Flowers, a cannon, stars and a long walk

    It seemed so easy when I looked on the map... go right on The Terrace after leaving our apartment building and follow the street to Salamanca then go right again and follow that road to the botanical gardens and the Carter Observatory...
    It wasn't easy, not at all. First off, the map wasn't drawn to scale and so what seemed like a short walk was actually more than two miles long. Second, the map made the route look, well, flat.
    It wasn't.
    It.Was.All.Up.Hill.
    Every single step.
    Making the climb from the apartment building to the botanical gardens and the observatory was not something I want to do very often... okay, true confession time: It's not something I want to do ever again. Truthfully, if my pride hadn't been involved I would have turned around about halfway there, gone back to our apartment and ordered pizza (yeah, Domino's delivers here in Wellington.) My pride, however, which has always overruled my good sense, did get involved and so I kept slogging onward and upward to keep my somewhat rash promise to meet Elena, Josep and his cousin Elena at the observatory at 1:30 p.m.
    It took me almost 90 minutes to make the climb so I arrived a little before 2 p.m. to find them waiting for me outside the observatory. We went inside just in time to catch the 2 o'clock show, which is divided into two parts: A film showing the history of the space race followed by a nice presentation on the night sky over Wellington that is tailored to the specific date you're there. Pretty impressive really.
    I very much enjoyed both the film and the presentation and not just because I was able to sit down in an extremely comfortable chair for more than an hour, though that fact increased my enjoyment about 100 percent.
    Elena, Josep and Elena had wandered through the botanical gardens before I got there so they managed to see a lot more than I did. I saw part of it as I was staggering uphill to the observatory, which sits at the highest point in the gardens. This is winter so not everything was in bloom but there were still some beautiful flowers and some wonderful old trees on my route. I suspect the gardens are spectacular in the late spring and summer.
    Not far from the observatory is a climatological station and a small rest area that has a captured World War I cannon facing Wellington Harbor. From that point you have a very nice view of the city and the landscape across the harbor.
    I was not anxious to face the walk back, even though it would be all downhill, but fortunately I didn't have to: Elena wanted to try the famous cable car ride that takes you from the observatory hill to Lambton Quay and so we did.
    The result was a relaxing ride down, which probably saved me from a stroke.

This German cannon was captured during World War I by Kiwis from Wellington serving in the New Zealand Division.

Not all the flowers in the botanical gardens were in bloom because it's winter but some were and they were beautiful.

Josep and his cousin Elena at the cable car that brought us down the mountain to Lambton Quay and saved me from a stroke.

The Carter Observatory in Wellington.

A very unique sundial at the observatory... you stand on the slab in front of the small pillars of stone and it tells you the exact time of day. Pretty cool.

The botanical gardens from the top of the hill.

A view of Wellington and the harbor from the botanical gardens.