Carnival time!

On Saturday 26th Feb, Cuba St came alive for its annual Carnival! The parade starts at about 9pm, so we went to join the thousands of other people packing the streets to watch. There were lots of cool floats and marching bands and so on, but we didn't get there early enough for a good spot so we didn't have the best view! We stayed out after the parade to watch a few of the bands on stage including a cool Brazilian drumming band.


Cuba St Carnival

Beware the dragon!

Round the Bays 2005

On Sunday 20th Feb, Jen did the 7km Round the Bays run with 8300 other happy punters! The weather was gorgeous, and Wellington's famous wind was behind us for the second half of the run, which helped our tired legs!! At the finish we got a banana and a chocolate bar - yum! but no medal :-( Bring on the Half Marathon in June!!

Kayaking lessons!

Kayaking is a very popular sport on Wellington Harbour - if the weather's fine you can hire a kayak from Ferg's Kayaks on the waterfront and paddle off round to Oriental Bay and beyond.

On Sat 19th Feb, the Wellington Tramping Club organised a wee introductory kayaking morning so Jen dragged Nige along to learn how to paddle!

We had a great time - it was a perfect sunny calm day, and we all paddled over to the beach at Oriental Bay, learnt about paddling techniques, practised capsizing and climbing back in!! and then cruised around the harbour for a while. Jen was hooked!!

Tramping in the Rimutaka Forest Park

On Saturday 12th Feb, Jen and Nige went tramping again! This time we went up into the Rimutakas, to the Orongorongo Valley. We climbed up onto the Cattle Ridge Track, which was a long hard climb, but once on the tops we had a gorgeous view back over to Wellington Harbour in the distance. We then walked along the top of the ridge for hours, and unfortunately, the track rapidly deteriorated from a lovely grassy open path with gorgeous views, to no path at all! We were reduced to making our way from one orange arrow stuck to a tree, to the next, stepping over tree roots and clambering under fallen tree trunks. Needless to say, it got a bit tedious, and we were very glad when we finally reached the bottom of the ridge, and the Orongorongo River.

We had a brief sit down and dabbled our tired feet in the sparkling water, before a speedy hike back to the car along the valley, beating the time on the signposts by at least an hour, cause we were so desperate to get back!


Distant Harbour Views from the Rimutakas

Harbour Views 2

Orongorongo River

Nige goes to Melbourne again!

Nige went off on another jolly to Melbourne (apparently he works hard there when he's not swanning around in his posh hotel!)

But to make us all feel better, apart from the day these pictures were taken, Melbourne had it's worst February weather for many years, and Nige got wet and cold as he'd left his coat in Wellington!



view from the hotel

posh gym in a posh hotel

New Zealand International Rugby Sevens

On Fri 4th and Sat 5th February, Wellington became a mad place full of big blokes in fancy dress!! This was all in aid of the International Rugby Sevens, whose New Zealand tournament is played in Wellington. Over the years, it has become a festival of fancy dress as much as a festival of rugby, and all weekend the streets were full of hawaian shirts, smurfs, cowboys, nurses, tennis players etc etc!

Tickets were like gold dust, but Jen managed to get hold of one two days before the tournament began, so after work on Friday I set off to the stadium in my (last-minute fancy dress!) England T-shirt, St Georges flag and red glittery wig, to see what the England team could do! Unfortunately, not a lot, but that didn't really matter, as I wasn't really there for the rugby! The whole weekend was just one big party, and I spent my time meeting up with various friends, singing, dancing, drinking and talking to a lot of random people!

After getting a lot of hassle for my England costume on the Friday!, I decided to go with the home team on the Saturday, so wore black with silver ferns painted on my cheeks, which turned out to be the way to go, as New Zealand won the final, and as a winning celebration, we were treated to a haka demonstration by the team minus their tops - mmmnn! Nice bods!

Just as the rugby finished, the city was lit up by a huge fireworks display for Chinese New Year, paid for by the Chinese government allegedly, and I joined Nige in town to continue the party among the firework smoke!