Actually it is Thursday January 14....

...but our computer obstinately sticks to Washington time. We are getting to the end of a beautiful day that will no doubt be remembered as Wellington's summer. Joan is in the kitchen cooking venison burgers. I have to reach for the binoculars again and again as the sailboats from the sailing school heel over in a stiff southerly wind. The sailors look very competent and I doubt if we will have a repetition of our drama of the capsize last week.

We started the week with another Sunday of miserable weather. After a pleasant get-together with our very hospitable new-found Wellington friends, we started to walk down into the Botanic Gardens for an outdoor concert...it was raining a little, but it got worse and worse. But there were these hardy New Zealanders wrapped in rain-gear, swathed in tarpaulins, sitting on groundsheets, listening to some very good music from a couple of women singers. And others, in the lashing rain, were actually dancing. We ended up soaked...my umbrella blown inside out (umbrellas are not much good in Wellington winds).

On the Monday we drove up the coast to visit some friends of an IMF colleague at Waekenae. They were two very charming ex-government employees, retired close to a wonderful beach. Enthusiastic trampers (as serious hikers are called here): they have tramped almost every major trail in New Zealand with their 15 kilo packs on their backs--staying in huts along the way. The hike they took us on had some drawbacks--as usual after a serious uphill climb, the descent was more problematic, with a couple of falls, and eventually the trail was blocked by a fallen tree, which meant we had no alternative (other than going all the way back up the step descent we had just made) but to trespass on private land, climbing over barbed wire fences and eventually squeezing through a locked gate at the end of a long private drive. At the top of the climb we did have a great panorama. And that is the first photo shown above. But it was not at all a bad day, and we really enjoyed the company of our hosts.

I have just read Joan's triumph of cutting and pasting the Top Forty from the NZ Concert Channel. Yes, it is an excellent program, and it could never exist, I am sure, if it had to rely on advertising. The audience cannot be very large, and the program does so much more than provide musical wallpaper, which is what our local Washington station does.

Now...the picture above? On Wednesday we did a pleasant and not overly taxing hike in what is called the East Harbour Park, accompanied by our Wellington friend and (twice) generous hostess, Helen. As you can see, the hike is called the Butterfly Creek walk, and it ended at a picnic area, where picture below was taken. We were not tempted to swim, although the water in the picture is described as a swimming hole.

Helen had some kitchen knives she wanted sharpened, and after the hike, and a beer and sausage roll at a cafe overlooking the sea, we went to a store with more knives than I have ever seen before. Every sort of knife you could think of--from Swiss Army to Sabatier.

Thursday--today. Up to what is one of the highest points around Wellington--Mount Kaukau, where a huge TV transmitter stands. Always noticeable in night as it has a very bright light. The mountain is not that high in absolute terms--about 450 metres--but it is not far from sea level and so it is quite a climb and the views are spectacular. Google maps showed us the route to the starting point--up, up, up, round the usual hairpins to an area called Khandallah, where the trailhead was at a community swimming pool, filled with kids. Lots of roads with 'colonial' names--Kenya Rd., Burma Rd., Lucknow Rd., but Cornwall was represented by Trelissick Park.

Photo taken at the top of the climb by an immigrant from Slovakia. On the way down we had a long conversation with a Dutchman who had come here in the early 'fifties. There's a great variety of immigrant groups here. (Why are most of the checkers-out in the supermarkets Chinese?)

This was part of the spectacular view. The circle in the middle is the WestPac Stadium--WestPac is a bank--where some of the World Cup Rugby will be played. It is referred to as 'The Tin Can.'

On the road back down. The cafe by the swimming pool had sun-block available for patrons who ate their food outside in the sun. And now, at 8.00pm--just before we walk down to the sea to get an ice-cream, the TV tower is completely blotted out by cloud, and the southerly wind is whistling. So--though the glorious sunny day was untypical, the ending in cloud and wind is only too typical.

No boat has capsized...one from the sailing school is going back on just the main, the other just on the jib. We debate whether it is woth going out...

Posted by David on Thursday January 14, 2010