Excuses

I was tired.  It drizzled.  I was busy.  I was job-hunting.  My legs were aching.  I went shopping.  I forgot.  I did enough exercise in the weekend.  I had a bad hair day.  I walked from library to the supermarket and back, does that count? Oh well.  I'll do better tomorrow.

Dance practice was nicely energetic today, so no hills were required.  Instead, I went to meet the new baby Isabelle, and then played geek for a few hours.

Another late-evening walk around the streets.  Tonight I wanted to spend about an hour walking, but I didn't really want to cover the same old streets again.  So when I got to the main road I headed north, where I hadn't gone before since there are no obvious blocks to circumnavigate.  I decided I would go in that direction for half an hour and see where it got me - and where it got me was all the way to the next major intersection, and up the hill to the start of the road that goes to the rubbish tip.  Woo!  From there, I could go up the road towards the tip, then take a side-street that leads to a shortcut to the unofficial dirt road that comes out just up the street from home.  Cool! I could do all the uphill stuff in the middle of the walk and finish by going downhill - so that's what I did, and I finished with five minutes to spare.  I think I'm going to use that route again.

Well fancy that!

I parked beside the Eldson Youth Camp and was about to head off along the usual familiar track, when I realised there was another track off to the right.  This had previously been overgrown and messed up due to flooding, and until today I wasn't even sure there it was meant to be passable.  But apparently the Porirua City Council have done some work on it, and now there is a clear path.  This path skirts along the edge of the reserve and comes out at the Aparangi Cres entrance - an entrance of which I was previously unaware.  After that, it's not so much a track as an old firebreak which wanders along a short way and then goes pretty much straight up the side of the ridge, at what feels like a nearly vertical angle (in reality probably about 30 degrees).  This firebreak-track also shows signs of recent work, some of the gorse having been hacked back.  Unfortunately there are new gorse seedlings appearing already so it's a never-ending job for them. I bravely struggled all the way to the top of the ridge and was rewarded with quite a good view of the Porirua harbour and surroundings.  Being such dull weather though, the photos didn't come out very well.  This one was taken on the way down, perhaps you can get a hint of how steep it is from the photo.  The big white rectangular building is the former Mitsubushi vehicle assembly plant known as Todd Park, named after either Todd Motors or the Todd family, I'm not sure which.  When I was shown around the facility in the late 1980s I was told it was (or had been) the largest factory floor in the southern hemisphere.  Sadly, it became less and less economically viable to assemble cars or trucks in New Zealand, Mitsubishi Motors started importing complete vehicles, and eventually the plant closed in about 1998.

It's yet another windy day in Wellington.  But at least it isn't raining, so I might just go and see if the bush tracks have dried out enough to walk on.

The sun came out this afternoon, so after two days of physical inactivity it was time for a serious walk.  I took the "high road" to the Tawa shopping centre: Fyvie Ave, Davidson Cres, Turkington St, Franklin Rd, then down Hampton Hill Rd and the pedestrian shortcut to Lincoln Ave and from there to the shops.  I came back via the Grasslees Reserve, where I found the perfect place to sit and ponder the world for a few minutes, then along the main road and up that last little vicious steep bit to home. At the Grasslees reserve there's a memorial to Elsdon Best who once lived there.  There are two plaques, which say: NEARBY AT GRASSLEES FARM ELSDON BEST MAORI ETHNOLOGIST WAS BORN ON 30 JUNE 1856 HIS ASHES LIE HERE and 1856-1931 Haere ra te Pehi Haere ki te Hono i Wairua

Rain stopped play

It's been horrible blustery weather for two days now, so no walking has been done.  I'm working on Minnie the Media PC instead, and I've just started another blog about that.

It rained heavily last night and this morning so bush walks were out of the question, and it was yet another walk around the streets of Tawa.  Steve came too, and we went as far as the Tawa railway station (about a kilometre away).  The railway station footbridge was the nearest we got to a hill (not counting the climb up our street to get home).  We came back along the other side of the line, and dropped in to see K and J before negating the whole exercise by getting fish and chips for tea.

But can he a-Ford it?

For tonight's walk I went down the hill, over to the Linden shops, and explored a little around the residential area over that side of the valley.  I spent about 90 minutes all up, including photo-opportunities and catching-my-breath stops.  I think half the "boy racers" in Wellington must live around here, and whoever made this letterbox was rather fond of Chevs - if you look at the larger version of the picture you'll see the badge on top of the, er, rocker cover.

A picture from Wednesday

Tamara sent me a couple of pictures from the "A&S Water Tank and Dancing Extravaganza" as she described it in her email, so here's one of them.  It isn't actually one of the pictures I took - I can tell because I'm in it, way over the right-hand side.  I'm afraid I dropped out of the main bunch when the going got difficult and it seemed like I was really just getting in the way, and that was when I took over the camera.

A neighbourhood wander

By the time I felt it had cooled down enough to go walking it was nearly dark, so I walked around the neighbourhood streets rather than going off into the bush which I normally prefer.  Going down the street means I have to finish with a steep uphill to come home, instead of a nice downhill winding-down stage, but sometimes I just have to live with that.  I went down to the Linden shopping area, along a back street to the sports ground, then back along the main road and up the hill to home.  About 45 minutes worth, at my pace.

Getting serious

Okay, it was time for a proper serious walk tonight after a slack couple of days.  I took Steve with me and and we made an assault on Colonial Knob from the Elsdon end.  I really had hoped I would improve on my previous best effort but it was not to be - we were defeated by my less than optimal fitness level and mud.  We did go for nearly an hour before we reached a point where we decided that discretion really was the better part of valour for us (although not for the rugby players that were out for some pre-season training).  There was a tree that I really wanted to take a picture of but my camera batteries went flat - all three sets.  That's the trouble with rechargeables, they have to be kept topped up or they'll be flat when you want to use them.  I think I'll get another one of those handy solar chargers and always have two sets on standby.

Encounter with a giant green oddfellow

This evening I went with a bunch of other people to Stephen and Tamara's place and helped them roll a water tank up the hill and put it in place - it looked like a giant green oddfellow rolling up the hill, and reminded me somewhat of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, although much slower.  Well, I confess I didn't actually do a lot in the way of helping but I took a lot of pictures on Tamara's camera (which by the way is much whizzier than mine).  Hopefully she'll send me one of them to post here, although I know they'll be busy getting the water supply sorted out, among other things, so it could take a few days.  After the planting of the tank (which was a mini-saga in itself) and cold drinks all round to recover, we did some dancing.

I blobbed out and didn't walk today, so here's another tourney photo.  This is from the skill-at-arms competition and shows Jean riding Cassidy in one of the four disciplines that are tested.  This one's fairly self-explanatory - the rider has to throw a spear at a target from a moving horse, which has to be at least cantering otherwise the rider loses points - and obviously points are gained depending on where the target is hit.

I didn't climb any hills today, but I did spend the afternoon wandering around town. Here's one of the photos from the tourney.  On the left is Callum riding Charlemagne, and on the right is (somebody) riding Bud.  In the background you can see Peter (on Hazel) waiting for his turn in the arena.  What can I say about these guys?  They like to dress up in metal suits and hit each other with big sticks on a hot midsummer's day, for fun.   (And yes, so far it's all guys doing the jousting, but there are several women involved in the skill-at-arms contest.)

In brief

I had a great time at the Tourney, and although I didn't walk up any hills I did get my daily exercise from dancing and generally "doing stuff".  I didn't go near the computer all weekend, and woke up this morning to 90 emails (that's not counting all the spam that my ISP filters out).  I'll post a photo or two later, because right now I have to go into town and get some tickets for Return of the King.

Finally!  The weather cleared this afternoon, and I was able to go for a walk.  Steve came with me on the theory that some fresh air and exercise might be good for his jet lag, having just arrived back from Scotland yesterday.  It was just a short excursion, down the road and back again really. I won't be doing any blogging over the weekend, as I'm intending to spend all my time at the tourney.

Is it just me or is "the internet" particularly slow these days?  Perhaps it's the school holidays or just the time of night but even downloading a single email seems to be taking forever. <gnashing of teeth>

Rain, rain, go away

Tuesday was one of those grey days with random bits of rain here and there.  So was Wednesday.  And today is turning out to be the same only worse.  Ergo, no walking and no new photos.  So, here's one from the big expedition back in December.  At one point we found ourselves walking through a cloud of tiny butterflies that looked a bit like red admirals but their wingspan was only about 3cm or so.  If you know what they are, drop me a line, you can find my address on my home page.

A bit of a rant, sorry

I have a confession to make: I have been neglecting my responsibilities.  I blame Saddam Hussein.  If he had not been such an evil dictator I would not now be so fascinated by Iraq-related blogs.  I'm a bit behind the times, I only found out about the Baghdad Blogger a short while ago when he was on Click Online, and I didn't start seriously reading his blog until a couple of weeks ago.  But when I did start, I couldn't stop.  I've been sitting up all stupid hours reading the archives (and following links and stuff) when I should have been in bed asleep.  And now I find there's a book of it.  I could have hinted to somebody that I wanted the book for Christmas and I could have been reading it in bed instead of hunched over the computer screen.  I've also been reading Riverbend's Baghdad Burning which also has a hold over me - her portrayal of the anguish that ordinary Iraqis go through is compelling. Anyway, I want to say this: It seems to me that the US has made a total stuff-up of managing post-war Iraq.  This is not a new opinion but it has been reinforced by what I've read in the blogs.  It was completely apparent from the first few days after Bush declared "major combat over" that they had NO PLANS WHATSOEVER for what to do next.  I read somewhere that some USA bigwig said the reason they didn't plan was (something to the effect that) they didn't know what the situation would be after the war.  Well, duh!  That's why you do RESEARCH, that's why you get the UN involved, that's why you work with people from other countries who have a clue about the culture.  It was REALLY DUMB of Bush to just go charging in with a cobbled-together "coalition" and a phoney pretext.  He may be able to fool enough of his own populace to get himself re-elected but every day it looks more and more as though he has just played into the hands of Osama bin Laden and his ilk by failing to plan the "what to do next" stuff. Okay, yes, Saddam had to go, should have gone years ago in fact, but the way Bush did it was completely wrong.  He should have worked with the UN instead trying to dictate to it, and there should have been Plan A, Plan B etc all the way up to Plan Z for the post-war phase, and all of those plans should have included some CONSULTATION fer chrissakes. I've just remembered something I heard years ago, just before the end of the Cold War I think, and it chills me to think of it now.  Somebody, I can't remember who, predicted that World War III would not be about USA vs Communist Russia, it would be over the Middle East.  Right now I can just about see how it could happen.  (If I were a conspiracy theorist I would suggest that Cheney is behind the whole thing and Iraq has been stuffed up on purpose to start WWIII so that the USA can win it and the Cheney gang can take over the whole world.  Fortunately I'm not a conspiracy theorist.) Okay, I've got all that off my chest, I'll go and do something useful now.

It had got to 9:20pm, the clouds had rolled in, and I needed stuff from the supermarket which was due to close at 10:00.  So tonight's walk was a token effort in the dark along the nearby dirt driveway.  Here's a picture of the poroporo bush, the whole thing this time.

Learning something new every day

I went for a walk this evening even though I went to dance practice in the morning which fulfilled my exercise obligation.  I went the "unoffical" way through to Broken Hill Rd and on into Spicer Park for a bit.  Felt good - the peace and quiet seems to help keep me sane. Here's a picture from the area that I took last month.  I had no idea what this plant was, I had never noticed it before - but that's probably because I never used to go out walking in this area.  So I asked Brenda, and she said "I'm pretty sure it's Poroporo.  According to my copy of 'The Reed Field Guide to NZ Native Trees', the name covers two species: Solanum aviculare and S. laciniatum.  S. laciniatum has purplish stems and grows as far south as Dunedin while S. aviculare has greenish stems and only gets as far south as Banks Peninsula.  They are both found in scrub and along coastal and lowland forest margins.  They can get up to 3-4m high.""  So here you are, here's a fine example of a Poroporo.  Thanks to Google I now know it is both edible and poisonous.  It's included on an indigenous menu at Praxis Cafe in Auckland - but according to the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture the leaves and green berries are poisonous so don't eat it unless you know what you're doing.  I guess the fruit have to be ripe before they are cooked.

It's another weird-weather day - brilliant sunshine out one window, low cloud hugging the hill out the other. And windy, dammit. Windy season should be more or less over by now, I would have thought. So off I went to one of the more sheltered tracks on Colonial Knob to see if I could shake off my grumpy mood.  It seemed like no time at all before I got to the reservoir; in fact it was probably about 15 minutes and I didn't need as many stops to catch my breath as on previous occasions, so I must be doing something right.  From here I had a choice of walking along beside the water and then up to meet with the gravel road, or up and over the ridge to another intersection.  I didn't fancy the gravel road in the wind, and I'm here for some serious exercise anyway, so up and over the ridge it was.  The signposted intersection at the bottom of this next little valley is a bit out of date; it points the way to Reservoir No. 1 and describes the route as a bypass to Broken Hill carpark.  Well, I went round that way once before,  Reservoir No. 1 collapsed several decades ago and is now just a grassy clearing, and yes the track does loop back onto itself at a point quite near the entrance, but there is one place where you have to scramble down a bank and pick your way carefully across a stream if you don't want to get your feet wet.  There might have been a bridge once, but if there was, it has long since been washed away.  I wasn't dressed for the scramble down the bank, and I wanted to keep going so I took the other path.  This was terra incognita for me, but according to the map it goes up to the top of Colonial Knob.  Not that I would have enough time to go that far; I looked at my watch and decided I would keep going until 4:30 and then turn around.  The track here is a little harder going, it's fairly steep with occasional big steps, and "ladders" formed by tree roots.  I don't mind the uphill, it's what I'm here for, but some of the steps were a bit high for my short legs to cope with easily.  Eventually I reached one that was just too much; I sat on it for a few minutes and it was a good height for sitting on, probably even for someone taller than me.  I could have climbed up okay, but what bothered was that I would soon have to climb down again and the thought was really not appealing.  I also thought about how the track would turn to mud if it rained, and so even though it was still ten minutes to my 4:30 deadline I turned and went back the way I had come.  I briefly thought about going via the bypass track but decided against it and carried on up to the top of the ridge.  At various points along the track there are pink plastic triangles nailed to the trees, these indicate where the possum control bait lines start.  A notice at the beginning of the track says "do not follow the pink triangles" but at the top of the ridge where I was, there was a clear track to follow and I knew not to mess with the bait stations so I wandered along the top of the ridge a little way until I got to a little grassy clearing and the first bait station.  By now I had used up my spare ten minutes and decided to head back.  Down to the No. 2 Reservoir (the one that's still there, see a previous post) and then back down the track, across to Spicer Park for a change of scenery and an easy walk back to the car.  It's always a bit of an anti-climax getting back into the car and going away.  The walk did the trick though, I'm not feeling so grumpy any more.  I dropped off some stuff at the recycling station on the way home, which always makes me feel virtuous. No new photos today because I didn't take the camera, but here's one from my last visit to the area; an unexpected concrete artifact near the track, it's obviously something to do with the reservoir and its former purpose of supplying water.

The weather is doing odd things: it's clear and sunny all day, so I decide I will walk in the evening, but just when I think it's cool enough to get energetic, I look up at the sky and see these big clouds rolling in, and maybe it will rain.  This has happened several times in the last few days - it's like being in Auckland. This evening I decided I would walk anyway, even though it's nearly sunset time and those clouds are rolling in.  I went into the Makara Peak park by a different entrance, as I suspected it was an easier climb, and yes it was.  I wish I could take a photo of the birdsong, it was just brilliant.  I don't know if that's because I was later than usual or because I was deeper into the bush, perhaps a bit of both.  Anyway, here's a real cliche of a photo, one of our fabulous tree-ferns against the darkening sky.

New Year, new track

A couple of weeks ago Ray told me about a new track that's been opened, it goes from south Karori up Wright's Hill (which, by the way, according to the map, is actually called Wright Hill, but that just sounds silly.)  I didn't have time for a serious walk today, social butterfly that I am (not!) but I did try out the first 5 minutes worth.  Looks like a nice track: easy walking, good views, and a gentle gradient on the first bit at least.  I was a bit disappointed though to see (and smell) several little piles of doggy-do near the start.  I would recommend solid but "second-best" footwear, solid because of the chunky gravel surface but "second-best" because of the aforementioned little piles.  This track certainly merits further investigation.