Tuesday, February 25, 2025 – Because of its location in the ‘Roaring Forties’ latitudes and its exposure to the winds blowing through Cook Strait, Wellington is known as the world’s windiest city. The average daily wind speed is 27 km/h (17 mph). It showed its true colors on our visit as it was quite windy, definitely over 17 mph. In addition to its wind, there are many very steep hills to navigate. Unless you’re looking for a workout, it’s not a great walking city once you get above the area close to the water.
Another tidbit is it’s located in one of the most active of New Zealand’s seismic regions. Approximately 100 tremors occur every day and about every six months, a ‘real’ earthquake (over magnitude 2.5) occurs.
We drove through the waterfront area of the city, then on to the top of Mt. Victoria which has a 360° view of Wellington and surrounding area. After the oohs and aahs slowed down, we made our way to ocean level again and visited Lyall Bay. The beach was very flat and had a lot of shells and small stones. My kind of place, but I was constrained on time.
We followed a waterfront road around a tip of the island, after that we went through the downtown area and rode the Wellington cable car (funicular) to the top of another big hill. Beautiful vistas on a beautiful day.
Wellington is the Hollywood of New Zealand. We drove around the area and visited one of Weta Studios, which specializes in special effects. A couple of examples below
Another interesting fact about the city is that it has around 400 privately-owned cable cars. They enable residents to go up (or down) from the street level parking to their home. When houses are sold that have cable car only access, they are typically sold fully furnished. Otherwise, the furniture has to be airlifted out of the home by a helicopter, and new buyers have to airlift in their new furniture.
Travels with Nance 