Saturday, February 16, 2008
What to wear?
I knew this would happen. I started by travelling through Asia, so summer attire is no problem. I had thermals with me too, so with a little bit of topping up (mainly with uniform), winter wear was sorted too. Now I need an autumn wardrobe appropriate for a windy wet city and associated job - i.e. what I wear the majority of the year at home. I'm stuck. It's all at my parents' in Aberdeen!
Queen of the Castle
My new house on the hill has so much character.
Once you've hauled your way up the stairs and run the gauntlet between Amanda's half-finished pizza oven and her lettuce patch, simultaneously dodging the washing line strategically strung, like all self-concerning washing lines, at neck height, you arrive in the kitchen. The focus point of the kitchen and ablutions area is the glooping blubbing fish tank containing, other than the fish, a plastic Lady Penelope.
Past the downstairs bedrooms you have a choice.
To the left are the stairs down to the Orange Room and The Dungeon (yes, a dungeon, complete with plastic skeleton).
To the right is the living room with half the Salvation Army's supply of sofa's and shelving. No Wellington living room worth its salt, it appears, would forget a pair of binoculars to watch cruise ships and ferries, logging activity on Mt Victoria, and for people watching. We've got 2 pairs.
Up the stairs of death finally to the TV room (no sofas, just mattresses, cushions and fairy lights) and my room. I can't stand upright in my room. I have no door or bed, just a curtain and double mattress. It's right under the roof so when it rains or the wind picks up, I feel a bit like I'm in a fishing boat cabin. I've not got enough stuff to worry about lack of space, and there are fairy lights too.
I love it. I've got a Jo space that's all mine for the next 5 weeks!
Once you've hauled your way up the stairs and run the gauntlet between Amanda's half-finished pizza oven and her lettuce patch, simultaneously dodging the washing line strategically strung, like all self-concerning washing lines, at neck height, you arrive in the kitchen. The focus point of the kitchen and ablutions area is the glooping blubbing fish tank containing, other than the fish, a plastic Lady Penelope.
Past the downstairs bedrooms you have a choice.
To the left are the stairs down to the Orange Room and The Dungeon (yes, a dungeon, complete with plastic skeleton).
To the right is the living room with half the Salvation Army's supply of sofa's and shelving. No Wellington living room worth its salt, it appears, would forget a pair of binoculars to watch cruise ships and ferries, logging activity on Mt Victoria, and for people watching. We've got 2 pairs.
Up the stairs of death finally to the TV room (no sofas, just mattresses, cushions and fairy lights) and my room. I can't stand upright in my room. I have no door or bed, just a curtain and double mattress. It's right under the roof so when it rains or the wind picks up, I feel a bit like I'm in a fishing boat cabin. I've not got enough stuff to worry about lack of space, and there are fairy lights too.
I love it. I've got a Jo space that's all mine for the next 5 weeks!
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Wok City
Have you ever been to Wellington? Many people who've been to New Zealand have only passed through it. And they're missing out. But I'm not sure I've ever experienced a city built in such an anti-intuitive location.
The best way I can find to describe it is as though the city's been built in half a wok. The centre is fairly level, but in the immediate suburbs you're straight into really steep hills. In these hills, often unbelievably, people have built their houses. I'm living in one of these now.
After miles of suburban and rural NZ filled with one-storey weatherboard houses (and yes, I do understand to a degree why they're quite so prevalent), this Briton finds great pleasure and relief in being amongst more solid and more varied buildings. But they're on such steep hillsides!
I knew Wellington was hilly before I left the UK. What I didn't realise is that most of the houses don't evern have bendy hilly road access to front doors or garages. No no. You park your car in the street at the bottom of a staircase and then tramp up sometimes 100 steps or so to your front door. Not easy with a week's worth of groceries or your winter supply of firewood. (More wealthy Wellingtonians - around 400 of them currently - have had private cable cars built to allow easier access to the more inaccessible homes!)
The views are stunning from all these houses. I'm not sure if having to haul my way up the equivalent of Arthur's Seat every day makes it all worth it, though...
The best way I can find to describe it is as though the city's been built in half a wok. The centre is fairly level, but in the immediate suburbs you're straight into really steep hills. In these hills, often unbelievably, people have built their houses. I'm living in one of these now.
After miles of suburban and rural NZ filled with one-storey weatherboard houses (and yes, I do understand to a degree why they're quite so prevalent), this Briton finds great pleasure and relief in being amongst more solid and more varied buildings. But they're on such steep hillsides!
I knew Wellington was hilly before I left the UK. What I didn't realise is that most of the houses don't evern have bendy hilly road access to front doors or garages. No no. You park your car in the street at the bottom of a staircase and then tramp up sometimes 100 steps or so to your front door. Not easy with a week's worth of groceries or your winter supply of firewood. (More wealthy Wellingtonians - around 400 of them currently - have had private cable cars built to allow easier access to the more inaccessible homes!)
The views are stunning from all these houses. I'm not sure if having to haul my way up the equivalent of Arthur's Seat every day makes it all worth it, though...
Monday, February 11, 2008
Samba-sick
Last May when I first joined in a Wellington Batucada (i.e. samba drumming) rehearsal, I came away simply feeling excited and accepted.
Today when I went back for the first time, I'm left mainly feeling a bit homesick for the Edinburgh Samba School and everything that ties into that.
Odd.
Today when I went back for the first time, I'm left mainly feeling a bit homesick for the Edinburgh Samba School and everything that ties into that.
Odd.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Been and gone (group email)
Well, mum's been and gone and what a wonderful 3 weeks we had together! It's just been amazing. We saw and did so many wonderful things around the North Island, but it was also simply magic to get to spend some quality time together after almost a year and a half away from home.
We left South Auckland with a vague route in mind, but pretty much made up most of it as we went along. The (summarised) itinerary ended up as follows:
WAITOMO CAVES (abseiled 100m in then scrambled and swam back out over 6 hours, including enjoying the beautiful glow worms, eels, fossils and everything else along the way)
TONGARIRO CROSSING (excellent long hike, really lovely although relatively busy, we opted to climb up the bitch of a mountain that is Mt Ngauruhoe - Mt Doom very apt - that is best compared to a 750m struggle up a sand dune, well worth it for the views though)
FORGOTTEN WORLD HIGHWAY (2 days over one of the most scenic roads on the north island, stopping off to search for random 'historic' disused tunnels, boat landings, waterfalls etc along the way, and an overnight in the Independent Republic of Whangomomona, whose last president was a goat)
TARANAKI REGION/NEW PLYMOUTH (vegging time, after Ngauruhoe we couldn't face hauling ourselves up another young volcano, so we chilled in town, went for a boat ride and explored the festival of lights)
MATEMATEAONGA TRACK (4-day tramp through NZ bush, more views of Ruapehu etc, but a really fab experience to use the back country huts and rough it for a bit, plus we heard wild kiwis and mum got her first jetboat ride at the end)
WELLINGTON (I can't seem to stay away from this city! We indulged in the delights of the cable car, botanics, good food, Parliament visit with a dreadful guide, Te Papa - the national museum, a spot of theatre and one of our highlights of the holiday: nightwalk in Karori Wildlife Sanctuary where we saw tuatara (rare NZ lizards that live to over 100 years old) and wild kiwi)
MARTINBOROUGH (hired bikes and swayed our way round a good selection of Martinborough wineries, sampling everything along the way, including gorgeous pinot noirs, and sea salt chocolate at a specialist chocolate shop)
MT RUAPEHU (very strange to be on this mountain in the summer, but it gave us the chance to hike up to the crater lake and slide back down on the remaining bits of snow, as well as catch up with old housemates Bex and Basil)
ROTORUA (tourist central, we tortured ourselves with a 'maori cultural experience' evening - only the bus ride there and back saved it; we also visited a good range of thermal springs, sulphur lakes and glooping mud pots (my favourite), took a thermal mud bath and the other big highlight of the holiday: Kerosene Creek, a natural thermal river that you can just go and bathe in for free)
And then we came full circle back to my NZ family in South Auckland, took a wee visit to see the fish and penguins at Kelly Tarlton's before getting mum back on a plane home!
What now? Not quite the million dollar question it could be. I've got work in the NZ Festival covering February and most of March, which is great. I can't wait to get stuck in to that. I head down to Wellington on Monday on the Overlander train. Before that, I'm cashing in my birthday voucher from my parents and going to canyon down Sleeping Gods Canyon, one of the more extreme canyoning experiences in the country.
And the festival ends just before the other female member of the Odds clan arrives on these fair shores for a month. Excellent!
We left South Auckland with a vague route in mind, but pretty much made up most of it as we went along. The (summarised) itinerary ended up as follows:
WAITOMO CAVES (abseiled 100m in then scrambled and swam back out over 6 hours, including enjoying the beautiful glow worms, eels, fossils and everything else along the way)
TONGARIRO CROSSING (excellent long hike, really lovely although relatively busy, we opted to climb up the bitch of a mountain that is Mt Ngauruhoe - Mt Doom very apt - that is best compared to a 750m struggle up a sand dune, well worth it for the views though)
FORGOTTEN WORLD HIGHWAY (2 days over one of the most scenic roads on the north island, stopping off to search for random 'historic' disused tunnels, boat landings, waterfalls etc along the way, and an overnight in the Independent Republic of Whangomomona, whose last president was a goat)
TARANAKI REGION/NEW PLYMOUTH (vegging time, after Ngauruhoe we couldn't face hauling ourselves up another young volcano, so we chilled in town, went for a boat ride and explored the festival of lights)
MATEMATEAONGA TRACK (4-day tramp through NZ bush, more views of Ruapehu etc, but a really fab experience to use the back country huts and rough it for a bit, plus we heard wild kiwis and mum got her first jetboat ride at the end)
WELLINGTON (I can't seem to stay away from this city! We indulged in the delights of the cable car, botanics, good food, Parliament visit with a dreadful guide, Te Papa - the national museum, a spot of theatre and one of our highlights of the holiday: nightwalk in Karori Wildlife Sanctuary where we saw tuatara (rare NZ lizards that live to over 100 years old) and wild kiwi)
MARTINBOROUGH (hired bikes and swayed our way round a good selection of Martinborough wineries, sampling everything along the way, including gorgeous pinot noirs, and sea salt chocolate at a specialist chocolate shop)
MT RUAPEHU (very strange to be on this mountain in the summer, but it gave us the chance to hike up to the crater lake and slide back down on the remaining bits of snow, as well as catch up with old housemates Bex and Basil)
ROTORUA (tourist central, we tortured ourselves with a 'maori cultural experience' evening - only the bus ride there and back saved it; we also visited a good range of thermal springs, sulphur lakes and glooping mud pots (my favourite), took a thermal mud bath and the other big highlight of the holiday: Kerosene Creek, a natural thermal river that you can just go and bathe in for free)
And then we came full circle back to my NZ family in South Auckland, took a wee visit to see the fish and penguins at Kelly Tarlton's before getting mum back on a plane home!
What now? Not quite the million dollar question it could be. I've got work in the NZ Festival covering February and most of March, which is great. I can't wait to get stuck in to that. I head down to Wellington on Monday on the Overlander train. Before that, I'm cashing in my birthday voucher from my parents and going to canyon down Sleeping Gods Canyon, one of the more extreme canyoning experiences in the country.
And the festival ends just before the other female member of the Odds clan arrives on these fair shores for a month. Excellent!
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