It rained on and off pretty much all day today. I did manage to get out for a quick hike in the bush before the rain started. Mary has Fridays off from work and she offered to take Verena and I out somewhere that wasn’t easy to get to via public transport. It turned out her son Dylan had the day off too, so he came with us as well. Because the rain had really set in we headed to Pataka, an art museum in Porirua, a city that is northeast of Wellington. It was a small museum, but quite impressive. There was an oil painting with a video projected on it that was taken from the same perspective as the painting so you saw waves on the water, birds flying and fishermen coming and going from the bay, but they looked like ghostly images moving on the painting. Later in the morning we ended up actually going to that area and saw the spot where the painting and videoing was done. There were some incredible mosaic pieces, the detail and composition was gorgeous. A couple of the pieces were contemporary takes on traditional Māori craft. A 3-D printed carving that looked like a traditional piece until you looked closely and could see video game characters ‘carved’ on it. Another was what appeared at first to be a kete (basket), woven from dyed flax plant, but the description said it was made from used VHS tape, very creative. There is also a kiwi bird made from corrugated iron that is often used on roofs in New Zealand.
While we had morning tea we played the daily stuff.co quiz and got a pretty decent 10 out of 15. I was able to provide the answers for some of the questions that were 1980s oriented. 😝 After that we headed to Titahi Bay, and went for a swim! It was raining, but I didn’t really matter since we were planning to get wet anyway and the water was not very cold. It was so much fun to see the raindrops plinking off the water. They lit up when they made contact. When the rain died down, we could see Kapiti Island, which wasn’t far away. The swim was very invigorating, so after we went home and had lunch, Mary and I decided we were still up for more adventures and went for a drive around the Bays. We stopped and hiked up to Massey Memorial, a huge marble edifice to William Massey, who was Prime Minister of New Zealand From 1912 to 1925, his wife is also buried there as well. We kept hiking up and got to some old bunkers that had very decorative graffiti on them – we saw both the ferries headed out to the South Island- the Interislander as well as the Bluebridge. When we were done, we headed around Lyall Bay to see one of Mary’s sisters and have a Friday night pre-dinner drink. I met a couple of her sisters sons, one has been working on set design for a new TV show, Time Bandits, with Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement. Apparently he’s going to a party tonight or tomorrow night that they both will be at – Annemarie was very jealous when she heard that.
I ended the day snug and warm in my little cabin as the rain pounded down. So much for Wellington summer!