Mount Victoria and the Botanic Gardens

Succulents in the Botanic Gardens
Classes officially started a few days ago (yes I swear I do some studying on study abroad) so my outings into Wellington have been fewer. However, I've had the chance to make a couple more trips to the Botanic (not Botanical apparently, Kiwis are strange) Gardens and hike Mount Victoria, the highest point in Wellington.

One of the many walkways in the Gardens.
Yesterday, Lindsey and I took a morning walk through the Botanic Gardens which, it turns out, are even more beautiful than I originally thought. They have multiple gardens each with a different theme, some of which I still haven't even explored. Some areas we passed through looked like rainforest while others were filled with succulents and cacti. There was even an Australian themed garden which was fairly barren...a sign of things to come or maybe just some Kiwi-Australian hostility? I guess I'll find out in about 6 weeks.

Later that night, I returned to the Gardens with a large group from my program for a country (yes American country!) concert. The Gardens offers free live concerts every night for the next 3 weeks with genres ranging from Maori (the native people of New Zealand) music to piano to jazz. The stage was lit up different colors and the plants of the Gardens were all around us which made for a pretty incredible concert venue.
The top of Mount Victoria which looks out over Wellington.


Possibly the most accurate sign I've seen in Wellington so far.
The next morning I didn't have class until 3 so a group of us decided to hike Mount Victoria. What's fun about this hike (as with most places in Wellington) is that it's uphill both ways! Regardless, the hike was still lots of fun since it involved walking through and exploring most of the city and then up to Mount Victoria. Even though today was a cloudy (and insanely windy!) day, the view was still stunning and I'll definitely be doing this hike again on a clearer day. On the way back, we stopped by a coffee shop and got milkshakes which we all thought we deserved after 5 miles. It turns out that in Wellington you could throw a rock and probably would hit a coffee shop because they have so many. What's different from America is that most of them also make delicious milkshakes. Ours came from Midnight Expresso and I don't know about anyone else, but mine definitely got me through Bio lab today. In just a couple of days, I'll be taking my first road trip outside of Wellington to the Putangirua Pinnacles and Martinborough. Until then!

~S

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