City of Fun

And just as we began to found new bonds, new memories, and conquered fears we didn’t even know we had, week three of ISV New Zealand was over. As our adrenaline began to slow and the ferry came to a stop, we headed off to Wellington to continue our final week of adventure tour.

The north island greeted us with a bang. Wellington was a city, and a pretty fun one at that. Even the hostel was amazing! Multiple times throughout our trip we have stayed at hostels that were apart of the Youth Hostel Association of New Zealand. They have always been fantastic, but I would have to say that up to this point Wellington’s hostel is my favorite. The building was enormous, with huge kitchens, a theater style movie room, tons of movies, people from all walks of life, and a staff ever willing to book us on tours or trips while we were there.

Perhaps most impressive about these hostels particularly were their commitment to becoming a more sustainable living community for its visitors. Recycle bins everywhere. Buckets for food scraps in the kitchens. Heat that is set to warm on only certain parts of the day so that not a ton of energy is wasted heating the rooms while it’s guests aren’t there. They even use a system that takes the heat from the water being used in showers to partially heat the new warm water coming in. It takes less energy to heat semi-warm water. Every staff member wore t-shirts that talked about the hostels and NZ’s commitment to a more green future, and I honestly felt really good seeing that. One of the other hostels we went to had buckets where their guests could help sponsor a new hostel going up, that would be completely sustainable. Awesome stuff!

But aside from the outstanding hostel, Wellington was another city with tons of things to do. After a night on the town, Saturday brought about some pretty fun activities. Our first stop in the morning was Te Papa, New Zealand’s national museum! It was probably the most interactive and charming museum I have ever seen. It had all the potential to be a children’s giant play room but it was one for all ages. People young and old filled its walls to read, listen, and look about New Zealands culture and origins. Enormous squid preserved in a glass. Large intact whale skeleton hanging above, which the museums walls were actually built around [!]. There was even a life size replica of a blue whale’s heart. This thing was about my height, with arteries big enough for me to crawl through! It was unreal.

Te Papa even had some “rides” for its visitors to go on. On was an educational simulator, simulating you going into a submarine and venturing deep into the ocean abyss to find underwater volcanoes. The second was a bumpy simulator in front of an enormous screen showing you tons of things that make up NZ. It’s kind of hard to explain, but you will just have to trust me on this one.

After Te Papa a group of us headed out to get breakfast for lunch, walked around and peeked in some stores, then five of us went to the Wellington “bungy.” No it wasn’t bungy jumping off a building in the city, it was a ride where three people sat in seats that together resembled a big ball, then as the bungy wires attached to the ball were stretched, the lever let go and we were shot up into the air, spinning and bouncing up and down. It was just myself and two new adventure tour friends, Marshall and Charlie, who did it, with Erica and Chase filming it all. It was a lot of fun, but we all commented on how we weren’t used to going up in an adrenaline activity. HA hey there’s a first for everything!

From there we headed to go see NZ Parliament. The interesting thing about their parliament is that they have hourly tours and anyone can just go and walk around to see the inside. I have never heard of something like that so we thought it might be something cool to try. Unfortunately, we got there too late for tours, but we still got to see the building. From there it was another night of rest before our travel day in the morning.

All in all, Wellington was outstanding. Tons to do and I even tried Indian food for the first time!