Cockneys, Tramps and Squids

Tuesday 30th March 2010, 6.05pm, Espressoholic, Cuba Street - Wellington

So this is my third day in the capital city, and the first place I have been to in New Zealand which actually looks like a city, I can't see any mountains! It's all high rise buildings, department stores, museums and terraced housing. Sure there's a beautiful waterfront, and some pristine Botanical Gardens that Ella and I wandered around this morning, but Wellington is most definitely a city in the truest sense of the word. It's also very windy here, the windiest destination in New Zealand apparently, so that even when the sun is shining - as it is doing so well today - there's a constant chasing chill in the air. You'd think I'd have more to say about a place other than 'it's windy' after spending nearly 72 hours here wouldn't you, but I'm kind of struggling to articulate it actually. It's, nice. That awful, inconsequential and unimaginatively bland adjective, perfectly NICE. But I am having trouble fathoming why if you lived in New Zealand, this would be your choice of residency - other than for employment reasons. I guess living in the remoteness of the countryside is only financially viable if you happen to be good at sheep shearing, and loneliness.

Wellington's crowning glory, and the road on which I currently perch, is Cuba Street. Other Kiwi Experience travellers who have already been to Wellington before me are all exacting in their instructions to head here for any kind of stimulation or entertainment, and were all unanimously and curiously suggestive that it would be a good street on which to 'freak watch'. Well, I'm sitting here now and nothing about the passers-by is striking me as freakish at all. And I have just realised why. Cuba Street is East London. The buskers are drunk and incomprehensible, the restaurants are either Indian, Vegan or Bagel based, the shops sell Vintage, the pubs are uncompromisingly rustic and the dress code is "distressed", the coffee comes by the pint, and the characters are colourful and outlandish - in their clothing and their showmanship. But East London is where I spend most of my time at home, so of course none of this in-your-face individualism and embracing of ethnicity would seem strange to me, it's what I know! All is clear now, I suddenly understand why all the grounded, salt of the earth Northerners I have been talking to would consider Cuba Street's resident clientele an abnormal breed - they've not spent any time on Brick Lane. I'm such a sleuth.

The other thing of interest I will care to tell you about in Wellington is the presence of a colossal squid, not a giant squid, colossal squids are different, and much bigger. Uh-huh. Yesterday morning I spent a few hours perusing the artefacts and displays at Te Papa Museum. I like museums, especially when they are free, and they provide me with lots of information and educational facts that I can, at a later date, reel off the tip of my tongue in the semblance of being an informed and intelligent human being. However, my patience for them does have its limitations, and after a couple of hours I inevitably become bored of learning, and simply want to look at weird and wonderful things so that I can make appreciative 'oooh, ahhhh, ewwww' noises. This museum fit my specifications perfectly as it is the kind of interactive establishment that is aimed at engaging 12 year olds. I would always have been the child at the Science Museum moaning, 'I don't caaaaare how electricity works Da-aaaddd. Can we go on the space voyager ride now?'. So whilst companions of mine continued to dutifully walk around at a snail's pace, intently and with furrowed eyebrows reading each placard about fossils (yawn), I went with the other children to play on the earthquake simulator, watch the 3D submarine view film, run around a Maori village set, and look at the colossal squid.

In a 6ft long tank, a 495 kilogram beast, the world's largest invertebrate, lies preserved in death for the benefit of museum visitors. In February 2007, the long-lining vessel San Aspiring was fishing for toothfish in Antarctica when it got a bigger pull on the line than it was expecting. A live colossal squid was hauled up to the boat, and realising the value of such a catch, the crew put her on ice, freezing her to death. Under the conditions imposed on exploratory fishing in New Zealand and Antarctic waters by the New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries, the specimen legally belonged to them. In May 2007 the Minister of Fisheries, Jim Anderton, formally gifted the specimen to Te Papa Museum in a ceremony held at the Tory Street laboratories in Wellington. It's quite a thing to behold, lying there, a gigantic monstrosity, suspended and pickled in its watery grave, and in a city with little less charisma than Birmingham, to my mind, a giant dead squid in residence is more than worthy of my recording.

Neither could I write about Wellington without telling you about The World's Most Famous Tramp. He is known all over New Zealand, and apart from Cuba Street, the other highlight fellow travellers told me I should look out for, is Blanket Man, a permanent and unchanging fixture on these streets. I didn't have to look too far. Rounding the corner from the hostel on my first morning here I almost fell right over him, sat discreetly and quietly as he was on the corner. I had been previously concerned that I might miss this New Zealand institution, and so tripping over him so unexpectedly caused me to delightedly exclaim out loud, 'There you are!'. He looks like Bob Marley, but his skin is darker and more freckled, his dread-locked beard greyer. He is thin but lean and muscular, he certainly doesn't seem like he's been short of food donations. His expression is open and childlike and all he wears, as his name suggests, is a faded denim flat cap, and a thoroughly worn, blue tartan blanket thrown over his unmentionables. Blanket Man is apparently aware of his fame, as my outburst only elicited from him a smile and a cheeky, 'Here I am!'. He then held out one of his cigarettes in my direction, but remembering some childhood warning about not accepting gifts from strangers (which probably includes fags from tramps) I gratefully declined.

My apologies now to any residents of Wellington who feel I may have unfairly and too nonchalantly overlooked the charms of their city, do feel free to e-mail with your complaints and I'll be happy to list for you, ooh, 5000 other more interesting places to live. Let me extend to you though my partial congratulations for the areas you excel in: recreating Shoreditch, capturing giant sea creatures, and the world's most unflappable and amiable tramp.