As we left Napier we headed to Whanganui as it was about half way to Wellington and I felt a 6 hour drive (on some of these roads) was too much for Ted! Okay, too much for me - to be honest!
The 3+ hours went by pretty easily and though I then tbought we could have done 6 hrs, then we would missed this gem of a town. Whanganui sits along the massive Whanganui River, which we found out is quite popular with rowing teams. There were several teams staying at our Holiday Top 10 and I was even mistaken for one of the ‘kids’ at dinner time, much to Ted’s dismay lol
We were only in Whanganui for 2 full days, but we made the most out walking around the town and checking out all the wall murals - there were dozens. We had great weather so all the walking was easy and fun. Whanganui is quite the artist town with many galleries (and it was Opera week while we were there - who knew!). We did stumble into a glassblowing gallery and ultimately bought a piece - titled ‘Tying the Knot’ - which we thought appropriate.
The biggest thing we did in Whanganui was the Bushy Park hike. It was a hike recommended by the iSite for bird lovers (ted) - so I was game and we went. I have to say it was a blast walking through this lush forest looking for birds. It sort of became a scavenger hunt for me to find the birds - then go find Ted- and then get Ted to get the pictures. It was fun and it was a great for it too.
We spent an afternoon at teh Sarjeant Art Gallery, which is a stunning building - for what is a pretty small town. The original Gallery build by Mr. Sarjeant’s widow to store the artwork they had bought from all over the world. However, the Gallery fell into disarray in the 70’s so they started a capital campaign to raise money to repair the original structure and a new modern wing that over arches the original building - so you get this combination of stone and glass - it’s pretty impressive. Also impressive was that they raised 80 million for the campaign - we were shocked to hear that. Clearly, there is money in this neck of NZ.
Another super fun activity was crossing the Whanganui River to teh Durie Hill Elevator. The elevator is NZ’s only public underground elevator and was built to facilitate access to the new hilltop suburb. It is only 1 of 2 elevators in the world that service a hill suburb in a town. The other one is in Lisbon and Ted and I were at that one too - so, it was pretty neat to see go through the tunnel, ride the elevator, and climb the tower . The elevator has an operator (really friendly woman) who has worked there for 1 year, but replaced a woman who did that job for 35 years - can you imagine.
At the top you get panoramic views of Whanganui, as well as Mt Ruapehu and Mt Ngauruhoe in the distance (on a clear day) AND it was clear so our views were awesome. There was also a tower build to honour the fallen hero’s of WW1 and we climbed all 179 steps to the top for additional views out to the ocean - it was a random recommendation by the iSite chap and so well worth doing.
Below are some of the wall murals and sculptures we saw, Ted fooling around (or being told to stand still so I could take a funny picture, the Durie Hill tunnel, elevator, and tower, and Botanical Gardens of Whanganui.
I will send pics of some of the birds Ted captured or he will be mad I did not …
Cheers
Robert and Ted
