North of Civic Square

Near lively Queens Wharf, a Victorian former bond store houses the absorbing Museum of Wellington City and Sea. The city’s social and maritime history unfolds through well-executed displays on early Maori and European settlement and the city’s seafaring heritage. The ground floor offers an easily digestible chronological overview of key events, while the main focus of the first floor is the poignant coverage of the Wahine disaster, remembering the inter-island ferry that sank with the loss of 52 lives on April 10, 1968. The Wahine foundered in one of New Zealand’s most violent storms ever, with 734 people on board. On the top floor, a hologram presentation tells the Maori legends of the creation of Wellington Harbour, while rising up through the centre of the building, a tall screen features a roster of short films. There are also museum tours, including the popular Ship ’n Chip tour which involves a ferry trip to Matiu/Somes Island and fish and chips for lunch.

A lookout at the top of the Cable Car provides spectacular views over the city. Here, you’re also at the highest point of Wellington’s Botanic Gardens, a huge swathe of green on peaceful rolling hills with numerous paths that wind down towards the city. Pick up the useful free map from the Cable Car Museum.

Lady Norwood Rose Garden and Begonia House

The star in the Botanic Garden’s firmament is the fragrant Lady Norwood Rose Garden, where a colonnade of climbing roses frames beds of over three hundred varieties set out in a formal wheel shape. The adjacent Begonia House is divided into two areas: the tropical, with an attractive lily pond, and the temperate, which has seasonal displays of begonias and gloxinias in summer, changing to cyclamen, orchids and impatiens in winter.

Carter Observatory

Two minutes’ walk from the upper Cable Car terminus is the fabulous, revamped, 1941 Carter Observatory, which has illuminating displays on the New Zealand angle on the exploration of the southern skies, from Maori and Pacific Island astronomy and astronavigation through to recent planet searches. Of particular note are a telescope from Captains Cook’s era, a piece of moon rock you can touch and the chance to launch a rocket – you man the console, initiate the launch and feel the ground shake as you view the footage of the space bound projectile. Make time to catch one of the jaw-dropping planetarium shows that include live night sky viewings.

The northern end of Lambton Quay marks the start of the Parliamentary District, dominated by the grandiose Old Government Buildings, which at first glance appear to be constructed from cream stone, but are really wooden. Designed by colonial architect William Clayton (1823–77) to mark the country’s transition from provincial to centralized government, the intention was to use stone but cost-cutting forced a rethink. When completed in 1876, it was the largest building in New Zealand, and except for an ornamental palace in Japan remains the largest timber building in the world. It’s currently occupied by Victoria University’s Law Faculty, but you can usually duck inside, nip up the rimu staircase and see the series of photos of the building as a backdrop to various historical demonstrations and protests.

A ten-minute walk north from the cathedrals through Thorndon gets you to the Katherine Mansfield Birthplace, a modest wooden house with small garden that was Mansfield’s childhood abode. The house has a cluttered Victorian/Edwardian charm and avant-garde decor for its time, inspired by Japonisme and the Aesthetic Movement. An upstairs room is set aside to recount a history of the author’s life and career, with some black-and-white photos of Wellington and the people that shaped her life – and videos including the excellent A Woman and a Writer.