Last day of winter

Tomorrow is the official start of spring. Which is not to say that wintry weather is behind us, but rather that the chances of spring weather are improving. After a wet week the weekend has been glorious.
Jenny’s friend Kate was up from Dunedin for a week. They did various cultural and social activities and went out on the town on Friday night in all their finery.
On Saturday night Ingmar held his farewell party at the Barnes’. He made a speech and received a gift.
He then amazed his work colleagues by showing his expertise at Morris dancing.
Today we went for a walk in the Gardens. The blossoms are blooming and the flowers budding. This is magnolia
and these, I think, azaleas.
The first tulips are emerging.
One of the special places in the garden is the Peace Flame, originally lit from the Hiroshima memorial in Japan.
Nearby, families were preparing for a picnic in the Dell,

while above them a group of tui were noisily expressing themselves. (We decided the collective noun for tui should be talent.) There are at least five in this photo.
The Rudderstone provided an opportunity for a self-referential composition of the bloggeur and his companions!
We know spring is approaching when the kowhai flowers.
Finally, the classic tourist view of the Cable Car approaching the Kelburn terminus overlooking Kelburn Park, the city and harbour. Mount Victoria (where last week’s walk took us) is towards the top, slightly right of centre.

Southern Walkway

Today was Ingmar's last walk with us. He is going back to Germany and we will be very sorry to see him go.
The Southern Walkway goes from Oriental Bay to Island Bay. It's a steep climb up to the lookout at Mount Victoria
but the views are well worth it. It was overcast and threatening rain but the harbour was still.
HMNZS Te Kaha (centre right) was moored at Queen's Wharf.
This is the Basin Reserve, one of New Zealand's oldest cricket grounds and arguably one of the best test venues in the world. The building site above the Basin is a new supermarket development.
Looking south east across Evans Bay to the airport and out to the Pacific Ocean. If you look carefully (at the right edge) there is a Bluebridge ferry nearing the end of its journey across Cook Strait.

At the southern end of Mount Victoria, facing due south, is the memorial to Admiral Richard E. Byrd, a polar aviation explorer who mapped large areas of Antarctica and identified closely with New Zealand's polar explorers.
After this point the drizzle increased but we made it to the zoo without getting too wet.

Around the Fenceline

One of our favourite local walks is around the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary. The sanctuary is enclosed within an 8.6Km predator proof fence and a track goes around the outside. The windmill (officially the Brooklyn wind turbine) is on the route near the first summit.
There are good views over the harbour

and western suburbs (this is Tinakori Hill and Northland with Karori in the foreground).

Most of the track is in the open along ridge lines but it descends across a faultline to the valley below what was Wellington's main reservoir.

Here are the group having morning tea in the shelter and information area by the windmill.

And in other news the Wellington Phoenix played their match of the new season against Queensland at the stadium this afternoon. Noreen and I watched the action which resulted in a 1 all draw.

Cornish Street to Korokoro Dam

We've had a couple of wintry blasts this week. Noreen is in Christchurch for the weekend and today is skiing on Mount Hutt. Here it dawned bright and sunny (with a light frost) so it seemed like a good chance to get out in the hills again. This walk is at the southern end of the Belmont Regional Park.
The track follows the Korokoro Stream

up to the dam that was once used for Petone's water supply. This is Andy standing by the spillway.