The next morning the sun was up and it wasn’t windy so Wellington was instantly more appealing, and you could actually say it was warm. We visited the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa, which was huge and worthwhile. We spent all morning in the museum and then went to the Parliament, of course, since Hendrik was still not sick of Parliaments. First off the newest building of Parliament was so ugly it’s an eye sore. It’s a giant bee hive and it clashes with the other buildings around it which are nice. The security was also unbelievably strict very different from Canberra where everyone just freely walked around. I wasn’t too impressed with it and the tour was also boring.

The bee-hive

Then I wanted to go to the top of Mt. Victoria. I had asked the hostel receptionist how to get there and she said you just walk. No one wanted to go on a hike besides Simon so we went together. The climb was incredibly steep, so when we reached the top I was worn out and really disappointed when I saw a huge parking lot and even a city bus up top. I felt really gypped. The view was nice and we realized how spread out Wellington was. The airport was particularly interesting to me since the whole runway was visible and it had water on both ends and landing planes were clearly visible. Since we were done with Wellington we moved our ferry to the earlier start which was 8:00 AM so we had to get up early.

Wellington from Mt. Vic

We had one more day to spend in Adelaide. Because of Hendrik we visited Parliament. It was in secession so there weren’t any tours but we were able to sit in. There were hardly any people attending the meeting and those who were there were either talking amongst themselves or on their cell phones and no one was paying any attention to the man speaking on the mic. We got bored very fast too and left.

Sculpture in Adelaide

Then we went to visit Ayer’s house since we had come after hours the day before. We had a nice guided tour of the house which was interesting especially how fondly the old woman giving the tour talked of Sir Henry Ayers and was very proud that Australia’s icon the Ayers Rock was named after him. It was a complete 360 from what we recalled Captain Kirk saying at Fraser Island that he was happy that Ayers Rock is finally once again being called by its aboriginal name Uluru. I guess the differing in opinion is the reason for the rock’s double name. In 1993, it was renamed “Ayers Rock/Uluru” and became the first officially dual-named feature in the Northern Territory. The order of the dual names was officially reversed to “Uluru/Ayers Rock” in 2002. Since we were flying there the next day we were interested in learning about the rock.

Canberra is an interesting city since it’s new and plotted out to be a government city, which really reminded me of Washington D.C because of the symmetry.  The difference was that D.C is very pedestrian friendly and tourists stroll to all the monuments and buildings without a problem. Canberra is a very car oriented city. The first thing we visited was City Hill, a large park in the middle of a roundabout with a flagpole in the centre. The thing was that there were no pedestrian crossings to City Hill, so we had to dash across the three lane roundabout. There were park benches for people to utilise but no safe way for people to get there. On another occasion to get from the parliament building to the part of the city which had restaurants we found ourselves running across 3 different highways that had no pedestrian crossing, so that was an adventure in itself.  I thought the city plan was a bit ridiculous.

Also, it was rather unkempt. The main area in front of parliament was nice but City Hill was rather untidy.  This is probably because no one could get there easily to maintain it. There was also a path along the lake which led to the National museum of Australia which reminded me of the path that leads to the Jefferson Memorial but it wasn’t pretty at all, so that aspect needs some work. The National Museum had some really nice exhibits and was very informative and it’s well worth spending a few hours there.

Us on top of Parliament. In front is the old parliament and all the way in the back is Australian War Memorial

Next we visited the parliament building which was very spectacular. It is fairly new, opening in 1988 and therefore, it’s a very modern building with some interesting architecture. I particularly liked that the lawn stretched all the way to the top of it and the roof was basically a lawn which visitors could visit. We took the tour and learned about the building and the Australian government; it’s free so it’s well worth doing.

Parliament

Next we visited the old parliament which was much less impressive and the tour was too detailed and focused on politicians which I’ve never heard of so it was geared towards Australians. I didn’t particularly enjoy the old parliament but it was clear to see why they needed a new one.

Then we popped into the National Gallery of Australia which was also a good museum and we wanted to spend more time there but since it was 5:00 it closed and we had to leave.