We occasionally get requests from people who see us as being experts on Wellington, and it’s true, we are. But so are you. So help us answer this guy’s question!

“I am looking for places/locations in the Wellington area to take a group of overseas visitors too. I am not wanting to go to the normal tourist locations but looking for places which are more weird, wacky, odd, unusual, eclectic etc……and thought you and your group members may have some suggestions/ideas. Perhaps you know someone with a house full of Barry Manilow memorabilia or an Aladdin’s cave of junk collected over the last century, a haunted house on top of a hill, hidden tunnels from WWII…………?? Basically any place of interest that you wouldn’t find in the Lonely Planet guide!”

We put our thinking caps on and came up with the following list.

  • Time Cinema
  • Wrights Hill.. Fort Dorset.. thingie point (up behind the thingie monument on Mirimar Peninsula) (not exactly hidden though). Not exactly “hidden” though…
  • Somes Island Quarantine station
  • Fever Hospital
  • Fort Ballance
  • the view from the Newlands dump
  • Carlucci Land
  • taking people to have a pie from a warmer at a dairy (that serves milkshakes)
  • the walk from Bolton Street cemetery to the gardens
  • glowworms down Curtis Street
  • Sunday on Lyall Bay beach (the dogs take over and none of them fight)
  • standing underneath a plane as it comes into land at the airport

Please add your suggestions in the comments!