Wellington Travel Guide

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City Introduction

Wellington is New Zealand’s capital, and it is very beautifully located in the middle of the country at the southern tip of North Island and with a few hours sailing to Picton on the South Island. And it is only a short distance to many parts of the country’s magnificent scenery.

Wellington is a big city with everything that goes with it. Of museums, Wellington has a lot to offer. The city is home to the excellent National Museum Te Papa, which exhibits the country’s natural sciences, history and different cultures in a fine way. At the Museum of Wellington City & Sea you can take a closer look at the city’s development year by year with themed exhibitions.

Wellington’s large and extremely rich botanical garden is, for many, the first choice of a green oases. The best way to get to the heights of the garden is with the Wellington Cable Car, that drives up to a fantastic and famous panorama to the city. You can also see the city from above from Mount Victoria immediately east of the city center or enjoy a walk along the Oriental Parade.

In Wellington there are also several beautiful churches with Old Saint Pauls as the most attractive and modern Saint Pauls Cathedral as the largest. Churches and Christianity are parts of New Zealand history, and in the beautiful buildings you can clearly see inspiration from the European immigrants and their constructions from the old continent.

Around Wellington there are also many activities to enjoy. A boat trip to Picton brings one to a completely different landscape and to the fine wines of the Marlborough Sounds, while a trip to the north can go along the west coast.

Top Attractions

Te Papa Tongerewa, Wellington

  • The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa: This is New Zealand’s amazing National Museum, where you can experience the formation of New Zealand and see exhibitions of the culture of both Maori and European descendants.
  • Museum of Wellington City & Sea: At this museum you can see a very lively and modern exhibition about New Zealand’s and in particular Wellington’s history. The museum building is formerly the seat of the city’s port authorities.

Wellington Cable Car

  • Wellington Cable Car: The Wellington Cable Car is a charming 4.5-minute ride from the city center up to a distinguished view 120 meters/400 feet above the starting point. The total 628 meter/2,060 foot long trip goes through three tunnels and over three bridges.

Botanic Garden, Wellington

  • Botanic Garden: Wellington’s Botanical Garden was laid out in 1863, and the large park houses beautiful plants such as the Lady Norwood Rose Garden, which blooms from November to May.

Old Saint Pauls, Wellington

  • Old Saint Pauls: Old Saint Pauls is Wellington’s former Anglican cathedral. It was built as a parish church in Thorndon 1865-1866 and was a cathedral until 1964. The interior is very beautiful and atmospheric.

Other Attractions

Civic Square, Wellington

  • Civic Square: Civic Square is Wellington’s modern, central square. It was completed after two years of construction in 1992 in terracotta stone as a large urban space between the city and its port.
  • Wellington Town Hall: Wellington Town Hall was designed by Joshua Charlesworth and built 1901-1904. The elegant building originally had a fine bell tower and a main façade to the west.

City Gallery Wellington

  • City Gallery Wellington: The City Gallery Wellington exhibits modern art. You get a good impression of what the current situation is for art in New Zealand, as many both new and established artists exhibit here.
  • Frank Kitts Park: Frank Kitts Park is a green area located on Wellington’s central waterfront. In the park there are green areas and playgrounds, and you can also see a memorial to the ferry diaster that struck the ferry TEV Wahine.

Old Government Buildings, Wellington

  • Old Government Buildings: The Old Government Buildings are located opposite the current Wellington Parliament Building. The large building was built in 1875-1876 as the country’s largest building project at the time.
  • Parliamentary Library: The New Zealand Parliamentary Library was built 1897-1899 after Thomas Turnbull’s design. The library stands as a beautiful example of Victorian Gothic in the New Zealand capital.

Parliament Buildings, Wellington

  • Parliament Buildings: These buildings are the center of New Zealand’s political life. The parliament itself is located here with the famous Beehive building, which was built in the 1980s.
  • Embassy Theater: Embassy Theater is one of Wellington’s renowned cinemas. It was built in 1924 as a cinema and is one of the oldest in New Zealand, built for the purpose and still in use.
  • Courtenay Place: Courtenay Place is Wellington’s main street for entertainment and nightlife. Restaurants and bars line the streets, and Courtenay Place is also the city’s cinema and theater district.

St Mary of the Angels, Wellington

  • Saint Mary of the Angels: Saint Mary of the Angels is the Catholic parish church of central Wellington. It was built as the third church on the site, and it was completed in 1922 with a beautiful nave.
  • Queens Wharf: The Queens Wharf area is the result of an ongoing expansion of Wellington Harbor in the latter half of the 19th century and early 20th century. Now there are restaurants and other activities in the old 19th century harbor.

Saint Paul's Cathedral, Wellington

  • Saint Paul’s Cathedral: Saint Paul’s Cathedral is Wellington’s Anglican episcopal see. The large church replaced the nearby Old Saint Pauls and was planned as a Gothic-inspired brick building in the 1930s.
  • Colonial Cottage Museum: The Colonial Cottage Museum is a museum housed in the oldest preserved house in Wellington. It was built in typical Georgian style in 1858 by William and Catherine Wallis.

Wellington Railway Station

  • Wellington Railway Station: Wellington’s railway history began in 1874 when the line to the Hutt Valley was opened. Later, several lines were added, and the main railway station is a grandiose railway station building from the 1930s.
  • National War Memorial: On April 25, 1932, the National War Memorial was inaugurated as a memorial to the fallen and participants of World War I. April 25 is the annual memorial day for ANZAC.

Mount Victoria, Wellington

  • Mount Victoria: Mount Victoria is a 196 meter/643 foot high mountain located just east of central Wellington. The great location offers fantastic views of both the New Zealand capital and its surroundings.

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City History

The Maori Pre-European Settlement
The area around Wellington was originally inhabited by the Maori under the name Te Upoko o te Ika a Maui, which means the head of the fish as the southernmost part of North Island. The first settler was the Kurahaupo chief Whatonga, who named Wellington Harbor Whanganui-a-Tara after his son.

Over the centuries, more people moved, and actual villages emerged along the natural harbor as well as fortified hilltops in the landscape.

Arrival of Europeans
In 1773, British explorers sailed into the natural harbor of the Maori inhabitants, and it was the first European presence. The real European immigration to this began in September 1839, when the first British ship arrived from London. William Wakefield negotiated a land purchase agreement in place with 16 local chieftains.

The ship was named Tory and was posted by the New Zealand Company, which allocated 10% of the land purchased to the Maoris, and 90% was to be sold to settlers, many of whom were already heading to the port now called Port Nicholson.

The first ships with settlers came to Port Nicholson in 1840. The first was Aurora, which had 150 new inhabitants aboard Aurora. They called their town Britannia, and it was to the northeast compared to today’s Wellington. Quickly, however, they moved the colony to its present location, where plots were plotted and initially distributed through lottery.

The city also quickly got a city plan laid out by New Zealand Company’s surveyor, William Main Smith, and with it also built public facilities such as roads, administration buildings and churches.

The first earthquake
Wellington lies on several earthquake breaking lines, and it marked the European migrants after a few years. In 1848 and especially in 1855, severe earthquakes occurred, which changed the new colonized city significantly.

Thus, on January 23, 1855, the strength of the quake was 8.2 on the Richter scale, and the water line moved on that occasion several hundred feet. It originally ran on the current Lambdon Quay street, but with land elevations of up to 1.5 meters, the city gained a lot of new land that could be used positively for, for example, roads, railways and additional port facilities.

The country’s new capital
Since 1841, Auckland had been the nation’s capital. By that time, Wellington had been considered with its central location from both New Zealand’s main islands.

In the early days of the colony, however, the influence of the New Zealand Company was deemed too strong, and so it was until 1865 before Wellington was designated New Zealand’s capital.

The decision to relocate to this place on the Cook Strait was made to accommodate the inhabitants of the South Island who might otherwise be feared to form an independent nation. At that time, 4,900 residents lived in the town named after the English Duke of Wellington.

Development of the new Wellington
Parliament’s first meeting in the newly appointed capital occurred on July 26, 1865. That same year, the city’s first daily newspaper saw the light of day; it was Henry Blundell’s The Evening Post, which in the first issue of February 8 was on four pages. The newspaper cost a penny.

Politically, Wellington was further strengthened in 1870 when the city’s government was structured with the formation of The Wellington City Corporation, which was the city’s administration. Former City Council member Joseph Dransfield became the first elected mayor.

Throughout the 1870s, other institutions and facilities were established. Here, clean drinking water came in the taps instead of the local boreholes that were contaminated, in 1874 the railroad opened to Hutt Valley as the city’s first, in 1877 drove the first passenger trams and in 1879 the Wellington Harbor Board was established to ensure the important development of the port areas of the city.

Depression in the city
Wellington rounded up 20,000 inhabitants in 1881, giving the capital formal status of a city. In the following years, growth continued with more than 1,000 settlers each year.

Population growth was not matched by economic growth in those years. During the period up to 1895, New Zealand and thus Wellington were also affected by an economic depression that brought unemployment and debt.

A bright spot in time was Queen Victoria’s golden government anniversary on June 20, 1887. On that day, there was a public celebration in Wellington, with thousands in the streets to mark the highlight of the series of events that had taken place in the months leading up to the anniversary.

A new parade and celebration took place on January 22, 1890. It marked the 50th anniversary of the first settlers’ arrival in New Zealand.

In 1892, Wellington, as the first city in the country, was equipped with an actual underground sewer system. It happened as a consequence of rising health and hygiene issues; in 1890 alone were 77 inhabitants of diseases caused by the lack of sewers.

New development with the 20th century
The beginning of the 20th century was yet another period of growth for Wellington, when new trams began to run through the streets in 1904 after two years of construction. The trams quickly became a great success, and as early as 1910 the 42 wagons carried a total of 22 million passengers.

In 1904 the town was given a new town hall, which served as both the seat of the city council and with its auditorium as a new meeting place for Wellington’s citizens.

After decades of growth, New Zealand and the country’s capital were also hit by the economic depression of the world in 1929. This led to high unemployment and the launch of public employment programs for thousands of the unemployed in Wellington.

100th Anniversary
To mark the conclusion of the Treaty of Waitangi between the United Kingdom and the Moorish chieftains in 1840, a large national exhibition was held in Wellington 1939-1940. Despite the onset of World War II, the exhibition was conducted and with a total visitor count of more than 2.5 million people.

In February 1942, Japan bombed Australian Darwin, and by that time the acts of war had come to the region. Four months after the bombs, 20,000 American soldiers came to Wellington. Many were stationed in military camps here while traveling from combat sites in the Pacific.

The Roads of Expansion and the Wahine Shipwreck
Queen Elizabeth II became Queen of New Zealand in 1952 and in 1954 Wellington was visited by the new monarch. The Queen was hailed by thousands of citizens through the city’s streets, covered with a million beginnings that had grown to the occasion.

Improved transport was part of the city’s development, and in 1959 a new and well-located airport in Rongotai opened after seven years of construction. The airport was partially built on reclaimed land and ensured rapid transport to Auckland and Christchurch, among others.

In 1949, the first tram line in Wellington was closed. Like so many other places, buses took over, and in 1964, the last tram in town; it happened on the route from Thorndon to the center of Wellington. The replacements were not just buses that, among other things, spoke the country’s only trolley bus system.

The city grew, and the suburbs spread ever further from the city center. The railway lines to the station in the street of Bunny Street were a widely used means of transport, but also the motorism gained speed. In the 1950s, motorways were first talked about; in 1967 the plant started and the first part opened two years later.

On April 9, 1968, the ferry TEV Wahine set out from Lyttelton near Christchurch. It was met by a severe storm off the entrance to Wellington Harbor, crashed and lost at a loss of 51 lives. The disaster was and is one of the country’s biggest maritime accidents. In the aftermath of the sinking, the long route to Lyttelton was discontinued and replaced by the sailing between Wellington and Picton on the South Island.

Wellington today
The old town of Wellington continued to offer many of the larger Victorian buildings that characterized the city’s early times until the 1970s.

To counter any devastating earthquakes and their consequences, it was decided to demolish many of the houses downtown along the so-called Golden Mile. The earthquake standards were to meet, and instead of the low old settlement, the late 1970s and 1980s became a period when many glass and steel skyscrapers saw the light of day.

From the 1980s also began the city’s major investment in tourism, and through new buildings and a variety of cultural activities created the basis for a city that many consider to be one of the leaders in the region for exciting experiences.

Cultural and conference venues such as the Michael Fowler Center opened, and Civic Square was constructed as a new center, connecting the city with the harbor promenade and its parks and activities in the former warehouse and administration buildings in the area.

New Zealand’s new National Museum, the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa was inaugurated in 1998, and two years later the Westpac Stadium sports arena was commissioned.

From 1999, Wellington was the center of an event that, if any, has strengthened New Zealand tourism in recent decades; the coordination and partial recording of the movie trilogy Lord of the Rings. For example, some scenes are recorded on Mount Victoria just east of the city center, and on December 1, 2003, the third and final film, The Return of the King, premiered at Wellington’s Embassy Theater.

Geolocation

In short

Overview of Wellington

Wellington is New Zealand’s capital, and it is very beautifully located in the middle of the country at the southern tip of North Island and with a few hours sailing to Picton on the South Island. And it is only a short distance to many parts of the country’s magnificent scenery.

 

It is a big city with everything that goes with it. Of museums, Wellington has a lot to offer. The city is home to the excellent National Museum Te Papa, which exhibits the country’s natural sciences, history and different cultures in a fine way. At the Museum of Wellington City & Sea you can take a closer look at the city’s development year by year with themed exhibitions.

 

About the upcoming Wellington travel guide

  • Contents: Tours in the city + tours in the surrounding area
  • Published: Released soon
  • Author: Stig Albeck
  • Publisher: Vamados.com
  • Language: English

 

About the travel guide

The Wellington travel guide gives you an overview of the sights and activities of the New Zealand city. Read about top sights and other sights, and get a tour guide with tour suggestions and detailed descriptions of all the city’s most important churches, monuments, mansions, museums, etc.

 

Wellington is waiting for you, and at vamados.com you can also find cheap flights and great deals on hotels for your trip. You just select your travel dates and then you get flight and accommodation suggestions in and around the city.

 

Read more about Wellington and New Zealand

 

Buy the travel guide

Click the “Add to Cart” button to purchase the travel guide. After that you will come to the payment, where you enter the purchase and payment information. Upon payment of the travel guide, you will immediately receive a receipt with a link to download your purchase. You can download the travel guide immediately or use the download link in the email later.

 

Use the travel guide

When you buy the travel guide to Wellington you get the book online so you can have it on your phone, tablet or computer – and of course you can choose to print it. Use the maps and tour suggestions and you will have a good and content-rich journey.

Te Papa Tongarewa • Beautiful Churches • Cable Car • Mount Victoria

Overview of Wellington

Wellington is New Zealand’s capital, and it is very beautifully located in the middle of the country at the southern tip of North Island and with a few hours sailing to Picton on the South Island. And it is only a short distance to many parts of the country’s magnificent scenery.

 

It is a big city with everything that goes with it. Of museums, Wellington has a lot to offer. The city is home to the excellent National Museum Te Papa, which exhibits the country’s natural sciences, history and different cultures in a fine way. At the Museum of Wellington City & Sea you can take a closer look at the city’s development year by year with themed exhibitions.

 

About the upcoming Wellington travel guide

  • Contents: Tours in the city + tours in the surrounding area
  • Published: Released soon
  • Author: Stig Albeck
  • Publisher: Vamados.com
  • Language: English

 

About the travel guide

The Wellington travel guide gives you an overview of the sights and activities of the New Zealand city. Read about top sights and other sights, and get a tour guide with tour suggestions and detailed descriptions of all the city’s most important churches, monuments, mansions, museums, etc.

 

Wellington is waiting for you, and at vamados.com you can also find cheap flights and great deals on hotels for your trip. You just select your travel dates and then you get flight and accommodation suggestions in and around the city.

 

Read more about Wellington and New Zealand

 

Buy the travel guide

Click the “Add to Cart” button to purchase the travel guide. After that you will come to the payment, where you enter the purchase and payment information. Upon payment of the travel guide, you will immediately receive a receipt with a link to download your purchase. You can download the travel guide immediately or use the download link in the email later.

 

Use the travel guide

When you buy the travel guide to Wellington you get the book online so you can have it on your phone, tablet or computer – and of course you can choose to print it. Use the maps and tour suggestions and you will have a good and content-rich journey.

Other Attractions

Civic Square, Wellington

  • Civic Square: Civic Square is Wellington’s modern, central square. It was completed after two years of construction in 1992 in terracotta stone as a large urban space between the city and its port.
  • Wellington Town Hall: Wellington Town Hall was designed by Joshua Charlesworth and built 1901-1904. The elegant building originally had a fine bell tower and a main façade to the west.

City Gallery Wellington

  • City Gallery Wellington: The City Gallery Wellington exhibits modern art. You get a good impression of what the current situation is for art in New Zealand, as many both new and established artists exhibit here.
  • Frank Kitts Park: Frank Kitts Park is a green area located on Wellington’s central waterfront. In the park there are green areas and playgrounds, and you can also see a memorial to the ferry diaster that struck the ferry TEV Wahine.

Old Government Buildings, Wellington

  • Old Government Buildings: The Old Government Buildings are located opposite the current Wellington Parliament Building. The large building was built in 1875-1876 as the country’s largest building project at the time.
  • Parliamentary Library: The New Zealand Parliamentary Library was built 1897-1899 after Thomas Turnbull’s design. The library stands as a beautiful example of Victorian Gothic in the New Zealand capital.

Parliament Buildings, Wellington

  • Parliament Buildings: These buildings are the center of New Zealand’s political life. The parliament itself is located here with the famous Beehive building, which was built in the 1980s.
  • Embassy Theater: Embassy Theater is one of Wellington’s renowned cinemas. It was built in 1924 as a cinema and is one of the oldest in New Zealand, built for the purpose and still in use.
  • Courtenay Place: Courtenay Place is Wellington’s main street for entertainment and nightlife. Restaurants and bars line the streets, and Courtenay Place is also the city’s cinema and theater district.

St Mary of the Angels, Wellington

  • Saint Mary of the Angels: Saint Mary of the Angels is the Catholic parish church of central Wellington. It was built as the third church on the site, and it was completed in 1922 with a beautiful nave.
  • Queens Wharf: The Queens Wharf area is the result of an ongoing expansion of Wellington Harbor in the latter half of the 19th century and early 20th century. Now there are restaurants and other activities in the old 19th century harbor.

Saint Paul's Cathedral, Wellington

  • Saint Paul’s Cathedral: Saint Paul’s Cathedral is Wellington’s Anglican episcopal see. The large church replaced the nearby Old Saint Pauls and was planned as a Gothic-inspired brick building in the 1930s.
  • Colonial Cottage Museum: The Colonial Cottage Museum is a museum housed in the oldest preserved house in Wellington. It was built in typical Georgian style in 1858 by William and Catherine Wallis.

Wellington Railway Station

  • Wellington Railway Station: Wellington’s railway history began in 1874 when the line to the Hutt Valley was opened. Later, several lines were added, and the main railway station is a grandiose railway station building from the 1930s.
  • National War Memorial: On April 25, 1932, the National War Memorial was inaugurated as a memorial to the fallen and participants of World War I. April 25 is the annual memorial day for ANZAC.

Mount Victoria, Wellington

  • Mount Victoria: Mount Victoria is a 196 meter/643 foot high mountain located just east of central Wellington. The great location offers fantastic views of both the New Zealand capital and its surroundings.

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