|
|
|
|
Bucketloads of Culture For No Cost
Wellington, 12th-15th December 2001
 The
great thing about
Wellington
is that almost every gallery, museum and place of interest is
completely free! And there are loads of them! This is very rare
among capital cities. Paris charges approximately one arm & half a
leg to get into its museums. New York charges you if you want to
breathe! This is fantastic news if you're a backpacker or travelling
on a budget. Wellington is actually very small and non-busy for a
capital city. It's more like a small city in the UK, similar to
Southampton. Anyhow, we made good use of the free attractions,
trying to fit in as many of them as possible.
THE NATIONAL GALLERY: A medium, mainly modern & 'alternative'
gallery. The ground floor is dedicated mainly to one or two artists
who are the current 'special exhibits'. I'm sure they're good, but
we didn't spend too long there. The upper floor had some really
weird stuff. Looking back though, I'm glad I went, it was certainly
an experience. Highlights include: tiny little doll heads on big
rocks; a video of a guy repeatedly banging his head on a car bonnet
to rock music; a video of an Apple Mac computer exhibit; a doll
spray-painted blue with cooking utensils hanging off it. The only
piece of 'art' who's 'meaning' I understood was the one trying to
make a point about racism in New Zealand. It consisted of 3
dark-skinned mannequins dressed in suits placed around the gallery.
Each wore a badge saying 'Hello, my name is Hori'. 'Hori' is a
derogatory, racist term used by the white settlers for any Maori
male. It took away individuality and implied they were all
identical. Because the models are never seen together, they could be
identical, but they might not be. This gallery is quite strange, but
it was definitely worth the look.
FILM CENTRE: With the current hype about The 'Lord Of The
Rings' film, a short animated cartoon based on Wagner's Opera 'The
Ring' was also being shown in the city. A small company had created
an animated cartoon that showed Wagner's 16 hour opera 'The Ring' in
29 minutes. It was based on the same themes as Tolkein's books. The
displays were really cool with all the models from the film being
shown. The film itself crammed so much into a short time, that the
plot was hard to follow sometimes. Nonetheless, the film has won
many awards and it is interesting (and fun) to watch.
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT & THE 'BEEHIVE': We took a free & very
informative tour around the New Zealand government buildings. New
Zealand have mixed a number of styles of government to make their
own. There was some interesting displays and the guide was a good
speaker. We saw the pen that was used to sign the Treaty of
Versailles and read about the failed tax that the government tried
to put on watches. We also had a look in the office building called
'The Beehive', an ugly, maze like building that everyone in the city
hates. It a big, circular building that, surprisingly, looks like a
big beehive. Apparently there were plans to put the building on
wheels and move it to a quiet corner of the city. This turned out to
be too expensive, so the Wellingtonians just have to put up with it.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES: The main reason for coming here was to see
the original Treaty of Waitangi. This was the treaty signed by the
Maori tribes many years ago after the whites started settling. The
Maori didn't understand the treaty very well and so they lost out
BIG TIME. It's a big part of New Zealand history and is stored in a
huge, top-security, low-light, environmentally controlled vault.
It's kept along with the original petition signed by New Zealand
women so they could get the vote (New Zealand was the first country
to give women the vote). The rest of the collection is pretty dull,
just a seemingly random collection of artefacts from New Zealand's
past. It's interesting how a small bowl of water is kept by the door
for Maori visitors to do a 'cleansing ritual' after doing the
sacramental act of seeing the treaty.
 TE
PAPA (NATIONAL MUSEUM): This is a huge and much-hyped museum in
Wellington. Although it is undoubtedly very informative and has a
huge range of interesting exhibits, we didn't find it that
fantastic. A lot of the sections are for children and some sections
are very dry & too spaced out. The Maori exhibit was excellent
though, and especially as it's free, everyone should check it out.
We might have given it an unfair look, because we went there at the
end of a long day when we were quite tired.
NATIONAL LIBRARY: The only reason we visited here was too
check out the special exhibits gallery. I really like the satirical
cartoons about current affairs that are put in newspapers,
especially the old ones from the times of war. The library had a
good collection of them showing the Australia/New Zealand
competitive spirit & relationship. There was also another smaller
exhibit here, but not much else to see.
PORTRAIT GALLERY: This hard to find gallery is misleadingly
small. There are lots of paintings & photos of people. There are
some brilliant & moving real-life photos, but all-in-all, the
gallery is nothing amazing.
LORD OF THE RINGS EXHIBIT: By chance, we noticed a poster
telling us about this. It was just a small corner of a big room with
a selection of armour & weapons, from the film, on display. The
costumes are fantastic, they are so realistic. I would love to have
starred in the films, the armour & weapons look AMAZING! For more
information on "The Lord of the Rings" visit
this
official web site.
 All-in-all,
the galleries, displays & museums were worth the money (they're
free! :o) ). They're not earth-shattering or ground-breaking, but
they were definitely worth a visit and it didn't take long to get
round them. If you come to Wellington, check them out!
These were the main highlights of our time in Wellington. We also
checked out the Botanical gardens & Mount Victoria for some
fantastic views of Wellington. After 4 days there, we decided it was
time to move on. It was a relatively expensive place to stay and
we'd done all we wanted. Tomorrow we're off north to Taupo!
Next Diary Entry >>
|
|
To know the road ahead, ask those coming back
|
|
|
|
|
