Pinnacles, lighthouses, seals and Scooby.

I write this sitting in our living room doors to the balcony open, sun streaming in, view of the hills beyond and a gentle breeze blowing.  Last weekend we didn't have any of this.  For the first time since we arrived in New Zealand we had proper rain.  Sunday it was howling a gale and drizzling constantly.  Overnight for the next couple of days we had proper downpours.  Despite this, not enough rain has yet fallen to bring us out of drought and we still have water shortages and hosepipe bans.

Thankfully, before the rain set in last weekend we got up to Lower Hutt (just north of Wellington City) to a road lined, from one end to the other, with car dealerships.  We spent most of Saturday gazing at our reflections in shiny bonnets, test driving various makes and models, and generally trying to work out what cars we could afford.  In the end we didn't buy on Saturday but looked at some private sales through the start of the week.  This resulted in a new addition to the household  - "Scooby" (A Subaru Forester 2.5x - for those who are interested.)

With the weather so variable this week we had to wait until the weekend for a decent walk. On Saturday we headed out to the Putangirua Pinnacles near Cape Palliser for a walk with some of the better half's work mates.  It turned into a beautiful day.  We had to drive there over the Rimutaka Mountains (great windy mountain road through native bush) and then head through the Wairarapa (lovely rolling meadows and vineyards) to the coast.

    

 

For the geologists, the pinnacles are an example of sedimentary deposit over an alluvial fan which has then been eroded by streams and rivers to form "hoodoos" or badlands.  The erosion happens very quickly (in geological terms) and the oldest pinnacles are reckoned to be 125,000 years old and the youngest approximately 7,000 years old.  It was a great walk through a surreal landscape (which was also used during the filming of Lord of the Rings - prizes to those who know which scenes it was in!)

We finished off the day with a quick drive down to the Cape Palliser light house, a look at some of the seals basking on the rocks and an icecream.  There was supposed to be a rock pool with hundreds of pups but we couldn't find it so had to make do with some grumpy males and their long suffering harems.  The day gave us a sample of the ease with which we could get out into rural New Zealand and hopefully we will be able to do more at Easter weekend.