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Published: August 27th 2006
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Beautiful Wellington
Looking towards the Te Papa museum from the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club Hi all from a very wet New Zealand. We've had a weird winter weather-wise - overall very wet but we've also had some beautiful weather in between all the crap and gloriously many of those days were on weekends! This blog is just a general update on what we've been doing and an excuse to add loads of photos showing Wellington on the nice winter days. One some days, we've been able to sit out on the balcony in shorts and t-shirts and on others we've been all fleeced up and I've even gone to work dressed in full golf waterproof gear because of the horizontal rain!
Despite the impression that the photos in these blogs give, the weather is not always great - we just don't go out and take many photos when the weather is rubbish! Some of the photos here may look familiar from previous blogs, which will be because I've already published pictures from the top of Mount Vic and also from the Brooklyn Wind Turbine. However, on this occasion there was a fog hanging over the harbour, which made for some more interesting views.
Now that we've been living in New Zealand's cultural capital
for a year and a half, we've found ourselves doing some more cultured things than we normally would. We've been to the ballet, the theatre (an outstanding local production of Death of a Salesman), the World Press Photo exhibition (rather disturbing collection of pictures that put things firmly in perspective) and we're going to see the Constable exhibition soon which is on at the Te Papa museum until October. Slightly less cultured but outstandingly funny was Scottish comedian Danny Bhoy who brought the house down at the Opera House. He was telling a story about the dangerous animals in Australia and he stated that we don’t have any dangerous animals in Scotland - some muppet from near the back shouted out "Neil Lennon!" which initially made me laugh and then made me a bit depressed that even on the other side of the world, you just can’t escape the madness of old firm rivalry. Danny ripped him to bits though which was spot on - the best comedians are always at their best when annihilating hecklers!
Also at Te Papa, we went to see a brilliant Lord of The Rings exhibition, which had loads of stuff from the movies
Down at the waterfront
with part of the CBD in the background - costumes, sets, etc. The ticket stub from the exhibition then got us 25% off tickets to see all 3 films, which they were re-showing on Sunday afternoons at The Embassy where the Return of The King world premiere was in 2003.
When the weather has been good at the weekends, we've tried to get out on our bikes or just for a walk along the waterfront to one of our favourite cafes, The Parade Cafe in Oriental Parade. We took a drive round to Island Bay a few weekends ago and were treated to a seal that decided to seek attention on the rocks right beside the road. When we popped out for a stroll one weekday lunchtime in the summer, we saw a penguin and a pod of dolphins in the harbour, which was fantastic - there are not too many capital cities in the world where you can see that in your lunchtime!
I was so glad when I saw that every World Cup game was going to be on TV here. They were all on Sky but TV One which is one of the free channels was showing a daily highlights programme and some
Oriental Bay Fountain
and yes, I needed the toilet after taking this! of the live knockout games. The best ones were those that kicked-off at 7am NZ time, which I used as an excuse to have a pub breakfast before work. I watched the battle between Holland and Portugal one morning, which was total carnage and not a great ad for the game. I just watched the final at home as it was on at 6am and the headed off to the office depressed that there was no longer any footie to watch before work!
We've only managed one gig over winter, which is poor, but there have been slim pickings. We went to see Fly My Pretties again and they were great as usual. I have to admit to feeling slightly homesick during T in The Park and during T on The Fringe - so many amazing bands and so far away! I've managed to see quite a few good clips from the shows on youtube.com and I'll have to settle for that.
I went to All Blacks v. Springboks Tri-Nations game a few weeks ago which was great. It wasn't a brilliant game by any stretch of the imagination but the ABs won quite easily. In fact they
spanked the 'Boks in Pretoria over night and remain unbeaten in 15 matches including a sweet 3-0 sweep of the Aussies which always goes down well here!
Speaking of Aussies, Jo-Ann starts a new job a week on Wednesday as a passports officer at the Australian High Commission. It’s a permanent job, which is fantastic after a year and a half of temping and is based on the street we live on! She'll have about a 2-minute walk to work in the morning - sweet as!
Need to finish off now - got some chores to do before Jo-Ann n gets back from her aborted skiing weekend away with her work mates. The mountain was closed yesterday due to high winds and they were too hungover today!
Next blog will be on our successful skiing weekend of about 5 weeks ago (loads of great skiing in perfect conditions!) and then after that a blog on our week in Fiji!!
Cheers,
Angus.
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