After a three-month circumnavigation of New Zealand’s South Island, we’re back in Wellington. We first visited here in January, after spending a few weeks in the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park. On our first visit, we arrived in unusually calm conditions for “Windy Welly” and anchored for the night off Oriental Bay, with beautiful Carter Fountain as a backdrop. The following day we moved to Chaffer’s Marina, an excellent facility right off downtown Wellington, and we returned there directly on our second visit.

Wellington Harbour is a busy commercial port. Both at anchor and from the marina, we enjoyed watching ships come and go. Seas can be extreme in Cook Strait, between the north and south islands. The ferries that ply this channel, pictured third and fourth below, look built for serious weather.

The city is bordered on one side by its harbour, with steep hills around much of the rest. We took our bikes up 196-meter Mt Victoria for 360-degree views. The picture at the top of this post was taken from there.

West of the city center, we rode the cable car up to Kelburn. Wellington is so steep that expanding the city was difficult–the cable car was installed in the early 1900s to encourage residency up the hill in Kelburn. Victoria University is there as well.

Wellington has among the most beautiful downtown waterfronts we’ve ever seen–they’ve done a fabulous job in converting it from it’s commercial roots, but still letting some show through. Along the waterfront and throughout the city are literally dozens of sculptures and other artwork. We discovered something new every time we went out.

The city also is full of excellent restaurants, with heavy emphasis on outdoor seating. We had a hard time leaving the first time, and we’re having similar difficulty this time around.

Click the travel log icon on the left to see these locations and more on a map, with the complete log of our trip to and stay in Wellington. On the map page, clicking on a camera or text icon will display a picture and/or log entry for that location, and clicking on the smaller icons along the route will display latitude, longitude and other navigation data for that location. And a live map of our current route and most recent log entries always is available at http://www.mvdirona.com/maps/LocationCurrent.html.