Labour Day Weekend

The Labour Day weekend is akin to the Mayday Bank Holiday in the UK – the first warm weekend of spring. Nicola had entered the draw to use the Treasury’s bach in Castlepoint a couple of months ago, and had won, so the place was ours for the using.

We hired a Corolla, and picked it up from the handily-placed Budget rent-a-car place just down Ghuznee Street. Unlike hiring a car in the UK where you’re obliged to find all the damage, and sign a form showing the condition that you take it away in, they just handed over the keys with a cheery “fill ’er up before you bring ’er back in” and waved us off.

I drove it back up the hill, and we loaded up all our stuff to take to Castlepoint – which included bedding and heating as well as clothes etc – it is, apparently, pretty basic. Then we drove to the supermarket to pick up supplies, including water, for the weekend.

Wellington is well served by roads that come all the way into the centre of town, so we were able to hit the road and get onto State Highway 2 pretty quickly, and headed over the Rimutakas to Featherston, Carterton and Masterton, and then on to Castlepoint. SH2 starts out looking like a motorway with several lanes, but quickly reduces down to a single carriageway winding over and through the mountains, so the putative 100kph speed limit is rarely achieved. We reached Masterton after about 2 hours’ drive, and stopped off to look around and have a cup of coffee. Then we continued on to Castlepoint, a further 45 minutes’ drive to the coast.

We found the house after enquiring at the pub, as we had been given misleading directions which labelled it “No. 12” when it was in fact “No. 60”. A small difference! We unloaded and arranged our belongings, then went for a walk along the shore to see what was at the far end. A lagoon, and the place where they store all the boats that go out during the day, we found. The wind was doing interesting things with the sand over the beach, but as we didn’t have our cameras with us I can’t provide documentary evidence of this. We then decided it would be a good idea to spend our first night down at the pub/restaurant, where we had an entirely agreeable fish’n’chips and vegetarian platter, washed down with some Tui beer and white wine.

On the way back to the bach, we noticed that the almost-full moon was rising over the Pacific Ocean:

Moon over the Pacific

That was Day One of our Labour Day weekend.

Lions Roar

The last time we planned to go to watch the Wellington Lions, the weather was pretty horrible so we decided not to go. They lost. We therefore felt it was our duty to support them in their final home game in the round robin stage of the contest, as they squared up to Taranaki, second-placed in the league and four points ahead. Wellington really need to win their two remaining games convincingly to make the play-offs.

As we walked down The Terrace towards the cake tin, we were passed by a large coach with Taranaki written on the side and back. It seemed to be full of men, so we assumed it was in fact the Taranaki team on their way to the stadium, and gave them a friendly wave. One of them waved back!

The game was a bit of a mishmash for the first half hour, with Wellington pinned in their own half for most of it. Taranaki’s passing and back play looked slick, but Wellington’s defence held, and they made the most of their one opportunity, scoring a try but failing to convert. With the score at 5-3 it didn’t look much of a match.

Lions line-out

In the final 10 minutes of the half, all that changed, as the Lions put two tries down, but conceded one.

Lions score a try

At half time it was 17-8. In the second half, and despite the loss of Weepu 5 minutes into the half with a broken leg, Wellington romped home to finish 49-15, as a moment’s lapse in concentration allowed Taranaki to score a late consolation try in the final ten minutes.

Taranaki try

This puts the Lions up to 3^rd in the table, although with Auckland still to play tomorrow against the bottom-placed team, Otago, they’ll probably drop down to 4^th by the time the round is completed.

A Blog About Blogging

We haven’t been up to much that’s new and exciting over the last few days, so I thought I’d write about the somewhat self-referential topic of blogging.

As many of you will know, this blog started out from a desire to keep friends and family informed about our progress in New Zealand when we first moved here. Initially, I sent out an email to a group of people, giving daily updates about our move; the purpose being to inform everyone, in one go, about what we were doing. As people replied individually to the email, I realised its shortcomings as a method of communication, and decided to explore the world of blogging instead. I should at this point acknowledge the example set by Sho on this blog , which set me off in the first place.

The system that I use to write this blog is called Blogger, and is provided by Google. It’s free, and anyone can use it. I find it very easy to set up and use – I don’t think it needs a great deal of computer knowledge to figure it out.

Amongst the features are statistics on which countries people who are reading my blog are from (or at least, which countries their internet servers are located in – not always the same thing). I find it interesting to see where my blog is being read, which includes the usual suspects of UK, Cyprus, New Zealand, Australia  and USA; but also several Nordic countries, lots of other European ones, Russia, North and South America, and (for a specific period) Namibia. Occasionally, countries pop up that I have no idea why people are reading: I guess random Google searches are bringing up my blog, probably helped by my subtly ambiguous headings.

When I write a blog, I send it out to fend for itself into the void of the internet; apart from some reporting statistics, the only way I know that it’s not a futile exercise are  comments from you, my readers, and my usage statistics. Unsurprisingly, most of my readers come via Facebook or h2g2. Some people who are actually looking for Wellington boots for their feet, via Google, may also get sucked in.

Recruitment Drive

So, why am I writing all this? What I’m basically saying is that blogging can be a lonely business. I fire off my posts into the internet, and they’re read by hundreds of people. OK, tens of people. So far, 6 people have decided to “follow” my blog. To do this, click the “Follow Me” label to the right of this post. And please feel free to add comments – you don’t need to be a member or sign up to anything to add a comment. just type it in the box, and click underneath, where it says “Comment As: Select profile”, choose “Name/URL” and type your name. There’s nothing more depressing than seeing “0 comments” when I’ve posted another thrilling instalment of our life here in Wellington Boots!

And finally…

Thank you for reading ;-)

John, I'm Only Dancing

Tonight’s ballroom dancing concentrated on the cha-cha-cha, where we’d learned the basic move last week. This week we learned how to do a “New Yorker” which is the bit where you turn through 90˚ and step forward together. We also had another go at the waltz, and learned the technique of turning corners – very important when you’re on a dance floor and come to a wall!

On Saturday, we’ll be going to our first social dance, and will be able to talk to all the folk who so far have just been the unwitting recipients of my maladjusted steps. It’s also a chance to see how it should be done proper, like, as there will be demonstrations and other entertainments in the evening.

Delivery

Our furniture and other stuff arrived from the UK a couple of weeks ago, and has now cleared Customs and was delivered to us this morning. So now the flat looks like a bomb has hit it, as I unpack everything – there’s packing materials and crates everywhere! I’m not sure how we’re going to fit everything into this flat, but we’ll try…a bit of rearrangement of furniture may be required. Fortunately the flat came with an additional storage space downstairs (it was originally intended to be converted to a studio flat, but the owner didn’t get planning permission) so we can put all the packing material down there for when we move again. Also, we are putting all the kitchen equipment supplied with the flat down there, as ours is much better. Gotta change all the plugs on the appliances, though.

When the furniture was being unloaded at the dock, some dumbass decided to stack everything on top of the dining table. The central pillar and legs are broken, so we’re awaiting information on whether we can get those repaired or we need to claim on the insurance.

Red Rocks

We caught the bus today down to Island Bay, for a walk along the coast to the Red Rocks. http://www.newzealand.com/travel/sights-activities/scenic-highlights/natural-phenomena/scenic-highlight-details.cfm/businessid/68764.html

Island Bay, not to be confused with the Bay Of Islands, contains only one island:

It was a sunny spring day, with a bit of a breeze (as ever) blowing, so it didn’t feel too warm. We walked along the coastal path, spotting red-billed gulls and variable oystercatchers along the way.

Red-billed Gull

The oystercatcher wouldn’t stand still long enough for me to take a picture of it, so here’s one taken by someone else:

Variable oystercatcher

The waves were crashing onto the beach in a picturesque fashion, and in the distance we could see the snow-covered mountains of South Island.

After a couple of hours of leisurely stroll, we reached the red rocks. There’s a geological reason for the redness of the rocks which has something to do with iron oxide. Anyway, they are distinctively red, possibly more so in real life than is apparent from the photo.

There’s also a seal colony further along the coast, but by that stage we decided that we’d walked quite far enough, and headed back to find the Bach Café http://www.bachcafe.co.nz/ and some lunch (that’s a variable oystercatcher on their logo, so clearly they’re a common sight round these parts). Apparently the name of the café has nothing to do with Johann Sebastian.

Dance Hall Daze

Third lesson time, and our usual instructor was not there, so his stand-in took the class. We started off with some rock’n’roll, which we’d done the week before, just to refresh our memories. Then we started on a new step, the waltz. Gah! We didn’t get enough practice before we were off into yet another new one, the cha-cha-cha. I think she tried to cram too much into a one-hour session…still, maybe some of it will sink in enough for next time. Meanwhile, the dance is only a week away.

We had planned to go and watch the rugby afterwards, but as it was still raining hard we gave that one a miss and headed home. Yup, we’re fair-weather rugby fans. As a consequence of their lack of support, the Lions lost 24-31 to Bay Of Plenty, and are now trying desperately to make the cut for the playoffs. They’ll need to win their last three games convincingly to do so…we’ll go along to their last home game, providing it’s not raining!