Abe and Erin’s travels

Erin writing –

Thursday I spent walking and running throughout Wellington.  One of the pharmacist’s that Abe is working with spent some time with me and Abe pointing out the local hikes.  The hike that I did this day was called the Southern Walkway.  Basically it started at our house and continued high above Wellington and the surrounding suburbs, ending at the Oriental parade in Wellington City.  At the height of this hike is Mt. Victoria Lookout, which offers 360 degree views of the city.  Here are some pictures from this lookout:

 This is downtown Wellington.

  Looking out onto the Bay to the right of downtown Wellington.

      To the Southeast and south of downtown Wellington.  Completing this hike gives such a great understanding of the geography of Wellington.  Coming down from the highest point led me through one of the neighborhoods dotting the hills.  Here is a picture of the church that I saw immediately coming out from the trail:    It is a catholic church that looms over the city.  The entire back can be seen from the city and it is beautiful.  As I have mentioned in past blogs, the city is a product of its geography.  The neighborhoods are all along the hills (similar to San Fran as I have been told): 

  Parking is difficult to find.  Here is one of their solutions:  

This is a parking space that is set over the hills but it does get the car off the street.  This is a large benefit when buses are careening out of control on very narrow streets.  (More about this later).  The hiking trail meets the city through streets and a staircase between the houses.  It has been planted up and lets out onto the beach.

     Is this not beautiful?  The other thing that this trail leads one to?  A restroom!  Public restrooms are very plentiful here (Mom, Dad – don’t you wish this were the case in Europe when I was young? )

 

It was an awesome day to hike.

After reaching the city, I had lunch in the city.  At the cafe that I ate at, Caffe Eis, a lame, literally, duck befriended me and then bit me in the process of taking bread from my hand!  Here he is:  

 Again, such wonderful sculpture all over the city:

  Even their manholes are pretty:   

Once done with my lunch, I decided I would visit some shops and then run home the 8k from the city to our house.  It was a great run. 

Once the working folk made it home, we got ready to go out to dinner in the city.  We ate at the Fisherman’s Table and had WONDERFUL seafood.  I had the Tarahika (I think) and it was great!  The rooftop of the restaurant is accessible from the street.  Here is all 5 of us after dinner:

  This is before our ride on the crazy “14”.  The “14” is the bus route that basically goes up the way I came down and runs along the top of Mt. Victoria to the other side of the hill.  It does not sound so special.  However, this bus route, in combination with the speed with which they drive it, make it very similar to a roller coaster!  Christian and I had riden it the day before and felt like the bus was careening out of control and that the bus driver drove it about 10-15 miles per hour over what would be prudent.  Unfortunately, the woman that drove the route last night was slightly more careful, taking away from the life-on-the-the-literal-edge feel.  However, she did hit a parked car along the side (this is where you hope you have a cool parking space like the one I pictured above!).  She got out, looked around, and kept driving!  A local talked to us that some of the drivers will drive very quickly and that it is nice to get home sooner!  I personally would like to make it home alive but I am on vacation so time does not matter!  We are going to make T-shirts that say,”I survived the 14!” 

See you all tomorrow!

 

 

Tags: Wellington

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 6th, 2006 at 9:21 pm and is filed under Wellington. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.