Huge apologies to those who have been waiting with bated breath to hear more tall tales from The Land of the Long White Cloud. Over the last week we have spent less time looking at the clouds and more time hugging the ground.
If you hadn't already heard (how anyone could have missed it I don't know), Wellington has been suffering, what they charmingly refer to as, a swarm of earthquakes. It all started about a week ago with a few "pre-shocks" that tipped in at around magnitude 5. The strongest of these on the Friday (Magnitude 5.7) lasted about 30 seconds and had us putting into practise our "Drop, Cover and Hold". As it was around 9 in the morning everyone was in work and a lot of people were quite shaken (no pun intended). It was hard to concentrate on work for the rest of the day but the general consensus was that would be the end of it as it was the largest quake Wellington had experienced in a long time.
There were no noticeable quakes through Saturday although the internet was telling us there were a huge number of small tremors occurring. It wasn't until Sunday morning we felt one again. This one weighed in at 5.8 and woke us up first thing in the morning. The minor shakes carried on throughout the day and then at 5:09pm the big one hit. We had just been food shopping and walked into the house, put the shopping bags down, closed the door then heard/felt a low rumbling. This rapidly increased to shaking and we staggered to our bathroom and crouched down in the corner. After approximately 20 seconds everything went quiet again.
We got off lightly; one bottle of shampoo fell off the shelf in the bathroom. One of the girls I work with lives in an apartment block in town. She described her flat as "trashed" with large items falling down and breakages all over the place. Some city centre buildings faired even worse with structural damage, smashed windows and chunks of masonry falling off. There have only been 4 injuries that I have heard of and none too serious. I suspect this is mainly because very few people were in the office blocks in the CBD at the time of the quake.
One of the casualties of the earthquake is my workplace. It was yellow stickered before the quake (basically that means it wasn't up to modern building standards) and we were scheduled to move later this year. The quake has caused concern about the structure of main stairwells and it burst a high pressure water main in the building which has saturated everything on the bottom few floors. Today was the first time I was allowed back in and that was only to collect a few essential (if soggy) items. Whilst alternative workspace is being arranged we are all working from home (as best we can). The better half was straight back to work on Monday. Her building is touted as one of the safest in Wellington. The fact that everyone keeps saying this makes her nervous - I think it's like the Titanic predictions.
It's difficult to know how to feel about experiencing a 6.5 magnitude quake. In the grand scheme of things it was not that big, it didn't cause much damage and certainly wasn't life threatening. For comparison the earthquake in Christchurch was only 6.3 but because it was directly below the city it caused vastly more damage and loss of life. Also, this saga might not be over, the aftershocks are still going; over 30 quakes of magnitude 4 or higher since Sunday. I guess, at the moment, I am just thankful to be able to sit down, collect my thoughts and write about them. I will keep you all posted.
(No photos but if you want to know more about the quakes I recommend www.geonet.org.nz)
Wednesday 24 July 2013
Saturday 6 July 2013
Rocks and Waves - Take 2
So these are the promised scribbling's to add to last weeks lengthy blog. The better half is off riding a horse, the weather is less than favourable (gale force winds and horizontal rain) so I shall take the opportunity of being stuck indoors to write. I apologise in advance to those of you who don't rock climb or sail. Most of what follows is shameless glorification of two minority pastimes.
Last weekend the weather was much better and on Saturday I got to head outdoors to go bouldering again. Mike (my new climbing buddy) and I headed out to Baring Head (again). This time we avoided fording the river but took a slightly longer walk in that didn't involve the chance of getting wet from the waist down - see previous blog Rocks And Waves. We made it to Baring Head and found a bouldering playground.
I won't bore you with details of everything we climbing. Suffice to say, a lot of it was quite highball and slabby which I enjoyed but Mike not quite so much. The area had been battered by the recent storms and some of the boulders close to sea were caked in sand and salt. There were still plenty to climb on though and we spent nearly 3 hours playing. We walked back out a different way over the top of Baring Head and were treated to some great views of the Rimutaka Mountains and the mouth of Wellington Harbour.
On Sunday I took to the water again for the second race in the winter series. The results from the first race had been written off due to how slow the race was and a number of technical challenges to the placing's. This meant we were starting on a clean sheet. The weather was perfect; 10-15 knots of northerly breeze, a light swell and bright sunshine. We had a brilliant race. We need to work on our start as we once again mistimed our arrival at the start line and crossed near the back of flotilla of 30 boats on the wrong tack. I had been given the bow position for the race in charge of the hoist and drop of the spinnaker during the downwind legs and mainly tidying up and balancing the boat during upwind legs. Having only rigged a symmetric spinnaker once before (I have sailed with asymmetrics) this was hard work and required all my concentration. As all my attention was on the sails, until the last downwind leg I didn't notice the progress we had made through the field. We battled up the last leg neck and neck with another boat and eventually crossed the line in 7th half a boat length short of 6th. The fine weather and fast paced racing was a great change from the drizzle of the previous fortnight.
There is not a great deal more to tell for this week. I looks like this weekend might be a but of a washout. Hopefully we will get out for a short walk somewhere and I think we have plans for a meal out. Once again, until next time...
Last weekend the weather was much better and on Saturday I got to head outdoors to go bouldering again. Mike (my new climbing buddy) and I headed out to Baring Head (again). This time we avoided fording the river but took a slightly longer walk in that didn't involve the chance of getting wet from the waist down - see previous blog Rocks And Waves. We made it to Baring Head and found a bouldering playground.
I won't bore you with details of everything we climbing. Suffice to say, a lot of it was quite highball and slabby which I enjoyed but Mike not quite so much. The area had been battered by the recent storms and some of the boulders close to sea were caked in sand and salt. There were still plenty to climb on though and we spent nearly 3 hours playing. We walked back out a different way over the top of Baring Head and were treated to some great views of the Rimutaka Mountains and the mouth of Wellington Harbour.
On Sunday I took to the water again for the second race in the winter series. The results from the first race had been written off due to how slow the race was and a number of technical challenges to the placing's. This meant we were starting on a clean sheet. The weather was perfect; 10-15 knots of northerly breeze, a light swell and bright sunshine. We had a brilliant race. We need to work on our start as we once again mistimed our arrival at the start line and crossed near the back of flotilla of 30 boats on the wrong tack. I had been given the bow position for the race in charge of the hoist and drop of the spinnaker during the downwind legs and mainly tidying up and balancing the boat during upwind legs. Having only rigged a symmetric spinnaker once before (I have sailed with asymmetrics) this was hard work and required all my concentration. As all my attention was on the sails, until the last downwind leg I didn't notice the progress we had made through the field. We battled up the last leg neck and neck with another boat and eventually crossed the line in 7th half a boat length short of 6th. The fine weather and fast paced racing was a great change from the drizzle of the previous fortnight.
There is not a great deal more to tell for this week. I looks like this weekend might be a but of a washout. Hopefully we will get out for a short walk somewhere and I think we have plans for a meal out. Once again, until next time...
Tuesday 2 July 2013
Pacific Island Paradise
Apologies to all of you who have been waiting in anticipation for more tales of our exploits. I accept I have been lax in the promptness of my update about our holiday. Given this, I shall probably fill in all the other little bits and pieces of news since we got back from holiday in another blog and concentrate on our trip to Rarotonga. So here we go...
On the 18th June we had a wonderful lie in and at a very civilised hour drove ourselves down to Wellington Airport. The airport actually has a sign on it purporting itself to be "The Centre of Middle Earth"! After a smooth check in we settled down, underneath a giant fibreglass model of Gollum, for the first drink of the holiday (Beer for me gin & tonic for the better half). Waiting there for our flight to be called we were approached by a woman and her two kids who asked us (and I swear I am not making this up), "Have you seen a gold ring anywhere?" I suppressed the laughter (and the urge to make a fatuous comment) and discovered that one of her children had been playing with her ring and had lost it whilst they were seated nearby.
We boarded our plane, flew to Auckland and transferred smoothly to our international flight to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. Due to Rarotonga being across the international date line we actually took off at 7:30pm and, after a 4hr flight, arrived at 1:25am the same day. The flight was a bit turbulent as we had a 100km/h tail wind most of the way but it did make it quick. We landed in the dark and stepped off the plane into a warm sub-tropical night. To greet us at the airport was a ukulele player singing the greatest hits of the Cook Islands. Half asleep we cleared immigration, caught our transfer bus to the hotel and before we new it we were tucked up in bed.
We woke, on Tuesday morning again, and had a chilled morning around the resort. With a private beach onto a marine reserve and a bar overlooking this there wasn't much need to stray from the resort that day. We snorkelled in crystal blue waters and then at a very civilised hour wandered to the bar and ordered a drink. It then struck me that in some strange, paradoxical temporal dichotomy I had already had a drink at this exact time on this exact same day but in a different place. Thinking about this hurt my tiny brain and as I was supposed to be on holiday I gave up trying to work this out and settled down to a cold, refreshing beer.
That evening we treated ourselves to an "Island Cultural Night". This involved a long speech by a local chief then a huge "umu" (feast). There was fish (at least three types), pork (slow cooked), chicken (curried), lamb (roasted) and all accompanied by local fruits and vegetables. Desert was more mounds of fruit and sweet things. To follow this there was a fantastic display of drumming and dancing - a truly memorable night.
To justify the way we had stuffed our faces the previous night we set off the next day for a long walk. We caught a local bus to Avatiu on the north side of Rarotonga. There is one main road on the island that goes all the way round the circumference. It is only 32km long. There are two buses Clockwise and Anti-clockwise. These come complete with mental drivers who take pleasure in telling you they are convicts on work experience - island humour apparently.
The walk was hot, sweaty and steep but well worth it for the views and the jungle. Why we picked the middle of the day to walk in I don't know. Temperatures rose to nearly 30 degrees - I'm glad it was the cool and dry season. We actually walked completed across the island (from north to south) a distance of about 7km. The track rose from sea level to nearly 400m and back to sea level again and was hard work. It ran through pristine jungle and at the highest point was a 50m high pinnacle of rock called "Te Rua Manga" (The Needle). I was very tempted to climb it but the green moss, lack of rope and sheer drops dissuaded me. We descended to an idyllic beach on the south coast, via Wigmore's Waterfall (which was more like Wigmore's Dribble). We had to wait nearly an hour for the bus but couldn't really complain about the bus stop with white sand, lapping waves and palm trees.
Thursday was another chill out day, snorkelling, walking on the beach, cocktails at the bar then dinner overlooking another beautiful beach. On Friday we headed to Muri Lagoon on the east coast of the island for a day with Captain Tama's Lagoon Cruises. We were treated to singing, drumming, giant clams, tree climbing, coconut husking and sarong tying on top of a cruise round the lagoon in a glass bottomed boat and BBQ lunch on one of the smaller islands off the coast.
On Saturday we headed into the main town, Avarua. We spent a few hours exploring the sat in a bar on the harbour and had lunch watching canoe racing in the lagoon. Unfortunately our flight time returning to New Zealand wasn't as civilised as outbound. We had to hang around the resort until 1am on Sunday morning before catching the bus to the airport. We were then serenaded onto the plane by the same ukulele player. After a less turbulent, but longer flight, we touched-down in a cold Auckland on Monday morning (another temporal anomaly due to crossing the international dateline again). After breakfast at the airport we caught another plane back to Wellington.
While we were away Wellington had experienced some unusually wild weather. (When they call weather wild in Wellington it means it is pretty extreme.) On the Thursday whilst we were away Wellington had been subjected to the mother of southerly gales. Winds reached over 150km/h and there 9m waves on the south coast. Trees and powerlines had come down, houses had been damaged and the south coast had been battered by the sea. There had been landslips along the coast line with sand, trees and huge rocks scattered across roads, gardens and the foreshore. Thankfully, despite the devastation, no one in Wellington had been seriously hurt.
Our car had been parked in an open car park next to the airport and was caked in salt from the sea spray. We drove home along the coast road which was still littered with debris. We were quite apprehensive about what condition the house would be in, especially given we live on a ridge 100m from the south coast. Arriving home we drove past a flattened garage three doors away and the neighbours wooden fence flat on the ground. Our house was still standing, still had a roof and appeared to have suffered no ill effects. There were lots of small branches and leaves in the carport and a few cracks in the plaster but nothing more. Our landlord has said he will send a builder to carry out an inspection just to be sure.
Writing this the holiday is becoming a more and more distant memory. The better half is reaching the busiest point of the year at work and I have had a week of early mornings and long days. We have both just made the most of the glorious weather last weekend but I think I will leave that for another blog. That is all for now...
On the 18th June we had a wonderful lie in and at a very civilised hour drove ourselves down to Wellington Airport. The airport actually has a sign on it purporting itself to be "The Centre of Middle Earth"! After a smooth check in we settled down, underneath a giant fibreglass model of Gollum, for the first drink of the holiday (Beer for me gin & tonic for the better half). Waiting there for our flight to be called we were approached by a woman and her two kids who asked us (and I swear I am not making this up), "Have you seen a gold ring anywhere?" I suppressed the laughter (and the urge to make a fatuous comment) and discovered that one of her children had been playing with her ring and had lost it whilst they were seated nearby.
We boarded our plane, flew to Auckland and transferred smoothly to our international flight to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. Due to Rarotonga being across the international date line we actually took off at 7:30pm and, after a 4hr flight, arrived at 1:25am the same day. The flight was a bit turbulent as we had a 100km/h tail wind most of the way but it did make it quick. We landed in the dark and stepped off the plane into a warm sub-tropical night. To greet us at the airport was a ukulele player singing the greatest hits of the Cook Islands. Half asleep we cleared immigration, caught our transfer bus to the hotel and before we new it we were tucked up in bed.
We woke, on Tuesday morning again, and had a chilled morning around the resort. With a private beach onto a marine reserve and a bar overlooking this there wasn't much need to stray from the resort that day. We snorkelled in crystal blue waters and then at a very civilised hour wandered to the bar and ordered a drink. It then struck me that in some strange, paradoxical temporal dichotomy I had already had a drink at this exact time on this exact same day but in a different place. Thinking about this hurt my tiny brain and as I was supposed to be on holiday I gave up trying to work this out and settled down to a cold, refreshing beer.
That evening we treated ourselves to an "Island Cultural Night". This involved a long speech by a local chief then a huge "umu" (feast). There was fish (at least three types), pork (slow cooked), chicken (curried), lamb (roasted) and all accompanied by local fruits and vegetables. Desert was more mounds of fruit and sweet things. To follow this there was a fantastic display of drumming and dancing - a truly memorable night.
To justify the way we had stuffed our faces the previous night we set off the next day for a long walk. We caught a local bus to Avatiu on the north side of Rarotonga. There is one main road on the island that goes all the way round the circumference. It is only 32km long. There are two buses Clockwise and Anti-clockwise. These come complete with mental drivers who take pleasure in telling you they are convicts on work experience - island humour apparently.
The walk was hot, sweaty and steep but well worth it for the views and the jungle. Why we picked the middle of the day to walk in I don't know. Temperatures rose to nearly 30 degrees - I'm glad it was the cool and dry season. We actually walked completed across the island (from north to south) a distance of about 7km. The track rose from sea level to nearly 400m and back to sea level again and was hard work. It ran through pristine jungle and at the highest point was a 50m high pinnacle of rock called "Te Rua Manga" (The Needle). I was very tempted to climb it but the green moss, lack of rope and sheer drops dissuaded me. We descended to an idyllic beach on the south coast, via Wigmore's Waterfall (which was more like Wigmore's Dribble). We had to wait nearly an hour for the bus but couldn't really complain about the bus stop with white sand, lapping waves and palm trees.
Thursday was another chill out day, snorkelling, walking on the beach, cocktails at the bar then dinner overlooking another beautiful beach. On Friday we headed to Muri Lagoon on the east coast of the island for a day with Captain Tama's Lagoon Cruises. We were treated to singing, drumming, giant clams, tree climbing, coconut husking and sarong tying on top of a cruise round the lagoon in a glass bottomed boat and BBQ lunch on one of the smaller islands off the coast.
On Saturday we headed into the main town, Avarua. We spent a few hours exploring the sat in a bar on the harbour and had lunch watching canoe racing in the lagoon. Unfortunately our flight time returning to New Zealand wasn't as civilised as outbound. We had to hang around the resort until 1am on Sunday morning before catching the bus to the airport. We were then serenaded onto the plane by the same ukulele player. After a less turbulent, but longer flight, we touched-down in a cold Auckland on Monday morning (another temporal anomaly due to crossing the international dateline again). After breakfast at the airport we caught another plane back to Wellington.
While we were away Wellington had experienced some unusually wild weather. (When they call weather wild in Wellington it means it is pretty extreme.) On the Thursday whilst we were away Wellington had been subjected to the mother of southerly gales. Winds reached over 150km/h and there 9m waves on the south coast. Trees and powerlines had come down, houses had been damaged and the south coast had been battered by the sea. There had been landslips along the coast line with sand, trees and huge rocks scattered across roads, gardens and the foreshore. Thankfully, despite the devastation, no one in Wellington had been seriously hurt.
Our car had been parked in an open car park next to the airport and was caked in salt from the sea spray. We drove home along the coast road which was still littered with debris. We were quite apprehensive about what condition the house would be in, especially given we live on a ridge 100m from the south coast. Arriving home we drove past a flattened garage three doors away and the neighbours wooden fence flat on the ground. Our house was still standing, still had a roof and appeared to have suffered no ill effects. There were lots of small branches and leaves in the carport and a few cracks in the plaster but nothing more. Our landlord has said he will send a builder to carry out an inspection just to be sure.
Writing this the holiday is becoming a more and more distant memory. The better half is reaching the busiest point of the year at work and I have had a week of early mornings and long days. We have both just made the most of the glorious weather last weekend but I think I will leave that for another blog. That is all for now...
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