Kaitoke

One of our favourite walking destinations but I can only find one previous post - part of my 60th birthday celebrations. This blog will be primarily about trees but we did discover this fine specimen of a New Zealand earthworm.

We were dwarfed by these giants soaring into the sky.

An ent-like tree.

The river is crossed by a well protected swing bridge

with good views from the middle.

This track follows the river

which has some good swimming holes.

On a flat area near the camp site is a grove of totara planted in memory of Norman Kirk the Labour prime minister who died in office in 1974.

After a not-so-strenuous walk we repaired to a nearby cafe which specialises in cream teas and enjoyed date scones, blackberry jam, cream and orange pekoe tea. I left my camera in the car so there are no photographs of the gluttony that ensued!

Spring Wedding

We have been down in Christchurch for Tom and Laura’s wedding. We all dressed up in our finery and the weather cooperated although it was a tad breezy. Here are the matriachs 

and Denise with the handsome groom.

Laura comes from a large family.

Proud parents.

 Tom's brothers

and all of Denise's clan.

Gazza and Jazza

and just to prove I was there - a Denise style photo.

While down south we took the opportunity to check the rebuild. Progress is being made and some old haunts have survived in a different guise. This is the building that was The Twisted Hop, now operated as Dux Central.

The panoramic view from the balcony.

Elsewhere near the Restart Mall new buildings emerge from the rubble.

And the trams are running again.

Wellington Writers Walk

On a recent blustery day we decided we would investigate this walk along the Wellington waterfront. It features quotations from writers associated with Wellington and generally about the city. I was aware of some of the sculptures but thought we should seek out some of the more obscure ones. This is from Denis Glover -

The harbour is an ironing board;

Flat iron tugs dash smoothing toward
Any shirt of a ship, any pillowslip
Of a freighter they decree
Must be ironed flat as washing from the sea.

The sea could do with a bit of ironing on that day. We actually had quite a bit of difficulty finding some of the sites. But we did meet some fine looking gulls.

This is by Maurice Gee
Then out of the tunnel and Wellington burst like a bomb. 
It opened like a flower, was lit up like a room, explained 
itself exactly, became the capital.

Robin Hyde was a journalist, novelist and poet. Her best known work is The Godwits Fly widely seen as an allegory of New Zealanders' travel urge. She travelled to Asia and Europe in the 1930s and died in London in 1939.
Yet I think, having used my words as the kings used gold,
Ere we came by the rustling jest of the paper kings,
I who am overbold will be steadily bold,
In the counted tale of things.

This extract from James K. Baxter is submerged at high tide. He was a poet and mystic who lived in the middle of the twentieth century.
I saw the Maori Jesus
walking on Wellington Harbour.
He wore blue dungarees. 
His beard and hair were long.
His breath smelt of mussels and paraoa.
When he smiled it looked like the dawn.

For a bit of light relief Noreen and Alison channelled Kate Winslet in The Titanic next to Solace in the Wind.

Finally we have to include Katherine Mansfield, New Zealand's first internationally acclaimed writer.
Their heads bent, their legs just touching, they 
stride like one eager person through the town, 
down the asphalt zigzag where the fennel grows 
wild ... the wind is so strong that they have 
to fight their way through it, rocking like 
two old drunkards.

which neatly sums up life in Wellington most days.