Wellington

Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand. It is a harbour city nicknamed Windy Wellington and promotes itself as "Absolutely Positively Wellington". Its motto "Suprema a situ" claims site supremacy - with some justification.

Wellington has become home to a myriad of high-profile events and cultural celebrations, including the biennial New Zealand International Arts Festival, biennial Wellington Jazz Festival, and major events such as World of Wearable Art, Cuba Street Carnival, New Zealand Fringe Festival, New Zealand International Comedy Festival (also hosted in Auckland), Summer City, The Wellington Folk Festival (in Wainuiomata), New Zealand Affordable Art Show, The New Zealand Sevens Weekend and Parade, Out in the Square, Vodafone Homegrown, and numerous film festivals.

Wellington has a lot of restaurants and cafes, in fact more cafes, bars and restaurants per head than New York City. Malaysian food is surprisingly popular and available in most areas. You can also get good Lebanese kebabs anywhere in the city. Fish and chips is the best value food and you usually get better quality in the suburbs.

Wellington has a bustling nightlife, concentrated along Courtenay Place, one of the major streets running from the CBD. It runs through Te Aro and ends in Mt Victoria. The nightlife along this strip causes this street to have the highest population density in all of New Zealand on Friday and Saturday nights. In most establishments, drinks are remarkably affordable (~NZ$6), and cover charges are either nonexistent or minimal. In some of the better clubs reasonable dress standards apply, however in the day the mood is usually extremely causal, with flip-flop (Called Jandals in New Zealand) and even bare feet occasionally accepted (a common Kiwi choice on hotter days). Cuba Mall also features some cool and more alternative bars.

Wellington is known as the Windy City. The prevailing wind is from the northwest but the strongest winds are southerly. The wind speed and direction can be seen by the flag being flown from the Beehive. A large flag is flown only on calm days, a small flag is flown when windy days are expected.

The temperature in Wellington rarely drops below 0°C, even on a cold winter's night, while daytime winter temperatures are rarely lower than 8°C. During summer, the daytime maximum temperature rarely gets above 25°C. Away from the seaside, in inland valleys, frosts of up to -10°C have been recorded and snow has been known to fall and settle on the nearby mountain ranges for a few days after particularly nasty southerly storms.