The weekend in Wellington

 Hi,

Happy birthday to my wee sister today.  August 1.  And my other sisters had their birthday on Friday.  Busy birthday time for us.

What a great weekend - equally busy and relaxing.  The perfect blend.  Thursday evening I met Mike after work and we caught up with Chenda and Khemry at the Green Man.  Chenda is now going to Nepal with Mike and Bharat.  That is going to be such a good trip. 

With Chenda and Khemry at Green Man

Messing with a google animal thing

Sun worshipper

Friday after work we went to pick up Janine from Seaview and headed over the hill to the Wainuiomata water catchment area.  This was a special event they run every now and then where they open the prohibited area up to visitors.

6pm saw the crew open the gates and we all drove in convoy down to the main building.  It was dark by then.

Water catchment evening

Driving into a special area

We split up into 3 groups - pretty loosely.  We went with Peter on a kiwi track - he is a part of the Remutaka Conservation Trust.  Spent about 40 mins wandering in the bush with him looking for kiwi.  Didn't find any.  But it was lovely - glowworms on the side of the track from time to time.

Back to the common area outside the tunnel for a trip into there.  Just 4 of us at a time into there.  We walked about 100m into the tunnel.  Turned out the lights and enjoyed a ceiling of glowworms on the roof of the tunnel. There was a puddle of water between the wee train tracks and you could see the glowworms reflected there.  A water pipe ran down the middle carrying water from one side of the hill to this side.

15% of Wellington's water comes from here - with the bulk of the rest of Kaitoke.  And a little from bores etc.

Walking to find kiwi - we didn't

Walking 

Glowworms in the tunnel

The Wellington Astronomic Society had some good Dobsonian telescopes set up for viewing.  But we had cloud the entire time.  Shame about that.  

It was a great event.  Milo and tea and coffee and biscuits provided.  Learned lots.  Enjoyed it.  And Elly told me later she knows Pip and Dec quite well - they were helping on the night.

If you ever see this event again (they run it from time to time) - go along.  It is a great part of Wellington you never get to see.

We were finished just after 9pm and dropped Janine back at her car and dropped into see Andrew (Sally was already in bed) to see how he had fared after a huge day at work.  The DG had his last day!  New DG from Monday.  Big changes.

Then Mike and I got home and fell into bed.  More rain fell overnight.  Saturday was dreary.  No park run for us.

Andrew wanted some narrow gauge cans for his new penny stove so I grabbed some out of our recyling.  And in the evening we headed over to have tea ahead of Thor at Lighthouse Petone.  

Moxley and her ragtag collection of small gauge cans

Smudge claiming her fave spot

Andrew using the cans

A small gauge can penny stove boiling some water

I laughed my way through the movie once more.  Hahahah.  Home and into bed.  What is it with all these late nights?

Sunday gym with Mike

Up for gym with Mike Sunday.  30kg bench for me, 60kg for Mike.  And 50kg deadlifts for me and a deadlift PB for Mike.

145 kg!

We popped in to see the slip.  It has worsened. The house is now empty of people and you can see the dangling foundations of retaining walls now.  And a new tree that has washed down and is sitting just above the new concrete blocks.  As we stood on the footbridge to view it, light rain was still falling.

We check the slip.  It has slipped more!

Back to shower and then out to watch Wellington v Waikato in the Farah Palmer Cup match at Porirua Park.  Marvellous game of rugby. Shame Wellington lost - by a converted try margin.  To me, they could have won that easily.  But their passing didn't stick as it should have.  Their set pieces just didn't come off.

At the rugby with Elly

Go Wellington

If you check the replay, you can see us in the crowd at the back around the 57th minute mark when the camera pans across the crowd.  Apparently Joanah Ngan-Woo's dad was sitting in front of us, and was asleep.  Hence the interest on our part of the grandstand.

There we are!

Back home.  Mike did some plastering and then cooked an awesome tea.  Spaghetti carbonara.  Yum! 

At the gym Monday with Q

Up for gym in the morning in Mike's usual spot.  He is out at his mother's unit supervising the new windows there.  That should make a huge difference to her unit.  We can already tell the difference here.

Frosty morning here.  Layers of frost on the cars - and on our house!

See the frost on the side of the house?

Gorgeous morning

Busy week.  Big change in the oil industry today.  Means we're busy at work.  Hopefully we get some sunshine this week.

Take care.

Love,

Angela