We landed in Wellington late on Tuesday night. Three days of
work for Dora followed, during which I did some of my MA, went on some runs,
and joined Dora for lunch in the sun (my office was closed until 9 January,
since almost everyone in New Zealand is on holiday).
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| The road to/from Ngawi |
On Friday I picked up Dora from work and we headed over the
Rimutakas to the small fishing settlement of Ngawi. This was part-time-home to the
Corsers, friends of Dora’s family, who kindly welcomed us with some excellent
roast lamb, washed down with a couple-too-many beers. |
| Me with a 'Spikey Dogfish' that went back in |
Saturday morning dawned clear and still(ish), so we jumped
on the Corser boat to catch lunch and dinner. It wasn’t the most successful
of expeditions, but after checking four cray pots and getting many phantom ‘bites’
on our fishing rods we had enough Crayfish and Blue Cod to make a significant
contribution to the meals.
Tom then took us quad biking to see some baby seals
practising their swimming (cue “awww”), then on to a lighthouse with over 250
steps, which I tried to run up before dying halfway.   |
| Tom and Roger at the Pinnacles |
After some cross-country quad biking we then renewed our
hunter-gathering, donning wetsuits and jumping into some shallow sea in search
for Paua. Unfortunately this search was even less successful than fishing – poor
visibility and lots of seaweed meant we only returned with one of the abalone-like
shellfish. It tasted amazing on the BBQ though!
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| Dora and Adam in the swimming hole |
On Sunday morning we headed back to Wellington via ‘The Pinnacles’. These are rocky columns that occur when a vertical section of rock
is protected from weathering by a harder rock ‘capstone’. More importantly,
they are the focus of the part of Lord of the Rings when Aragon and co head
into the mountain to ask the undead army to lend them a hand.
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| Scene from 'Meridian Gardens Magic', where we took Sophie and Adam to watch some country music in the city's botanical gardens. |
Although we’d been planning to greet Sophie and Adam on Sunday afternoon, flight issues meant they didn’t arrive until Monday. The delay made them extra-pleased to arrive, and Dora took them over to the Wairarapa to show them some walks, vineyards and discover a swimming hole on Tuesday.
That evening
we went to the Crab Shack, where we reached the conclusion that crab is quite a
high-effort, low-reward kind of meal, but yummy all the same.
Sophie and Adam have been exploring
Wellington and nipping North to do the Tongariro crossing for the rest of the
week, whilst we’ve been working.
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| Latest from the Tongariro Crossing |
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