Summer in Wellington

This is a story posted by John-Paul. It's rather long, so please take your time to read it. Have fun!

Our Summer activities in Wellington

- 2006-12-23: Simply Paris and other cafes
- 2006-12-23: Wild life
- 2006-12-25: Christmas
- 2007-01-01: New Year's Eve
- 2007-01-14: Botanic Garden and Rose Garden
- 2007-02-06: Mount Kaukau on Waitangi Day
- 2007-02-11: Skyline Walkway
- 2007-02-17: Petone Fair
- 2007-02-24: Cuba Street Carnival
- 2007-02-25: Brooklyn wind turbine
- 2007-03-03: Acrobats show
- 2007-03-04: Chinese New Year
- 2007-03-10: A day at the beach
- 2007-03-10: Dragon Boat races and Power Boat races
- 2007-03-11: Governor's House
- 2007-03-11: Womens World Cup Cycling

Summer

The New Zealand meteorological Summer starts on December the 1st. However being Dutch from origin, I still consider the changing of the seasons to occur on the astronomical moments in time: at the solstices and at the equinoxes. Last Summer started on Dec the 22nd, at 00:22 hours, UTC (GMT); this is 13:22 NZDT. However the Summer weather stayed away, for a long time. A very long time. It stayed cold (Wellington weather-wise, this means around 10 degrees), with the usual Wellington wind and with lots of rain showers. Christmas (officially in Summer) felt more like a Dutch Christmas: cold, clouded, windy and without snow (apart from the artificial snow flakes in the shop windows). Finally, on Waitangi Day, the 6th of February, the weather turned for the better and the Long Lost Summer was found, at last! Temperatures that day reached 25 degrees. We deserved it.

Simply Paris and other cafes

Wellington has more cafes and restaurants per capita than any other city in the world. This statement is true. It is not possible to patronise all establishments in one's lifetime. Attempting to, will end up in keeping revisiting places after they've changed ownership or management. Having said this, after having lived a couple of years in New Zealand's capital, where the coffee culture reigns supreme and the Asian cuisine prospers (and where everyone obediently observes the non-smoking laws), one tends to favour certain places above others, which reduces the need for exploring all of those places. Our favourite cafe is Simply Paris, located in (upper) Cuba Street. The place breaths an atmosphere of France. But the coffee style is the by Wellington embraced Italian method of brewing, that matches our personal taste: cafe latte. On the food side, our favourite Asian restaurant is KC Cafe, located at Courtney Place. Perhaps the term "restaurant" is a too pretty sounding word for it, since it's small place, with functional but nevertheless cold fluorescent lighting. But it serves great Asian food and the place is frequented by almost only Asian people (which must mean that the food tastes as it should be).

Wild life


Where on the world would you be seeing a penguin on your way to work. Try Wellington. I have to admit, it's not an everyday encounter, but nevertheless...

Christmas

There are very many good and nice things that can be told about Wellington. One of the things is its liveliness, day in, day out. This is true, except for one day per year: Christmas. I experienced this event in NZ for the first time in 1992, be it not in Wellington, that time. Then, not a single open restaurant could be found. I then (in 1992) ended up eating Christmas turkey at a lonely backpackers place. One would guess that in 15 years' time things change. Not so. Bea and I on Christmas Day experienced (again) an utterly deserted Wellington, with absolutely no one on the streets and every shop and nearly every restaurant closed. The artificial snow flakes and Christmas decorations in the shop windows did not uplift the depressive spirit. Our advice: stay away from Wellington on Christmas Day and come to town the next day, on Boxing Day, to enjoy again the familiar liveliness of the city, with many shops having most items on sale, often 30 to 50 percent off of the usual prices.

New Year's Eve

Please allow me, in this usually so optimistic and positive web log to inform about another minus. This will be the last one in this web log; I promise. Also, it is not just Wellington-only; it appears to be New-Zealand-wide. OK, here it goes: for a country that is the first in the world to experience the first seconds of each New Year, New Year's eve is an absolute bummer. Most countries have fireworks (both beautiful and noisy). However, New Zealand does not, since all available fireworks have been used up on November 5th: Guy Fawkes Day. If one asks Kiwis (NZ-born people): what are your plans for the upcoming New Year's Eve, they will reply: "Plans? Going to bed, early!".

Botanic Garden and Rose Garden

A nice Summer activity is a ride up-hill with Wellington's cable car, that starts at Lambton Quay in the city and brings us to the suburb of Kelburn and the top of the Botanic Garden. The top offers nice views over the city and the harbour. The descent into the Rose Garden is a nice walk, especially early in Summer, when the flowers are abundant. On a clear day, it's always a nice spot to spend a couple of hours and enjoy a coffee.

Mount Kaukau on Waitangi Day

The commemoration of Waitangi Day is important for entire New Zealand and especially the Maori People. The day marks the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. In that year, representatives of the British Crown and over 500 Maori chiefs signed what is New Zealand's founding document. The day was first officially commemorated in 1934, and it has been a public holiday since 1974. This year on Waitangi Day, we happened to regain our long lost Summer. After months of cold, windy, cloudy and rainy days, we experienced blue skies and the temperature rose to a warm 25 degrees. A prefect opportunity to walk up our favourite hill: Mount Kaukau. After a twenty minutes walk from home to the railway station and a ten minutes train ride through the lower hills, thereby traversing a handful of tunnels, we got off at Simla Crescent and started the walk up-hill. A mere forty minutes later we (again) stood at the top, enjoying the marvellous views that this location offers on a clear day. And a clear day it was! At noon precisely, we even could hear and see the firing of the cannons situated at Oriental Parade, to commemoration Waitangi Day. After having enjoyed the scenery for a short while, we did not trace back our steps, but instead continued our walk to the town of Johnsonville, where we were picked up by our good friend Caroline, for having a coffee at her place in Tawa, which concluded a very pleasant start of this real Wellington Summer.

Skyline Walkway

The Sunday following Waitangi Day, the weather still was perfect. Since we were in training for another big walk (of which I will tell a bit about, later on in this article), we decided that we wanted to "explore" another walkway that happens to start at our favourite hill. So that day again we set out for a walk to Mount Kaukau. After having spent a brief moment at the top, we followed the descend via the Skyline Walkway. This walking trail follows a ridge, which offers ever changing views to the East on Wellington City and the Harbour and views to the West on the vast rolling pasture of the Southern North Island of New Zealand and in the far distance the Cook Strait and the Marlborough Sounds (fjords) of the Northern South Island. Despite of the fact that the trail that follows the ridge top was very windy, it also was very satisfactory because of the views. Ending at Crofton Downs Railway Station, we enjoyed a well earned coffee (cafe latte) and hopped on the train, back to Wellington.

Petone Fair

Only a twenty minutes ride (either by car, bus or train) from Wellington, at the bottom of the Hutt Valley, the nice old town of Petone is situated. If one would have visited Petone the odd ten years ago, one would never have guessed that from that - at that time - awful dump could emerge such a nice, pleasant and laid back town, with its facades of historic buildings being restored to their original form, with its many arty-like shops and - important - its growing number of outdoor cafes. Also the for us nearest Dutch Shop is located in Petone. We visit that shop approximately only once every two months, to buy original salty Dutch licorice and very smelly and very yummy Dutch old cheese. Once a year, an attractive event is organised: the Petone Fair. For this occasion, the main street (Jackson Street) is closed to traffic and becomes full of atmosphere, by the stalls and stands that offer arts, antiques, other fun stuff and very many things to eat: one could grow fat in a day. We visited the fair and strolled through the main street, up and down. On this particular occasion the Dutch Shop offered a typical Dutch deep fried savoury, that looks like a sausage: a kroket. Yum! Finally we sat down at an outdoor cafe to enjoy a coffee, while observing the crowd passing by. An afternoon well spent.

Cuba Street Carnival

Every big city in the world has its yearly carnival. Wellington (not being a really big city, with its mere 160 thousand inhabitants) also has its share of this. Each year the Cuba Street and Cuba Mall are the centre of these activities. That day, Cuba Street is closed for traffic and the shops offer their items on stands on the street. Many food stalls also, so a big feast for those who want to eat "from the street". Throughout the city, half a dozen stages are set up, on which bands play all kinds of music. The day is topped off with a big carnival parade, that starts around sunset and follows a route through the city, ending in Cuba Street. We enjoyed walking through the city on this busy day. I must say I have never seen Wellington so crowded. Not even when the British Lions were playing rugby against the Wellington Lions, last year, and brought with them about twenty thousand fans from Britain.

Brooklyn wind turbine

As a frequent reader you might know by now that we like to walk hiking or tramping trails, be it either in New Zealand's wild nature or closer to the Wellington area. One of the goals that had been on our wish list for a long time, was walking up to a large wind turbine, which is situated on a hill near Brooklyn, one of Wellington's suburbs, located at the Western edge of the city. The wind turbine is visible from almost any location in or near Wellington, and therefore the spot offers great views over the city. Since Summer had announced itself by presenting marvellous weather, we picked a nice Sunday and took the city bus to the trail head. The trail to the wind turbine follows the outside of the predator fence of the Karori Wild Life Park (this park still is a must-do on our list). The fence is built to keep predators, like cats and possums, out of the bird reserve and it encircles the park. The wind turbine marks one of the highest points of the fence trail. We set out on the trail, which has some really steep parts. Already during the walk, one is treated on nice views over the city. After a couple of hours walking, mostly up-hill, we arrived at the wind turbine. The impressive wings above us made a whooshing sound and the wind at this location was strong (as might be expected). We rested for a while and read the explanatory signs posted here that provide a number of facts about the wind turbine. Then we saw the clouds rolling in. The weather turned for the worse. So we decided not to continue the fence trail, but instead head down into the Brooklyn suburb, so that we more easily would be able to find shelter, in case this was needed. Luckily, the clouds did not result in rain. We followed the road downwards and via another suburb, Te Aro, we walked back to the city and then back home. In all, we had a very satisfying day walk.

Acrobats show

Absolutely Positively Wellington. That is the slogan the city council uses all over the city to state they're doing their best to make Wellington a nice and fun place to live and to visit. Part of this aim is organising events. Among those events that were organised this year was a series of evening performances by acrobats, in open air. The stage was the large square in front of the Event Centre. Several shows were given; we attended one. Following a nice sunset and in this case a rising full moon, half a dozen acrobats performed stunts while hanging on a metal construction. The stunts were decorated with fancy pyrotechnics.

Chinese New Year

The starting date of the Chinese New Year does not coincide with the start of Western New Year. This year 2007, the year of the Pig, commenced on February the 18th. It was celebrated in Wellington a couple of weeks later, with a Chinese food market and a colourful parade, which we watched from close up.

A day at the beach

We're not that fond of hanging around at the beach. But many Wellingtonians are. Since wind prevails in Wellington, it's not often that beach lovers have a chance to enjoy a day out in the sun. And apart from that, the sun in New Zealand is rather dangerous, since the ozone layer in the skies above New Zealand is rather thin, which makes ultra violet rays from the sun abundant. Nevertheless, on a good Summer's day, the small (and artificially created and sustained) Wellington beach at Oriental Parade is crowded. We enjoy sitting on one of the many benches and watch the beach crowd doing their fun stuff and watch the boats cruising on Wellington Harbour. In the evening, Oriental Parade virtually changes into a large picnic place where many Wellingtonians enjoy the fantastic views on Wellington's multi coloured sky lines.

Dragon Boat races and Power Boat races

Two other yearly events are held on the waters of Wellington Harbour. Two kinds of boat races: the (relatively) slow and the (enormously) fast. The first racing event is held with dragon boats. A dragon boat is (as copied from the web) an open boat in a traditional Chinese style, propelled solely by paddlers using single bladed paddles, steered by use of a steering oar, fitted with a drum, head and tail. For racing purposes, the drum, head and tail usually are not present. Two competitions are held each year: one between Wellington companies and one between Wellington schools. It is a big yearly event, which draws many spectators, from all over greater Wellington. The second racing event is quite the opposite of the first. Instead of its propellant being human muscles, the force is generated by high-powered engines. Engines of the type one would expect to find fitted on an aeroplane, rather than on a boat. The noise produced is accordingly. The boats are streamlined and multi coloured. And they go fast. Real fast. The racing event is subdivided into several categories, denominated according to the amount of horse powers being produced by the engines. In comparison with the Dragon boat race track (which is just a small portion along the Wellington Waterfront), the Power boat race track encompasses almost the entire Wellington Harbour. A spectacular event to watch, be it from a far distance.

Governor's House

New Zealand is not a republic: it does not have a president. It is a constitutional monarchy. As such it does not have its own royalty. Instead its crown is the British Crown. (However, the Queen reigns but does not rule; the parliament rules.) Since the Queen resides in the UK, the envoy of the British Queen Elisabeth II is the Governor. The Governor resides in Wellington, at the Governor's House. Once every two years the Governor's House opens its doors to the general public. We too attended. We saw that some wealth indeed is present, but in practise the place functions (apart from being the residential quarters of the Governor) as a "place to stay" for foreign officials. And we might add, not an extremely luxurious place to stay, although it has a nice and spacious outside lawn. The Dutch crown prince Willem Alexander and princess Maxima also visited here, during their recent New Zealand visit. The main task of the Governor appears to be collecting new paper articles about official royal functions and occasions and gluing those articles into bulky scrapbooks...

Womens World Cup Cycling

Another yearly event is the Womens World Cup Cycling race that is held in and around Wellingtons Central Business District (CBD). Many female racers from all over the world enter this tournament that involves bicycle racing inside and outside the city centre of Wellington and finishes at New Zealand's prominent parliament house, The Beehive. This year we were not able to attend the race, since it coincided with the Governor's House open house.

Summer has ended...

The summer ended for us with a rainy weekend that was not spent in Wellington, but in Tongariro National Park instead. Since this activity falls outside the context of Summer in Wellington, I won't go into much detail about this very wet weekend, for which we had been training this summer on the Wellington walking trails. Sufficient is to say that our attempt to climb the Ngauruhoe Volcanoe will be tried again, Summer next year. In this article I also will not go into in detail about our five weeks' Europe trip, of which a two weeks' camper trip was an impressive and relaxing part of. We enjoyed it thoroughly, but again, even though the European Spring weather felt like mid Summer, it has nothing to do with Summer in Wellington. Finally, a long weekend spent in the Brisbane area, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast, at the East Coast of Australia, was a very Summer-like experience also, and very pleasant too, but again out of the context of this Summer in Wellington story. The New Zealand meteorological Winter has begun, on June the 1st. The astronomical Winter this year starts on June the 21st, at 18:06, UTC (GMT). That is June the 22nd 06:06, NZST. Hope it won't be too cold...

South Island North East coast and Christchurch

This is another story written by John-Paul, about a three day's trip to the South Island.

The intention of this trip was threefold: doing the ferry trip between Wellington and Picton at day light, doing the Tranz Scenic train ride from Picton to Christchurch and visiting friends in Christchurch. We'd decided that a long-weekend would be perfect to accomplish all this.


Very early Saturday morning we hopped on the Blue Bridge ferry for a clouded, but very quiet sailing to Picton. Three hours later, around ten in the morning, we arrived there and had a stroll through the small town centre and enjoyed a good coffee. Many tourists there, this time of the year. At one 'o clock we boarded the Tranz Coastal train. Approximately twenty minutes late it departed from Picton Station and with scheduled stops in Blenheim and Kaikoura and also a couple of "operational stops", we arrived at Christchurch station around seven in the evening. There, we were picked up by Deanne, a friend of us (a former Dutch colleague of Bea). She married a kiwi (Simon) and they have a nice place in a quiet suburb of Christchurch. That evening we had dinner at their home and could catch up about all kinds of things.





The train ride was an awesome experience, very much comparable with the Overlander train ride, we did last year, but this time of course travelling through a very different scenery. We tremendously enjoyed it, even though during the first half of the day it was completely clouded. After the first short stretch through the hills between Picton and the Marlborough County plains where Blenheim is situated, followed by the salt works and the hills South of Blenheim, the ride roughly then follows the Eastern coast line of the South Island, very often the alongside the road, with continuous views on the Pacific Ocean.



At two places the road and rail separate from each other. South of Kaikoura, the rail has a stretch land-inwards, while the road stays near the coast. This part of the South Island can be observed by rail only.Near Kaikoura, rail and road join again. The Kaikoura railroad station locally is called the "whale"-road station, because of Kaikoura's famous whale watching experiences.

North of Kaikoura the road goes land-inwards and the rail follows the coast line, thereby traversing through very many tunnels. Again a scenic part of the country than only can be enjoyed by rail travelling. Each curve in the route offers a new view on the rugged coast line.At some spot, even sea lions can be observed.




The train has one open carriage, without windows and also without seats. Since the windows of the other carriages are made of a rather reflecting glass, which keeps the heat of the sun outside but also sadly makes taking photos difficult, this open carriage offers a great opportunity to take interesting shots.Therefore, I spent the larger part of the journey at this windy and noisy place (taking many photos, especially during the afternoon when the weather had cleared), while Bea enjoyed the comfort of the couches in the "panorama" carriage, which offers great views too. Carrying both a mobile phone, we decadently kept in touch using SMS text messages :-)





Sunday morning, our friends, Bea and me had breakfast a small restaurant nearby. This place offers a marvellous view over the relative vastness of the city. After that, Bea and I got a personal "guided tour" by our friends to and through Lyttelton, which is the port of Christchurch.














Finally, we were dropped off at the city centre and we strolled through the arts and crafts market. Very many people were visiting there. The weather was sunny and warm: nearing 30 degrees; quite a change, compared with Windy Wellington. Then we walked to Cathedral Square and enjoyed a Starbucks coffee, while watching the crowd passing by. Christchurch for us holds memories of Bea's first encounter with New Zealand and my re-encounter with this beautiful country. So we very joyfully recalled those first days in Christchurch, we experienced during November and December 2004. At the end of the afternoon we were picked up by our friends and dropped off at Christchurch airport. This time not to catch a plane, but to pick up a rental car, for driving back to Picton, the next day. The car rental was a so-called "relocation". This means that a rental company needs to have a particular car transported from one place to another. For us this also meant that the rental of this car was free of charge; a very pleasant surprise. The model of the car turned out to be a large van, offering seats for seven persons. As one might guess, Bea and I had a ball, driving this large vehicle.


That evening, Bea and I together with our Christchurch friends enjoyed a typical New Zealand meal: meat cooked on the barbecue in the garden and consumed at the dinner table inside the house, with lettuce and boiled potatoes. We did not eat outside in the garden, since a cold front had passed, the temperature had dropped the odd ten degrees and the wind had picked up a bit. For dessert we had the in New Zealand famous Hokey Pokey ice cream. Very yummy.


The next day (it was Monday and in this case Wellington Anniversary Day, a regional public holiday) it was time to leave our Christchurch friends and head back to Picton. We left around ten in the morning and with our rented van we followed the road signs that led us out of Christchurch to highway 1. This arterial highway leads from South to North, connecting Bluff with Picton and all the other towns and cities in between. The weather had turned for the better, with blue skies and a sunny 30 degrees again. Turning North on Hwy 1, Bea and I enjoyed the scenery and tried to recognise places that we passed two days ago, when travelling South on the train.


Halfway, just after one in the afternoon, we arrived in Kaikoura. It still was very sunny. At the local bakery we had something to eat (a typical New Zealand snack, called a mince-cheese pie) and our usual caffe latte. Very many tourists in Kaikoura. Also very many camper vans, a favourite way of transportation in New Zealand during the holidays. We spent about three quarters of an hour in this nice little town, situated on a peninsula, and hit the road again around two in the afternoon. The only other stops we did were photo stops, capturing the azure blue Pacific with pebble beaches.





Around four in the afternoon we arrived at my cousin Jayne's place, in Blenheim. It still was very warm and we drank tea in her garden, catching up on things. We only could stay for an hour or so, because we had to be in Picton to catch the ferry. At five thirty we dropped off our van at the car rental agency near the ferry terminal and had a quick bite at a local food place. At six o' clock we boarded the Blue Bridge ferry, but there were delays so it departed three quarters of an hour late and because of fierce winds on the Cook Strait the crossing took another additional three quarters of an hour longer than normal.







Ferry crossings (both Blue Bridge and Interislander) between Wellington and Picton vice versa are very scenic. Roughly one hour is spent getting in to or coming out of the Wellington Harbour, with great views on Wellington and its surroundings. Roughly one hour is spent traversing the Cook Strait that separates the North from the South Island. And roughly one hour is spent in the beautiful Marlborough Sounds. This time, the traversal of the Sounds was a real treat, because of the awesome sunset colours in the sky.









It was already dark, when around eleven thirty in the evening we arrived in Wellington and - after a short walk along the waterfront - arrived home, very content with a great long-weekend on the Southern Island.