This morning we went for a drive with the Doyenne, who is not able to walk much but does enjoy driving. As soon as we passed over the hill we arrived at a wild coastline, with high waves breaking on a rocky shore. Hard to believe that this was a near suburb of a major city, and it made me think I would not object to living here. We had coffee, watched some surfers, and drove past the airport painted in rainbow stripes before returning.
In the afternoon, after lunch, we went to Zealandia, a nature reserve in a deep valley with a reservoir at either end. Like all Wellington valleys it was very steep sided, with walks at varying levels, and it turned out that as soon as one went a level or two up there were almost no people to be seen. The upper dam was very striking, the water stretching out a good way and enclosed by hills, with little flocks of ducks in the distance.
We passed one of the sanctuary biologists on one of the upper paths, training a tagged baby robin to come when the food tin was tapped. She told us that the robins recognised even individual voices, coming when they heard those they associated with food and avoiding those they associated with being tagged.
There was a wide sunny bank with tuatara sunning themselves, very still and uncaring of us gawpers, looking strange and dangerous, with their third eyes shut.
There were kaka feeding from little lidded containers, jumping on levers to open the lids and extracting a pellet of food.
There was a falcon which swooped twice over my head so quickly I didn’t see it.
There was an American woman whose anger at a late bus arrival, like an unstoppable force, met a New Zealand bus driver’s immovable friendly politeness and neither budged.