Mount Climie and Jane’s cauliflower

Not sure who or what Climie was (probably an early settler but no mention I can find on the web) but 50Km north of Wellington is a mountain named after him/her/it. At 860 metres elevation it’s one of the tallest spots accessible by a reasonable track on a day trip. The access point is Tunnel Gully, site of the original railway line from Wellington to the Wairarapa. This was the famous Rimutaka Incline which is now a walk in its own right and we should be doing it again before much longer so there may well be more in a subsequent blog. (The railway line was replaced by the Rimutaka tunnel in the 50s.)
Around the car park is a pleasant walk (Tane’s track – Tane being the Maori god of the forest) through fairly lush low land beech forest. The track up to the top is used by service vehicles attending to the many communication towers that have sprung up on the skyline. It’s also used by trail bikes and mountain bikers but we saw only a couple of these. The vegetation changes as altitude is gained and it's a reasonably consistent hard upward slog.

The prevailing moist conditions give rise to wonderful moss and lichen growths on the trees.

Half way up it was time for a rest and refreshments!

One of the larger microwave towers on the ridge.

We had chosen a glorious day for the trip. The air was still cool but it was warm in the sun and there was scarcely a breath of wind. (The last time we did the walk it was cloudy and we were in the mist at the top so had no views). There were good views of Upper Hutt at the head of the Hutt Valley and the Tararua range on the way up to the ridge line. Above the tree line it was possible to see east to the Wairarapa, south to Wellington and west to Mana Island and the top of the South Island.

Looking across the head of the Hutt Valley towards the South Island. Mana is the long low island just off the coast.

The journey down was a lot quicker. This is a rimu which has been damaged by fire or lightning but has survived to flourish again.

Afterwards we went round to Jane’s for tea and view her photos from her recent trip to Chile. We ate her prize home grown cauliflower which was a beautiful specimen – apparently even more impressive when it still had its green leaves!

Labour Weekend

Today is Labour Day in New Zealand – the celebration of the start of the eight hour a day movement in Wellington in 1840. A lot of people were away this weekend so the excursions were fairly subdued. On Saturday I spent two hours walking round the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary. This is the lower lake with the sluice control building.The lake behind the upper dam used to provide water for Wellington City but it was drained in the 1980s as the dam was deemed to be an earthquake risk.I was hoping to see tuatara – 130 had been released the day before but they were nowhere to be seen. It was fairly cold and they were probably tucked up in their burrows. I did range over some of the paths beyond the upper dam and saw some of the birds that are thriving after being reintroduced from offshore islands. I saw robin/toutouwai, hihi and course the ubiquitous tui and kaka. The birds were not that cooperative about being photographed and my camera is not really ideal for the purpose but here is one of a hihi feeding at one of the feeding stations which are set up to nurture the smaller nectar eaters.

Today we went for a gentle stroll in the Botanic Gardens. The café in the Begonia House has recently been upgraded so we had to try it. We can report that the coffee is good and Jude thought the gluten free chocolate cake exceptional.

Andy liked his chocolate and chilli brownie (he didn’t leave any!).

We had to rush back home to meet our friends Dave and Jane (and their son George) who were up from Christchurch.

Lastly, for my overseas readers, we have a wonderful endemic insect called a weta. We find a number in the garden and they freak Noreen out but I love them. This little fellow was on our doorstep this morning and I managed to get a slightly out of focus shot before returning him or her to the bush.

Surfers Paradise

Perhaps the apostrophe police (I’m looking at you, Jenny) can comment on whether there should be a possessive marked – and if so where.

Anyway Noreen and I spent three days over in Queensland. The occasion was the 30th birthday of the firm I work for – Intech Software (probably the worst web site in the world). All the company plus partners (28 people) were flown to Brisbane from where it is an hour’s drive to Surfers. The staff had to participate in two half day conference sessions – the usual team building, analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats plus training. We decided the web site needed updating!

We had two half days free. The first was spent cruising around the waterways (a mixture of dredged rivers and man made canals linking them).

Quite a fierce storm blew up but soon passed by with no untoward effects.

Surfers is a prime example of rampant capitalism ruining a wonderful natural attraction. The beach is long and sandy.

The surf was not too good when we were there.

High rises crowd down to the beachfront shading the beach in the late afternoon. Reputedly the largest residential building in the world (Q1 – 76 storeys) dominates the skyline.

Our hotel (22 storeys – we were on the 19th) was on the banks of the Nerang River

which must be the zoning boundary of the high rise section because there were few on the far bank.

A grey day at Makara

Makara is a valley that runs from the watershed west of Wellington, over the hill from Karori. There is a stream that runs through Makara village and then some 5Km further on empties into the Tasman Sea. There is a small coastal settlement here known as Makara Beach.
We did a walk up to some second world war gun emplacements.

The track goes along the top of some pretty formidable cliffs.

On a clear day you can see the South Island.

Today was not clear. We have been having severe gales (130Km/h) and the cloud was coming down. We were also lamenting the All Blacks loss to France in Cardiff - but please don't talk about the rugby. The whole nation is in mourning.