Wellington Botanic Garden

I sometimes make less of an effort to sightsee in the city I’m living in. I find myself saying, “I can do that next weekend.” Is anyone else guilty of this? No more, I say.

After about three months of living in Wellington, I finally wandered into the Wellington Botanic Garden. Even though my most recent Canadian home had mild winters, I’m still delighted when greenery can blossom in winter. Fresh clean air! Birdsongs! The ability to stay outside for more than ten minutes! How wonderful.

The garden has been around for more than 100 years and is so much fun to stroll through. Whether you’re a begonia fan or just looking for a beautiful walk, I guarantee spending time here will make you feel good. I decided to film part of my audition video here; naturally, the day I came back it was overcast. (But still beautiful!) I also stumbled across the Peace Garden and learned that Wellington has been an officially nuclear-weapon-free zone since the early 1980’s.

I’ll bet when you take a moment to relax, you don’t visualise congested 5pm traffic, airports, or birthday parties for five-year-olds. I’m guessing you picture something more soothing and peaceful. Next time you need a break, I suggest the Wellington Botanic Garden.

Improvised Fun

There is a place called The Fringe Bar on Cuba Street in Wellington. It's a great place for comedy. I've been checking out the Wellington Improvisation Troupe's Wednesday night improv shows. Funny stuff! If you're a local, there are workshops you can take to learn how to develop your spontaneous enthusiasm. :)

The second annual NZ Improv Festival will be happening October

7th to 10th in Wellington. There will be improvisers from all over NZ, as well as a group from Melbourne. Should be hilarious, if the regular WIT shows are anything to go by! Info is available on the WIT website. I'm guessing it will sell out.

Capital Architecture

A quick Google Image search for “Wellington Harbour“ will show you how pretty the waterfront is. It’s a natural amphitheatre. Quite compact and flat, the city centre is easily explored on foot. This gives way to hills dotted with houses. The tricky thing about the terrain is that the forces that created it are also capable of destroying it.

Wellington is very much in earthquake territory. A major fault line runs through the city, with active parallel faults close by. Minor quakes happen regularly, but many locals I’ve spoken with joke that “the big one” is overdue.

This has meant rethinking how buildings are designed, and in some cases, earthquake-proofing existing structures. Parliament House is a great example of this. A New Zealander pioneered the technology that has essentially earthquake-proofed buildings up to about 7 or 7.5 on the Richter scale. (Info from sciencelearn.org.nz. They have a fantastic video that explains the technology.)

A short distance from Parliament is Old St. Paul’s cathedral. It was built in the mid 1800’s in 19^th century Gothic Revival style. At present, the building is not earthquake-proof. I’m not sure how it would be done, but this place is worth protecting. Native timber, rich stained glass…it’s not hard to understand why this is an extremely popular place for weddings and other functions.

And I think the Government Buildings Historic Reserve is worth a look. It’s the largest wooden building in the southern hemisphere. That’s right. Wooden. Made to look like stone. It’s quite impressive. You can visit part of it; the rest is used as the Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington. The statue is of former Prime Minister Peter Fraser.

Finally for today, I think it's neat that given the right time of day, even the motorway can help make the skyline look impressive...

Archives NZ

I spent about six weeks working at New Zealand’s national archives building in July / August 2009.

It was fascinating. The majority of their collection is stored on massive shelving units that each weigh about the same as a bus. Thanks to physics, much easier to move.

Photo taken with permission from Archives NZ

My time was spent retrieving items from the stacks and lots of digitizing. Some records are restricted; others are available for public viewing. I retrieved requests for a plane crash investigation from the 1920’s, coroner’s reports, wills, land development plans, etc.

Yesterday was the 70th anniversary of the start of WWII, and there are many WWII records at Archives NZ. One soldier’s diary describes his capture, imprisonment, and life as a POW in Italy in the early 1940’s. Another diary described a POW’s run-in at gun point with Mussolini. I also read how some POWs felt when they received their Canadian Red Cross care packages. Bars of soap! Chocolate! Real socks! The soldier wrote that the men would never, ever be able to find words to express how much joy the little care packages gave them, how they lived for these moments and that at times it was getting these small tokens that gave them enough hope to survive a few days more.

Individuals frequently look for war records of family members. As requests come in the files are scanned and put online for public viewing. It was difficult not to feel moved by the piles and piles of envelopes, knowing so many have the word ‘DECEASED’ generically stamped across the front page. One file had these words: "discharged due to wounds received in action. Location of wound: left leg. (Blown off)" Just like that. Blown off. In parentheses.

Perhaps most moving of all are the "Fit for Service" forms. One side of the paper might read "Farmer from Otago" and on the other side "Killed in Action, Gallipoli, June 10 1915."

Working at Archives NZ has given me a much greater appreciation of the written word.

Something I learned: UNESCO has created a program called the Memory of the World. Countries submit records believed to be significant to the recorded history of the human race. Everything from the Canadian Hudson’s Bay Company Archival Records to the Wizard of Oz to the earliest known record of the Phoenician alphabet (“generally believed to be the ancestor of almost all modern alphabets” says Wikipedia) has been registered. As of August 2009 New Zealand has two records on the list – the Treaty of Waitangi and the 1893 Women’s Suffrage Petition. Both of these documents are housed at Archives NZ and are available for the public to view, free of charge.

I think that's pretty cool.