Mrs Chippy

We missed breakfast again for some extra sleep. We were heading to Wellington where we’d have plenty of choices for breakfast.

Our campsite was only 30km north of the city but we joined the morning rush hour – rush hour by Wellington not UK standards – so it took us about an hour. We stored our bags for the day and started our third rapid look round Wellington.

Unusually ‘Windy Welly’ was warm, sunny and windless. First stop was 86 for a delectable flat white.

We then got a taxi to a mystery destination that Florence had found on the internet. Five minutes away from the central business area, we’re already in leafy suburbs with old wooden houses and lots of trees. The taxi dropped us next to a cemetery. Florence went into the office to find out where our target was – she came out with an A4 map with a long wiggling pink line across it – it’s a very large cemetery.

While she was in the office, I found an information board abut the wreck of the SS Penguin – New Zealand’s worst sea disaster. Most of the victims are buried here – could this be the surprise? No. We followed the path through many different sections: Chinese, Greek, Jewish, Military. Finally we were there. An unremarkable grave with a bronze cat on it, was this it? Yes but there is more. The plaque next to the grave explains that Harry McNish was the carpenter on Shackleton’s failed expedition to the South Pole. He was one of the five men who rowed with Shackleton from Elephant Island to South Georgia to get help for the remaining men. We’d seen the place where they finally reached help at the whaling station in Stromness, South Georgia last time we visited. He was known as Mr Chippy because of his wood-working skills. He also adopted the Endeavour’s cat who got the name Mrs Chippy – the name remained even after it turned out ‘she’ was a ‘he’. Sadly the decision was made that everything non-essential had to be left with the wrecked Endeavour to maximise the men’s chances of survival. Mrs Chippy was included in this and was reluctantly shot.

It’s a beautiful cemetery spreading up and down the sides of a wooded valley.

We walked back through the cemetery to the main entrance via the War Veterans section, mainly graves of former WW1 servicemen and a number of memorials to those who died but whose remains were never found.

A taxi took us to Fidel’s Cafe in Cuba Street for brunch. Very good food, smoothie and more flat white. We hadn’t seen this end of Cuba Street before. It seems a bit more bohemian than the more commercial northern end. We stocked up on warm clothes at the Icebreaker store, the weather is turning cooler and we’re heading south. The pedestrian crossings on Cuba Street have the outline of a drag queen from the 1970s for their green light figure.

Te Papa, the national museum is one of the best anywhere. We’d already spent a couple of hours there on a previous visit but there’s still a lot more to see. They currently have an exhibition detailing the Gallipoli campaign from WW1 where so many ANZAC soldiers lost their lives in an ultimately failed attempt to gain control of the Dardennelles from the Ottoman Republic. The exhibition features larger than life figures created by the studio who did a lot of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings special effects. These figures are based on real people and the story is told from their perspective. A few facts stood out – in the first part of the campaign they lost a man for every foot of ground gained, eventually it was all lost. There was a ceasefire in the middle of the campaign so that both sides could bury their dead; some of the bodies had been lying in the sun for weeks. During the ceasefire both sides swapped cigarettes and chatted – then a whistle was blown and the slaughter recommenced. The exhibition was harrowing at times. We both came out feeling emotionally drained, but it also explains very well the horror and futility of this episode which still looms large in the memory of both New Zealand and Australia.

There was still a lot of the museum to see so we picked out a few more things we could fit in: the history of the original settlers from the Pacific Islands; an earthquake simulator, the story of immigration to New Zealand and a recreation of the ‘Golden Age’ of New Zealand with many old toys and artefacts.

A combination of better weather and seeing some more interesting and unusual aspects of the city has made us like Wellington a lot more after this visit.

We had an hour to spare so we walked back along the waterfront and had a quick beer in the sun. We collected our bags and took the shuttle bus to the ferry terminal for the 17:00 sailing back to the South Island. Unlike our previous trip the sun was blazing and the sea was flat calm. As we sailed into the Marlborough Sound, the sun dropped below the hilltops, leaving just the highest points in the light.