That’s about how I’d describe New Years here in Wellington. The aforementioned cancellation of the fireworks at around 5pm local time also meant all outdoor waterfront concert and activities were cancelled as well. They had no backup plan here in Wellington. Other cities moved events indoors, here in Wellington they simply said ‘too bad’. This was compounded by the fact that the rain stopped by around 7pm. The roads and ground was dry by 10pm, with only light winds. Most other places in New Zealand went on despite rain through midnight. The city council gave this comment:

“We’d rather have people safe inside somewhere than catching colds from a cold wet southerly.”

The coldest it got in Wellington last night was 11C. Brrr…I guess I’m used to Canadians celebrating New Years, outdoors, in the dead of winter. The other oddity was that none of the New Zealand TV channels captured the Auckland celebrations/countdown. It was only on an Australian new channel that switched over to show Auckland for the last 10 seconds that people even got to SEE a countdown.

Yes, I’m pretty disappointed by all this. This was to be my first New Years in a major city center for fireworks and festivities. Cancelled because the city council can’t imagine people putting a jacket on and they never had a backup plan in the event of rain or high wind.

Oh, and Wellington is well documented as the windiest major city in the world.