A day of weather...

Cloudy and cool this morning but with lots of sun coming through. Today was Wellington Anniversary Day so was a public holiday but many shops were open. Puttered about in some of the shops and then headed along Lambton Quay to get the cable car up to the Botanic Gardens. I liked this public sculpture in one of the lanes off Lambton Quay (the sculptor really captured the little dog jumping along his master's side) ...

While on the cable car it started to pour rain and the skies turned dark. At the top the views of the water and city were a bit hampered by the weather and had to shelter under an awning for a bit waiting for the rain to stop. Once it had stopped to only a bit of a drizzle I headed out into the Botanic Garden. It had gotten quite chilly and I wrapped my jacket around me and would have sold my soul for a hot chocolate. Tramped along the paths -- lots of native bush and a very nice rose garden...


I came out of the gardens along Tinakori Road so I could wander around that area and look at all the lovely Victorian houses...



Then after lunch at The Shepherd's Arms (hotel built in 1870) I walked back down in to the city and stopped at Old St. Paul's Cathedral. The sun starting to come back out by this time and the winds died down and the grey clouds replaced by light white fluffy ones.


The interior is gothic but is constructed of timber. Quite extraordinary. The man on duty asked me about a timber gothic church in Ottawa that someone told him about -- he wanted to know if there was one. I said I hadn't heard of one but would look into it. They also had an interesting exhibit on (with videos of interviews) about WWII and the US marines based in Wellington. The Pacific portion of the war had an effect on New Zealand as all its troops were off in Europe fighting while the threat of Japanese invasion grew. A different perspective on the war.

Then I wandered back along the harbour and by this time the sky was solid blue and the sun was intense and it was quite hot out. There were some bands playing by the harbour so stopped to listen and have an ice cream. Then people kept talking about some guy who was going to jump off the wharf at 4 pm. Finally figured out what that was all about. There is an exhibit in one of the museums about Leonardo da Vinci's flying machine designs and some guy was going to jump off the wharf with da Vinci designed wings.


Sorry to say he didn't really fly (by this time there were no winds and the harbour was totally calm) at all but just plopped off the wharf into the water.


No matter, he had a large crowd to watch him and many people jumped in behind him!

Going to go have some dinner now. Bought the DVD of Steve Coogan's BBC show "Saxondale" so will watch a couple episodes tonight.

Tomorrow morning it is goodbye Wellie, hello Napier...