Travel report: Wellington, New Zealand

vivianimbriotis | Sept. 18, 2025, 10:22 a.m.

I don't think I am very good at taking holidays. I feel like I am doing it wrong and missing something. Vacationing seems to come naturally to most, but like many things in life, seems to have passed me by. Nonetheless, I enjoyed my time in wellington, which was a nice town while it lasted.

The official story is that the fog and clouds descended on the city and swallowed it whole. This is the leading theory among most commentators - the fog had nearly done this on several previous occasions, and it seems like the kind of thing the clouds would do.

Others disagreed, and said Kupe had at last come back, and loaded all the people and buildings onto forty-by-forty vessels, and had directed them deep into the pacific, to an even longer, even whiter island. Confirmation of this theory will come if Newer Zealand applies for membership status to the UN.

Some said Kupe fed them all to the Te Papa giant squid.

In any event, the disappearance of Wellington is surely causing issues for the New Zealand state, which finds itself without a capital. Auckland has naturally refused, of course (it is a very busy place, with no room for anything as unmercantile as politics). I do so hope they figure it out.

As for me, I got out of Wellington just in time. It remains unclear to me if this is cause for celebration. I would have liked to talk to Kupe, but I do sometimes get terribly seasick. Alternatively it would be nice to be in the clouds - I've always fancied that they look delicious, and I'm sure they have cloudstuff to spare so I can chew on some.

It was nice to meet you, Wellington. You are so like my beloved Tasmania in some ways. I find myself wondering, idly, if you'll come back one day. Maybe I could visit again? Perhaps, by that time, I'll have figured out how to have holidays properly.