Wellington, Capital of New Zealand

Sitting at the heart of New Zealand, the Wellington region has so much to offer. Nestled between green hills and a sparkling harbour at the south end of the North Island, the city is full of things just waiting to be discovered. We got off to a rocky start with our visit to Wellington--we had a wonderful time in the departure lounge in Christchurch waiting for the short and affordable flight to Wellington. We were pleasantly surprised that there is not security check, no restrictions on liquids to be carried on and a sense of stepping back in to a pre-9/11 world of air travel. We boarded our old school plane, and buckled in, only to be told 20 minutes later that the plane had an unfixable mechanical problem, and we would need a new plane. That was the end of our troubles though. We had what had originally seemed like a too late dinner resrevation that suddenly was just perfect. We landed about 6:40PM, hopped in a cab within minutes, and arrived at our apartment hotel at 6:57PM (desk closes at 7PM)--we dropped all our luggage and went back down the elevator to scoot down the block for our dinner reservation--arriving at 7:03PM, just a few minutes late and lo and behold our table wasn't even ready. Our luck held, and we had good food and nice walks around Wellington. You can skip Auckland but don't skip Wellington!