Hic Sunt Dracones

Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny, and we headed towards Wellington’s waterfront for the second day of the Dragon Boat Festival. On the way down Cuba Street we were accosted by a chap with a camera who told us he was photographing people at the bucket fountain for use in a university project. He emailed me the picture:

By the bucket fountain

We then continued down to the harbour. Sunday was the schools’ competition day; we found seats in the grandstand at the finishing line, and watched a couple of the races. As we had no particular affiliation, we didn’t stay long, and when they broke for lunch before the finals, we decided to do likewise, and headed for Mac’s Brewbar for a refreshing beer, then wandered along to Capitol, our favourite café of the moment, for a spot of lunch accompanied by a Tuatara beer.

After lunch we took the cable car up to the Botanical Gardens:

We didn’t want to do the whole Botanical Gardens tour, as it's quite steep in places, and any hills that you go down have to be ascended again to get out. So we set off down the road back to The Terrace, which is downhill all the way.

Name And Shame

In the evening, we went down into the CBD to get some dinner. Unfortunately the restaurant that we planned to go to wasn’t open on Sunday (should’ve checked before leaving) so we went round the corner onto the harbour front and ended up in Foxglove, one of the better establishments in that part of town. On the way we had to fight through hordes of people queuing outside the TSB Arena, waiting to see a Lionel Ritchie concert. Foxglove, I’m afraid to say, has joined the far-too-long list of good restaurants in Wellington who can’t seem to get things right; in this case bringing three main courses out, and the fourth ten minutes later. They did, however, take it off the bill…but you’ve got to get these things right, surely?

Anyway, that was pretty much the end of Ma & Pa’s brief sojourn in Wellington. On Monday, they packed up and left and flew to Melbourne in the afternoon, for a well-deserved rest.

Ossum

Ossum, which rhymes with possum, is a word used in New Zealand to mean any number of things, from “thankyou” to “OK” to “that really is the coolest thing, ever”. We were out shopping today, and in one shop we bought an item that cost $7.50. After paying for it, the sales girl said “ossum”. To my mind, that’s not particularly ossum. Ossum would be to buy stock to the value of several hundred, nay thousand, dollars.

Later, I bought some wine off the internet. On completing this transaction, I was informed that some ossum wine was now winging its way to me. OK, they spelled it correctly on their web page, but even so, it seemed a bit of a strong claim. Whilst I appreciate their efforts to big up all the wine that they sell, not all of it is going to be ossum. To be honest, I bought the stuff because it was cheap (OK, on special offer, but even so) and it’s just an ordinary, weekday glugging wine.

If it turns out to be ossum, I’ll let you know.

In the meanwhile, here’s a picture of the bucket fountain in Wellington:

That’s quite impressive. But is it ossum?