Progress on the Rimutaka Hill Road.
It’s scarily impressive to be honest. Diggers are perched high up on the hill, cutting a way through the sharpest bends. Sometimes it really does look as if they are about to go hurtling down the hill and end up somewhere in the valley.
These photos were actually taken a few weeks ago:
These are taken from the summit looking south towards Wellington.
This is looking up towards the summit, traveling from Wellington (The weather was crap that day!):
And a Closer view of what they are doing – not that it makes much sense to my untrained, un-engineering eye.
Sorry the photos aren’t the greatest – they are taken on an iPhone !
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25,000 guests? – Of course, come right this way.
Martinborough had its twice annual Rotary fair last weekend, and for the first time in a while the Wairarapa delivered decent weather. So rather than donning galoshers and a storm coat, we headed out in shorts, t-shirt & a lather of sun block.
The first time we went was exciting and an early start – a two hour drive from Wellington to get there before many of the crowds, so that we could get a BBQ’d steak sandwich breakfast and not have to park in Featherston.
We have a slightly more relaxed approach to the fair these days. It’s still a special breakfast at home in the morning, but now only a 15 minute drive to our side of town. You can tell there’s something special happening in Martinborough, on account of seeing more than three other vehicles on the road as you drive there.
Still I get the impression the fair is unofficially starting earlier & earlier each year. I was over hearing someone in a café during the week say they intended to be there by 7:00am, and be all done before 8:30am so they could go home and have breakfast. If it gets any earlier, they’ll have to turn it into a Christmas fair. By 2pm some stall holders were packing up. While that’s not a surprise from the food stalls who have run out of stuff to cook or sell, it was a surprise for other stalls. You might have thought they had something more important to get to, like the rugby sevens back in Wellington.
The fair is less crowded of an afternoon. It’s hot, it’s dry, the pub beckons, as does the beach, the wineries, the ice cream stall or anywhere with air conditioning really. So it’s easier wandering around all the stalls in the afternoon. You can tell some of the stall holders are wilting a little though, as you politely cough and they wake up from an afternoon nap in the deckchairs. Which is perfectly fine, since by the time we get home, it’s either time for a nap ourselves, or a dive in the pool to cool off. All told it took about three hours to work our way round everything. I tend to walk around the event in circles (well, squares actually), since the whole town centre is symmetrical and I just can’t get my sense of direction stable. Circles is less confusing.
There’s normally something new to discover, so this years hot tips are;
‘home made’ fudge (looking identical & in identical packaging, so I don’t know whose home it came from!) is out. Only three stalls selling it this year instead of the 50 there seemed to be last year.
Hats are still in – of course. But then I’m of the ‘I have a hat and one head, how many more hats do I need?’ school of thought.
The BNZ bank has really good air conditioning – although they’re only open until lunch time for you to get cash out.
The (small) supermarket doesn’t jack up its prices because it’s fair weekend. Unlike many of the cafés who charge an extra 15% – 20%. Still, given that it was Waitangi day and Bank Holiday surcharges apply I don’t think they won quite so much this year.
We’ll be back next weekend, time to sample some new local wines in the village winery. We’ll park in the square, take all of ten minutes to visit every open shop, and just appreciate how nice it can be to wander round Martinborough on it’s usual tranquil day.
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A Royal rugby team?
There’s a couple of curious coincidences that happened in the last few weeks which gave me a startling idea this afternoon.
- A few weeks ago I happened to be walking past the Intercontinental hotel when Prince William came out and drove off to do his childrens ward hospital visit. There were some crowds outside the hotel. And to be fair, more crowds at the hospital.
- Then yesterday I happened to be walking to the bank, and there was the rugby seven’s parade working it’s way down Willis St. There were some crowds along (both sides of) the street, (round the corner, up the road, back along two other streets and filling civic square).
“So what?” you may think.
A republican minded Green MP has got his private members bill randomly selected for consideration in parliament. This private bill is to hold a full referendum on whether NZ should become a Republic, and cut the last remaining Govt. & Monarchy links with the UK. We would no longer hold allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II of New Zealand. {Is it just me, or do the Greens have no Green policies? Their major contributions to NZ politics in the last few years; A Republic referendum bill, anti-smacking legislation & a ‘Buy Kiwi made’ advertising campaign}.
Anyway.
This bill proposes more than one Republican option, and if they’ve learnt anything from the failed attempts of the republican movement in Australia years ago, they will have a bit more sense about wording the question. And think very carefully about the options they give us to choose from.
Next to this, there is a debate about changing the NZ flag. So all this is being talked about a lot. Something along the lines of ‘Look how well Canada has done with a new flag, showing it’s maturity and responsibility’. A bit like a teenager getting a hair cut & colour in rebellion against stuffy old parents.
But anyway.
What occurred to me was, if the Monarchy don’t want NZ to go republic, they need to form a rugby team.
huh!? you may be thinking.
And take part in the sevens tournament. Or indeed any rugby match taking place up and down the country or oversea’s where NZ is playing – just so long as they don’t always beat the NZ team.
double huh!?
It’s no surprise to hear that rugby is popular here, and if you want to win popularity you need to appeal to the people. By this point you’re probably thinking, ‘what’s he going on about’.
Well look at the crowd pulling power involved here;
Prince William (who likes rugby!), makes his first official visit to NZ. Look at the crowds;
While of course the Police were keeping people away from the hotel lobby, the crowd is standing in the middle of this picture, and there’s lots of empty space around. I’ve seen more people waiting for the first thing in the morning train on a Monday in sleepy Carterton. And that’s at 5:45am.
Compare & Contrast with – The rugby sevens teams, who visit every year, and will be here again next year;
Yes, okay, there’s some empty space in civic square, but look below at the roads outside and people queueing to get in;
&
.
So my theory is, if the Royal’s want greater popular appeal and keep NZ aligned with the British monarchy – they need to form a rugby team.
{ssshh, don’t tell anyone, but it’s 9pm on a Friday evening, we’ve got the opening match of the seven’s playing and yes, I’m writing a blog. ssshh, we don’t follow the rugby}
Stars
We were in Wellington last night, I looked out the window around 11pm and was most surprised.
To see stars.
Not something I’d expected when in the middle of the CBD. My feeling was very much encapsulated by the phrase “OMG, it’s full of stars”.
Most cities I’ve been in over the years have no real night sky, since it’s all drowned out by light pollution. So seeing the stars last night was a pleasant surprise.
Hubby’s views – Deloitte’s on Brandon St
About once a month I head to Deloitte’s on Brandon St. Nicely enough they are on the 16th floor, affording quite nice views of the bay. So here’s whatis known as the ‘outer T’ where Hilton have been trying to build a hotel, with a bonus of a ferry doing a donut before it reverse parks.
Panning right, we then have a view down Jervois Quay towards Te Papa;
And panning slightly further to the right, a rather long view up Willis St – Majestic centre being the copper coloured building in the distance.
Commuting to Auckland
Filed under: Hubby's Views, Jobs & Work, Life in New Zealand
Having tried our inaugral flight into Masterton a number of months ago, I had to go up to Auckland for the day last week. So I decided to try out the Masterton commuter flight.
Now, I had to pay $600 for the return trip booked a week in advance, although looking now for just over a week in advance and you can get the same flights for $350 – at that price very comparable for the WLG-AKL flights. Either way, when you factor in parking, petrol etc. even a $600 return flight is better than driving into Wellington.
So what does the time table for the day look like?
0630 leave home - about the same time I’d leave to get the train into Wellington.
0650 arrive at airport, park, walk to terminal building, check-in, drink some tea, have a comfort break, read some of my book generally use up spare time 
0700 start boarding board plane
0701 finish boarding plane
0705 plane takes off
0815 arrive Auckland airport (early!)
~0900 arrive Auckland CBD
(1800-ish leave Auckland CBD – now I typically leave earlier than 1800 as traffic starts building from approx 1600 making the taxi journey too time consuming at over an hour – ha! how relative ‘bad traffic’ becomes when you are in NZ!)
1900 flight leaves Auckland
2015 Arrive Masterton
2016 disembark plane, walk through arrivals hall, walk out into carpark, start car
2017 drive out of car park
2030 arrive home.
Which makes for a slightly long day, however if I tried to get an 0700 flight from Wellington to get me into Auckland for the same time, I’d have to leave home by about 0430 to allow enough time to drive, park, check-in and wait in the departure lounge! Plus getting a 1700 flight back would have me home by about the same time, only I’d get two hours less work done up in Auckland. On this occasion it meant I could have a (business) lunch with a colleague.
Now because we’re in a small plane we’re also not flying as high, about 20,000 feet. So after levelling out from take off at Masterton – there’s an immediate view of Tongariro ahead, and the Pacific coast to the right. Which just makes you wonder why you’re on a flight to Auckland instead of heading to the beach – but ho hum.
The really good views this time were actually on the flight back. Like these of Tongariro;
And this;
oh, and this rather good view;
Piped Xmas Music
Well you know it must be Xmas when;
1. – the shops start stocking ‘presents for him’,
2. – the pundits predict the best/worst/most average Xmas shopping spree ever, with record high/low/fast/slow sales,
3. – and you get piped music to assault your ears as you’re trying to meander in the vain search for something half way decent to buy. You know the stuff, like a 3yr old has been let loose on an electronic keyboard. Or if you’re lucky the Xmas CD gets stuck in a loop of three songs instead of only one.
Still some shops have a better class of piped music than others, you can rely on Kirkaldie & Staines to raise the bar a little.
The dulcet tones of a real brass quintet soothing the journey home at 6:30 in the evening as people do some late night shopping.
Hubby’s views – Majestic centre 2
Beyond the views of the bay, we also get a decent perspective on the built up area’s of town.
So here we have the civic square on the left again, looking down through the traffic to Courtney place – it’s there honest! When the Embassy cinema has it’s lights on, it’s quite clear even at a distance. Still, at least we can still see some decent greenery on Mt Victoria in the distance.
panning right, we have the rest of ‘down town’ looking across to the war memorial. Still here’s the IRD building in a delightful shade of money green.
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Hubby’s views – The Majestic Centre 1
So the Majestic centre is where I actually work. It is still the tallest building in Wellington – it just doesn’t look that way when you’re north of town looking towards the CBD. However this first photo conclusively shows we’re bigger than the BNZ centre;
Here, we’re looking down Willis St, towards Deloitte’s and on to the Westpac Stadium (aka cake tin).
The building site right next to us is the home of the new Telecom office;
Still I’m sure it’ll look better once it’s finished.
The money views from the Majestic are naturally of the bay;
And over looking the civic square (library & Wellington council offices make up the curved buildings, with the old town hall on the right hand side)
Windy Wellington
Filed under: Hubby's Views, Life in New Zealand, Things to do
We spotted this at the St James’s theatre the other day;
Which of course should be compared with the wind during Toast Martinborough the other weekend, where honking big tractors were used as anchors for the marques;
