Wonderful, wordy Wellington

ANNE ELSE explores the capital's literary landmarks from a booklover's B&B

It's not every city that boasts a bed and breakfast run by a best-selling author. After a daunting restoration job, Jane Tolerton (Ettie, Convent Girls) started her unique Booklovers B & B in a dignified two-storey 1895 house, in Wellington's Mt Victoria, as part of a master plan. "It was meant to let me combine writing with earning an income - but it does tend to take over. I don't mind, because it's such good fun."

The name attracts book people of all kinds. When a visiting couple from the United States asked Jane where they could buy old linen as a present for a friend back home, the friend turned out to be author Toni Morrison.

Why Booklovers? Besides the well-stocked bookcases, it's a bonus to find that every bedside table has a reading light and Jane keeps a special pile of books that you can start reading and take home to finish.

It's the perfect base for exploring literary Wellington. First stop must be Katherine Mansfield's birthplace at 25 Tinakori Rd, the meticulously restored house where the writer spent her first five years. She describes leaving it in Prelude:

"The dining room window had a square of coloured glass at each corner. One was blue and one was yellow. A little Chinese Lottie came out on to the lawn and began to dust the tables and chairs with a corner of her pinafore. Was that really Lottie? Kezia was not quite sure until she had looked through the ordinary window."

And oddly enough, there's a hint of the Orient in the fashionable decorative style chosen by Katherine's mother, Annie Beauchamp, from the fan-patterned wallpaper to the bamboo-shaped balustrades.

Further up Tinakori Rd, are plenty of choices of places to eat. Aubergine is my pick - it isn't cheap, but everything on the menu is delicious, and the servings aren't uncomfortably large on top of Jane's generous breakfast.

Virtually nothing of Mansfield's settings remain in suburban Karori so it's a much better idea to go to the waterfront and catch the ferry across to Eastbourne, where Mansfield based her finest New Zealand story, At the Bay.

While you can't visit either of the Beauchamp family's holiday homes (the wooden cottage behind 283 Muritai Rd, and the house sitting on the rocks at Day's Bay), you can sit peacefully in the sandhills and read yourself back into the complex world she created two years before she died in Europe at the age of 34.

Wellington has some of the country's best new and secondhand bookshops, from Unity and Dymock's to Quilter's and Ferret.

Next day I take my finds - a reprint of Tutira, the new edition of Robin Hyde's poems - to Victoria St, through the metal nikau palms guarding the city library, and upstairs to Clark's for a coffee. Then I set off to do the Wellington Writer's Walk along the waterfront.

This idea was dreamed up by the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors. As they point out in their guide, "Writing is not an art form usually displayed publicly; we wanted to make it more visible and to encourage visitors and Wellingtonians to be more aware of our literary heritage."

So they set in concrete a series of quotes from well-known New Zealand writers with Wellington connections and placed them along the waterfront, from Chaffers Marina to Frank Kitts Park.

Mansfield is followed by 10 others, from James K. Baxter and Robin Hyde to Lauris Edmond and Denis Glover. I read them all as I walk, turning from their elegant solidity to the ruffled blue sea alongside. But it's Edmond's words I come back to: It's true you can't live here by chance,/You have to do and be, not simply watch/Or even describe. This is the city of action/The world headquarters of the verb.

Peter Jackson would certainly agree. A literary weekend can be stretched to include The Lord of the Rings. It's best to take one of the special tours to see the film locations on offer but I confine my homage to a drive around the harbour and a long, slow reviving drink at the seaside cafe favoured by the film-makers, the renowned Chocolate Fish.


WHERE TO FIND IT

Booklovers Bed & Breakfast, 123 Pirie St, Mt Victoria, Wellington

Phone (04) 384 2714, mobile 021 262 3120

Email booklovers@xtra.co.nz

WHAT IT COSTS

Rates range from $80-$100 single; $120-160 double, including breakfast (and free book if needed). Whole house rental is also available.

GETTING THERE

About 10 minutes' drive from the airport and the inter-island ferry terminal.

GETTING AROUND

A short walk to downtown Wellington. The bus to the city stops at the door.

WHAT TO DO

Wander round historic Thorndon, visit the Katherine Mansfield birthplace, catch the ferry to Eastbourne, browse the bookshops, tour Lord of the Rings locations, visit Te Papa, follow the waterfront Writer's Walk.

WHERE TO EAT

Aubergine, 322 Tinakori Rd; Flappers, 241 Tinakori Rd ; Chocolate Dayz, 14 Marine Drive, Day's Bay; Chocolate Fish, 497A Karaka Bay Rd, Seatoun.