Snow but no ice cream

Converging highways in Bulls

Travelling north from Wellington you drive past the several coastal towns of the Kapiti Coast, then along flat (or comparatively flat) ultra-green pastures until you reach Sanson and Bulls. By then it is time for lunch and the Mother Goose cafe on the corner of converging highways in Bulls does a good lunch in pleasant surroundings.

Then on through Hunterville where I thought I would have an ice cream for old times sake (the ice cream in the photo on my profile was from Hunterville) but time thwarted my desire as the ice cream shop has closed. Closed, shut, gone. (Insert sad face here).

Front page, Dominion Post

I drove on to Taihape wondering how low the recent snow might be. Newspapers and TV are full of reports of the weekend snow storms which caused hundreds of power poles to collapse.

Luckily for me the storm was a little north of Taihape which has no lying snow, though it covers neighbouring hills, and still has power.

It would be very cold without heating in this weather and I feel very sorry for the folks affected.

Wellington, then north

Wellington, NZ

Wellington was cold this morning as I drove through the city glass and concrete. It was both cold and windy, though not as bad as Saturday's squally weather, but despite the weather the city was as pretty as it always is.

Pale green water, blue hills, dark olive foliage.

Wellington Harbour

New Zealand has such stunning scenery and I love being back. The trip north from Wellington is a trip down memory lane for me because I studied in Wellington when I was a late teenager and took the trip home by bus several times a year. My parents must have driven down with me sometimes because I remember having picnics at Plimmerton  overlooking the inlet there before the last leg on to Wellington.

The seashore at Paekakariki

By the time I got over the hill to Paekakariki on the west coast the clouds were receding. The sun shone on the water and my feet started to unfreeze.