 23 a crowd gathered because of rumors that the ship would set sail (it was Sunday when the bridge was usually left up all day for boats).  The police started to lower the bridge as the ship started to move but 3 of the ship’s crew stood under the jaws of the bridge to stop it.  The lowering stopped but the ship’s mast got caught as it tried to pass under.  The crowd helped pull the ship free with a rope but not before the police climbed aboard and arrested the crew.  The crew were exonerated at their trial and on Nov. 21 the ship began broadcasting from the international waters off the shore of Auckland.  This pirate broadcasting continued until 1970 when a broadcasting license was finally awarded.  The station is still broadcasting in Auckland under the name “Radio Hauraki: New Zealand’s Original Pirate Radio Station.”

     We walked past the Maritime Museum, which had on display on the street outside a famous racing yacht called KZ1 that had been the challenger in the 1988 America’s Cup race.  It had a then cutting edge design that made it one of the largest (with a 153 foot mast) and most powerful single hull racing yachts in the world.  But the San Diego yacht club used a double hull catamaran that took the cup, although it was controversial because the rules were changed before the race to permit multi hulled yachts to compete for the first time.  Only the hull is included in the display and from the street you couldn’t see the deck, only the white hull.  We stopped at the Portofino Cucina Italiana, close to where we ate the previous night.  We had a very good pizza and Mary had a Tuatara beer.

     It didn’t take long to walk back to the ship but we noted that this walk turned out to be much longer than what we contemplated when we left the ship. Just before reaching the ship we stopped into the Ferry Building for some gelato, hoping it wouldn’t be the last on this trip. Thus ended two very rewarding days in the endlessly interesting port of Auckland.  On the ship just before our first visit here in 2016 we overheard one passenger telling another she was not going to leave the ship here because “I have been to Auckland.”  We have now been here three times and would have no trouble finding more interesting things to see or do if we came again.

     We arrived in Auckland on the morning of  March 16 for a two day visit.  Auckland is a very interesting city, the largest in New Zealand, with a lot of things to do.  We have visited here twice before, in 2016 and 2018, which you can see here: 

     https://baderjournal.com/2016/02/22/auckland-new-zealand/

    https://baderjournal.com/2018/05/31/auckland-new-zealand-2/

Quite a bit of background is included in those posts that won’t be repeated here, including visits to the War Museum and the Tower which are among the main attractions.  We decided this time to spend our first day across Waitemata Harbor in Devonport,  just about a 10 minute ferry ride from where our ship was docked.  This turned out to be a very good decision (Mary’s idea).  We left the ship in mid morning and, after some confusion caused by what turned out to be poor or misleading suggestions for saving money on the ferry ride, we boarded the ferry to Devonport at the Ferry Building next to our dock.  They had a tap and go payment system as you boarded the boat, which was quite easy and you didn’t have to handle a paper ticket.

     There appears to have been a Maori settlement here beginning in the 14th century but the first European settlers were a family responsible for maintaining a signal station established on Mount Victoria by the Royal Navy in 1841.  It was one of the first European settlements in the Auckland area.  The Royal New Zealand Navy still has an important base here.  The settlement was originally named Flagstaff (because, of course, there was a flagstaff at the signal station) and was renamed Devonport in 1859 after an English naval town of the same name.  The population of Devonport today is about 5,000. 

     Leaving the ferry dock we walked through a nice park called the Windsor Reserve to Devonport’s main street called Victoria Road.  Most of the buildings on this road date from the early 20th century.  The first building at the bottom of the hill was the Esplanade Hotel which opened in 1903, and next to it was the tourist information office where we picked up some maps and advice.

    At the edge of the Windsor Reserve was Devonport’s World War I memorial, a 7 foot bronze sculpture of an ANZAC soldier atop a stone plinth, dedicated in 1924.  The sculpture, by a local artist who was a veteran of Gallipoli, portrays a soldier with hat in hand and shoes untied, intentionally made to contrast with other soldier sculptures in New Zealand all showing soldiers in full dress holding rifles and all (according to the sculptor here) looking very much alike.  Intended to look more realistic, this is colloquially known as “the untidy soldier.”  The picture below shows the original plaque with the names of Devonport’s WWI dead; plaques were added later on other sides of the plinth for the war dead from WWII, Korea and Vietnam.  Above the names on the WWI plaque it reads “Remembering these dead, let the living be humble.”

     Devonport’s first library was a section of the Council’s Chambers that opened in 1878 in a building designed to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Jubilee.  The room was free for all members of the community but it closed in 1897 for financial reasons.  An independent Devonport Library opened in a separate concrete building in 1930 and it moved to a new brick building in Windsor Reserve in 1954.  The current modern building, made of wood and glass, opened in 2015 and is also located in Windsor Reserve (you can see a piece of its roof in the War Memorial picture above).

     We thought this was a very special and beautiful library.  It is very open and inviting with many places to sit down and read.   As is often true of buildings and public spaces in New Zealand, the library has a Maori name:  Te Pataka Korero o Te Hau Kapua and Moari design is used in many contexts throughout the library.

     Among other interesting things the library has a large set of Terra Cotta tiles mounted above a fireplace representing all (we understand) of the ferries that have operated between Auckland and Devonport during the library’s existence.  It also has a set of automatic return shelves, on which you can place your materials for return then print out a return receipt after the pop up on the attached video screen.  A slot in the wall for after hours returns is labelled in Maori (which we can’t translate but probably means After Hour Returns).  A poster of a cat reminds patrons to return their library books “Right Meow.”  And they even have a resident Justice of the Peace (a real one) at a desk in a window corner for anyone who needs their services.  How convenient is that?

     Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this library was one we discovered upon leaving it.  One day in 2002 a cat wandered into the library and made himself at home.  The community took to him so the architects of the current library designed a special cat door that operates on a microchip that allows the cat, and only the cat, to come and go at night from the staff workroom, which is sealed off from the collections.  The cat was named Benjamin and he often spent his days wandering the town’s streets while spending nights in the library.  But the streets are not as safe as the library and in January 2017 Benjamin died when hit by a car while sleeping in a gutter of a street.

      But that is not the end of Benjamin’s story.  the community raised close to $10,000 for a bronze statue of him, sculpted by one of the librarians, showing him sitting on a stack of books.  It can be seen today, as we did, not far from the library’s entrance.  A bronze plaque on the plinth reads, in part:  “Benjamin the Library Cat, 2000-2017 . . . Loved by locals, Feared by dogs , , , Missed by all (except the dogs)”

     A magnificent Banyan tree was nearby in the Reserve and walking up a little further to the corner of Victoria Road and Flagstaff Terrace we came across a fountain first erected in 1903 as a memorial to the two Devonport men who were killed during the Second Boer War in South Africa, the first international war in which New Zealand’s army fought.  The fountain was originally bronze with three horse heads surrounding the water spout.  In 2009 the bronze horses were stolen but they were replaced in 2010 by cast iron horseheads and the entire fountain was painted black.

     We continued up Victoria Road, enjoying all the old character-filled buildings.  The Devonia Building, for example, was built in 1923 and is a protected historic structure.  The road got steeper as we ascended.

     Eventually we came to a sign that said to take the right fork to go up Takarunga/Mount Victoria.  This is a dormant volcanic cone with a summit some 220 to 270 feet high (depending on who is measuring) and is the tallest of three volcanic hills in the Devonport area.  As mentioned earlier, the first European structure in Devonport was a signal station on top of this mountain to direct ship traffic.  I (Rick) wasn’t sure climbing a mountain was a great thing for Mary to do since her replaced knees had been giving her some trouble, but she said lets start up and we can always turn around if it gets too hard.  (I have heard that line before!)

     So we started up the steep path.  It was a well built and maintained paved path with steps at the steepest points.  About half way up we might have decided that we were high enough, but then a group of young people passed us, one of them carrying a baby.  Well, if she could do that we couldn’t just give up and go back so we continued on to the summit.  It was a clear day and the views of Auckland from the path were excellent.

     Well, the views from Mount Victoria were so eye catching that we neglected to take any pictures of the summit of the mountain itself.  But there is one picture below of Rick sitting at a picnic table on the summit, just to prove we actually made it there.  The summit was a very large grassy area with some small hills near the edges and there was, of course, a signal station located there.

     The side of the summit away from central Auckland had a particularly spectacular view of Rangitoto Island, a volcanic shield volcano whose lava covers the whole island.  Although some people lived there in the past it is now a natural reserve.  Auckland sits on a volcanic field with around 50 volcanoes and Rangitoto is the youngest (last erupted about 600 years ago) and the largest.  At the bottom right of the picture are some people on the shore looking at Rangitoto across the water who are standing among what look like large mushrooms with white stems and red & white polka dot caps.  There are a number of them on the summit of Mount Victoria as well.  They are actually air vents for two water reservoirs inside the mountain that were constructed in 1894 and 1911.  These ducts were painted green until 1988 when a couple of young “guerilla artists” repainted them as they look today.  The community liked them and they have been maintained and repainted when needed ever since.  It looks like a scene from Super Mario Brothers.

     We returned down the mountain by a different path (shorter but steeper) on the Rangitoto side of the island.

     Back down in Devonport we stopped for a late lunch at an Irish pub called The Patriot and sat at a sidewalk table in front.  The food was really delicious and there was way too much to eat.  Rick had an Irish stew cooked inside a large pastry shell and Mary had a large hamburger with a Guinness.  A group of seagulls were hanging around, undoubtedly hoping for leftovers, and did a lot of fighting and squawking for positions on top of a parked car nearby.  After lunch we walked up to the Victoria Theater, which has a gelato stand outside near the sidewalk where we rewarded ourselves for a successful climb.

     On thing we hadn’t counted on when eating such a hearty late lunch was that we had reservations for dinner at an Auckland restaurant called Soul to celebrate Mary’s birthday the day before.  It was an Italian restaurant within walking distance of the ship and it was good, but it would have been a better experience if we hadn’t already filled up in Devonport only a few hours earlier.  We managed to put away most of the food we were served anyway.  The sidewalk outside Auckland’s port is lined by a fence with very distinctive red light posts.  We have seen them before on previous visits, of course, but I think when we walked back to the ship after sunset tonight was the first time we had seen them alight.  (The daylight pictures below were taken the next day.)

     Overnight stays in port provide an opportunity for the ship to present local talent on the main stage in the evening, and tonight was no exception.  We attended a performance by a troop of Maori dancers.  They were really quite good and very colorful, with tattoos and traditional dress.  Among other things they performed the Haka, the traditional Maori war dance, with bulging eyes and extended tongues intended to intimidate the enemy.  New Zealand’s national men’s rugby team, the All-Blacks, one of the world’s winningest teams in any sport, perform the Haka before every international match.  They also performed a traditional dance in which a woman twirls white fluffy balls on long strings, which looks like a difficult maneuver particularly when keeping time to the music.  A good time was had by all.

     We spent the Ides of March (March 15) in Tauranga.  We had been here once before and had a great time visiting Rotorua, a Maori village located in an area of steam vents and geysers.  https://baderjournal.com/2018/06/18/tauranga-rotorua-new-zealand/  This visit was more relaxed as we stayed in Tauranga itself and explored it on foot.

     Tauranga is the fifth largest city in New Zealand with a population of about 160,000.  The Maori settled here in the 13th century and the English colonized it early in the 19th century.  During the 1860’s it was an area of armed conflict during the New Zealand Wars.  The site is divided between the mainland on the shore of the harbor and a peninsula in the center of the harbor with an extinct volcano at its seaward tip.  We were docked in Tauranga harbor on the east side of the peninsula.  We left the ship in mid morning.

     Before reaching Maunganui Road we came to a very nice green area called Coronation Park.  It hosts family activities like picnics, markets and special events.  We visited on a Sunday, which is market day at the park, and there were long rows of vendor stalls selling clothing, food and other items.  The park had a stream where we had a shady walk before braving the sun again back on the street.

     Mary had an interactive map on her phone and we decided to use it to find the library.  Sometimes it is more confusing than helpful and this was one of those times.  We walked around for a good while through mostly residential neighborhoods before finally returning to walk down Maunganui Road where we found the library.  This is not the city’s central library, which is on the mainland, but a branch.  Unfortunately it is closed on Sunday but we took some pictures outside.

      After that we walked back the way we had come on Maunganui Road toward Mount Maunganui, the extinct volcano at the end of the peninsula.  There is a path around the base of the mountain we hoped to walk.  The west side of the peninsula, opposite the cruise ship dock, has long and wide sand beaches reputed to be the best in New Zealand and one of the 25 best beaches in the world (wonder how that is measured?).  But it was a very hot and humid day (like so many on this trip) and Mary still hadn’t fully recovered her energy level from her illness so we didn’t walk over to the beach but continued toward the mountain.

     As we finally neared the mountain it began to loom over the fairly tall white buildings on either side of the road.  These buildings are probably homes to folks who live here but this is really a beach town and we are sure that some of the apartments are rented to vacationers.  After all that walking in the heat it turned out that the mountain path was closed because a major landslide in January, just a few weeks before we arrived, killed at least six people and made the path too dangerous.  At the foot of the mountain where the road begins is a facility with hot pools that is supposed to be nice.  Even if we had wanted to visit it we couldn’t because it was closed for renovations.

     So that sums up our touring day in port . . . three places visited and three places closed.  At least the mountain covered in green was nice to look at.  It is a 760 foot tall lava dome.  The mountain’s last eruption has been dated to more than 2 million years ago.

     We walked back up Maunganui Road and stopped for lunch at a place called “Latitude 37.”  We sat at a shaded table on the sidewalk and watched the action (it is a pretty busy street) while we ate plates of really delicious fish and chips that were too big to finish.  When ready to leave we went inside to pay and the woman in charge ran outside to get our plates.  It seems they have an ongoing dispute with the local seagulls, who consider leftover fish and chips a gourmet treat.  Completely satiated we walked back to the dock and reboarded the Zaandam.

     There was a celebration at our table at dinner because it was Mary’s **th birthday.  A small birthday cake was provided by our waiters (and the kitchen of course) and all the waiters in the area gathered around our table with our lead waiter Pande to sing the Indonesian birthday song.  This is always fun.  With all the people in the dining room you hear at least one of these celebrations on most days but its always better when its at your table.  Everybody, especially the waiters, enjoy the singing and then, of course, you get to eat the cake!  When we got back to our room after dinner it had been decorated for the occasion by our room stewards, May and Dey.  A nice way to end the day.

     It was Friday, March 13 when we arrived in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand.   No bad luck today (except for the weather, which was off-and-on rainy all day) and both of us were finally feeling more normal. 

     Maori tradition has it that a chief named Kupe lived by this harbor as early as the 10th century.   Be that as it may, there was a Maori community here visited occasionally by European whalers and traders by the early 19th century, but in 1839 and 1840 English settlers (fewer than 200 at first) came to stay.   The settlement was named after the Duke of Wellington, the victorious general at the Battle of Waterloo.  By 1843 the town had grown to 700 buildings and in 1865 it became the national capital when the government was moved here from Auckland.

     Wellington is the southernmost national capital in the world.  It is centrally located in New Zealand, sitting on the north coast of the Cook Strait that divides New Zealand’s two major islands.  The southern prevailing winds blowing through the strait make this the windiest city in the world. There is a major geological fault running through downtown Wellington and the area has been subject to destructive earthquakes throughout its existence; every five years there is a very slow moving earthquake that lasts all year but causes no damage because of its slowness.  The population of the Wellington urban area is about 210,000 today (more than 430,000 in the larger metropolitan area).

     We waited most of the morning for the rain to stop, but it never did.  It did let up somewhat so we took that opportunity to run to the shuttle bus that would take us downtown to the center of government activity.  We were dropped off in front of the Old Government Buildings.  Built in 1876 on land reclaimed from the harbor, this building initially housed all of the New Zealand civil service in the capital along with the New Zealand Cabinet.  As the government grew agencies had to obtain new housing until by 1990 no one was left in the building.  The building was then restored to its 1907 state and since 1996 it has been the location of the Victoria University Law School.  The building looks like it is built of masonry but it is actually made of New Zealand kauri wood.  Since the severe damage of the early earthquakes in the 1840’s and 50’s wood has been a favored building material because it is more flexible than stone or concrete and thus less susceptible to earthquake damage.  It is thought that this building would have been destroyed long ago if it had been built of masonry.  It is the largest wooden building in the Southern Hemisphere and one of the two or three largest in the world.

     We set off to follow our walking map of the area.  Up a hill we came to Old St Paul’s Anglican Church.  This was a parish church consecrated in 1866, but from then until 1964 it was the “pro-cathedral” of the Wellington Diocese,  short for “provisional cathedral” (meaning, we guess, that it would serve the functions of a cathedral until a permanent one was found or built).  It is built of native wood and has been described as “one of the best examples of timber Gothic Revival architecture in the world.”  When the Diocese decided to build a new Cathedral its plans called for the demolition of Old St. Paul’s, but sustained public opposition led to the Government purchasing it in 1967 and having it restored.  Today it is operated as a public attraction, but it is still consecrated as a church and is a popular place for weddings and funerals.  It is attractive outside and really beautiful on the inside, all dark wood and stained glass.  Its roof has been likened to an inverted English galleon.  It is modern in operation though, soliciting donations by credit card.  This is a government town so it was no surprise that as we continued our walk after leaving the church we passed several embassies, including India, Thailand and the Cook Islands, the last of which (seen below) has a particularly close relationship with New Zealand.

     The National Library of New Zealand was established in 1965 to consolidate three existing library entities with collections spread around 14 locations in the city.  The Library’s current building opened in 1987.  It was built in brutalist style, reportedly inspired by the Boston, Massachusetts city hall.  Brutalism is not, in our opinion, a very attractive style and this building is no exception.  Its collections house almost 7 million items.

     Inside the library is spacious but a little cold.  Some of the walls on the first floor are covered by large plaques with interesting text and photos detailing the history of New Zealand.  A gift store and cafe are also located on the first floor along with an unusual Maori mural.   Upstairs are reading rooms and computer rooms.

     In the middle of the first floor was an enclosed wooden structure called He Tohu that contained several important documents in the history of New Zealand:

1.  He Whakaputanga (Declaration of Independence of New Zealand) was signed in 1835 by a number of Maori chiefs on the north island, claiming sovereignty under the name of United Tribes of New Zealand and requesting the British monarch to be protector of their state.

2.  The Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840 by the English consul and a number of Maori chiefs from the north island.  This document was translated into Maori and most of the chiefs signed the Maori version.  While the English understood it to cede complete sovereignty and control of New Zealand to the British, the Maori translation was less clear about that and to this day there is vehement dispute about whether the Maori chiefs understood it as having that effect when they signed it.  Nevertheless, the anniversary of the signing of this document is a national holiday.  We were happily surprised to see this here because we had been advised on the ship that it was in the archives and not available for public viewing.

3.  The 1893 Petition for Women’s Suffrage resulted in a statute being enacted giving women the right to vote beginning with the 1893 general election, making New Zealand the first country in the world to allow women to vote in national elections.  Some members of Parliament had justified their opposition by asserting that most women did not want the vote.  So Kate Sheppard, head of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, led a drive that collected some 32,000 signatures and addresses from women all over New Zealand, almost a fourth of the adult European female population at the time.  The final petition was on rolls totaling 890 feet long made up of 500 sheets of paper.  When it was presented to the Parliament by a pro-suffrage member one section of it was dramatically unrolled, extending the whole length of the chamber.  On display here is one of the scrolls, partially unrolled, with several others still rolled up.

     The light inside the He Tohu structure was kept very dim and the old documents themselves appeared to be quite faded.  While we did the best we could, the pictures of these documents (some of which are not in English) are difficult if not impossible to read.  But unexpectedly seeing these original historical documents was a highlight of the day.  Near a window outside He Tohu is a stunning glass sculpture, almost 7 feet tall, of Kate Sheppard, the leader of the women’s suffrage drive.  It is built from more than 350 stacked acrylic sheets edged in glass and is lighted from below by 1,000 LED lights in the base.

     We walked over toward the Parliament buildings, passing the new St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral.  Designed in the 1930’s it was not completed until 1998, but it has been used as a cathedral since 1964, replacing Old St Paul’s which we visited earlier.  Made of reinforced concrete because it was thought to be a more reliable material during an earthquake, this very tall pink building lacks the charm of Old St Paul’s, at least from the outside, in our opinion.  During our visit the cathedral was covered in scaffolding, hopefully getting what looked like a much needed cleaning.

     Next door and uphill from the Parliament building is the New Zealand Parliamentary Library.  The Parliament maintained a small library occupying a few rooms from the time it moved to Wellington and by 1875 it had a catalogue listing more than 11,000 books.  Unusually for a legislative library, it lent books to members of the public when Parliament was not in session.

     The current building opened in 1899 and is now the oldest building in the Parliament complex.  It is made of brick to make it fire resistant and separated from the parliament building by an iron fire door, which saved it from destruction when the wooden parliament building burned down in 1907.  In 1965 the General Assembly Library became one of the three major constituent components of the National Library.  Some 500,000 items in its collection unrelated to Parliament were moved to other National Library locations at that time.  In 1985, shortly before the opening of the new National Library building we visited earlier, the Parliament removed it from the National Library and renamed it the New Zealand Parliamentary Library.  It now operates exclusively as information and research support for members and staff of the Parliament and its former holdings unrelated to that function have been left to the National Library.  The general public is no longer admitted to the building.

     We climbed the steep steps up to the front porch of the library building which had a rather nice view of the area, including a row of tree ferns we think was growing along the side nearest the Parliament House with their tops just under the library’s porch.

     When the government first moved to Wellington the General Assembly met in a two story wooden building.  When the three story wooden building it moved to in the 1880’s burned down in 1907 the Parliament moved to a nearby building called Government House.  Construction of the current building began in 1914 and although it was not completed until 1922 the Parliament moved there in 1918 to escape the deteriorating Government House.  The building was extensively renovated in the 1990’s to strengthen it against earthquakes.

     Parliament House sits next to, and just downhill from, the Parliamentary Library that survived the 1907 fire.  Although it lacks the domes in the original design due to budget difficulties, it is an impressive white building with large columns across the front and a broad stairway to the entrance.  The entrance was originally planned to be in the center of the front facade but in the end only one wing was actually built.  In front of the stairway are two “pau,” carved Maori wooden posts topped by images of Ngake and Whataitai, traditionally the guardians of the harbor, that were erected here in 2023.

     Next to Parliament House is the building housing the executive branch of the government, known locally as “The Beehive” (you can see why from the pictures).  It is a round building 10 stories tall with each story set back a little from the one below.  The top floor houses the cabinet meeting room and the Prime Minister’s offices are on the 9th floor.  The government occupied the building in 1979 and the building was completed in 1981.  In front of the public entrance to the Beehive is a “pare,” an intricately carved overhead lintel supported by two carved pillars, which was installed in 2023 along with the pau posts in front of Parliament House.

     Finally we stopped at the Wellington Cenotaph.  Cenotaphs commemorating the war dead can be seen in many cities in Australia and New Zealand.  This one was unveiled in 1931 to commemorate the New Zealanders who lost their lives in World War I.  It features a bronze equestrian figure atop a tall stone pylon.  Bronze lions were added later to commemorate the dead of World War II.

     We were pretty much touristed out by this time so we decided to have some gelato and catch the shuttle bus back to the ship.  We passed a couple of very young looking barristers ostentatiously walking back from lunch wearing their wigs (if we remember correctly) and with their Rumpole style robes rippling in the breeze.  Then we spent more time than expected walking up and down several blocks of Lambton Quay looking for a gelato place.  We had just about concluded that Wellington doesn’t have gelato when we came to a tiny shop with just half a dozen flavors.  We each had two scoops of New Zealand’s signature Hokey Pokey flavor, then walked down the street and joined the long line of passengers and crew waiting for the shuttle bus.  Disturbingly, when the bus arrived all of the crew stepped out of the line to permit the passengers to enter first.  We hoped they all were able to get on.  As we drove back to the ship a light rain began, a fitting end to this gray and drizzly day.