Wiltons Bush and Climbing some hills

In the last few weeks we began reacquainting ourselves with our home city.  It has been fun - revisiting places that we haven't been to in a long time. We have lots more to see. We've visited Wilton Bush - ranked Number 83 of 161 things to do in Wellington by Lonely Planet travellers.  We visited the little Visitors Centre (we've done it before but couldn't remember much of what we had read). Richard Seddon (NZ Prime Minister) put through in 1903 the Scenery Preservation Act which had a focus on preserving New Zealand's natural and historic heritage. This enabled the country to set aside large areas for national parks and also the creation of Wilton's Bush in Wellington - a rather large area of natural bush gifted to the city - which means us descendants can benefit from some very good thinking back then when many people were coming to the country and cutting down the trees for buildings.  We didn't take our cameras as it was raining but we wished we had...we got close up to a Kereru (native wood pigeon) for the first time and watched in awe as he kept one eye on us and stripped the leaves from the Kowhai tree to eat while we stood only inches away.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Pigeon
Then it was on to painting the little downstairs toilet (mint green which actually looks really nice) and then the lounge (back to vanilla which will also looks nice). Hint for those bored with decorating: bubble wrap makes good protection for the carpet when you don't have enough old sheets and while you 'roll' you can compose 'pop music'. I took a trip out the coast to see Annette and her Mum and couldn't resist taking more photos of my favourite island. Kapiti Island - an island just off the coast of where I grew up. It apparently was created by earthquakes 200 million years ago when the tip of a mountain range rose from the depths of the sea. Before man came along moa and kakapo lived happily together with plenty to eat. From the Kapiti Coast it looks like a bush clad island ranging fairly steeply to its ridge, from the seaward side it is an island of cliffs. We've spent a few happy afternoons their enjoying the bird life and salt air. Kapiti means "motu rongonui" or "famous island" and it was the habitat of the Maori until the 1830's when the European whalers came to shelter there and share in its natural wealth. 10 years later the land was cleared for farming and with all the animals that farming brings the bird life decreased and soon whaling was also on the decline. In the 1870's some very far thinking naturalists identified the island as a possible site for a bird sanctuary but it took nearly 30 years to give it a status for preserving our wildlife. Richard Henry was caretaker back in the early 1900's and after a few others the Department of Conservation took over the reigns in 1987. Lots of animals on the island weren't native and had to be eradicated before it became a safe haven for many of our protected wildlife such as the kakariki, robin, bellbird and saddleback, stitchbird, kokako, takahe, kereru, tomtit, kaka, whitehead, tui, fantail, long tailed cuckoo, brown teal, and saddleback, kiwi (including the little spotted kiwi that is extinct on the mainland) and weka. We must get a wildlife book of NZ to see what some of these look like. Over the last few months they have realised there is also a family of stoats - a real threat to many of the flightless birds and so another eradication programme has begun...

We've seen more friends and watched more rugby.  Wales vs France, Aussie vs South Africa (sitting on concrete at the fans zone), All Blacks vs Aussie and the semis (with Jim and Margot).  I've almost had enough (did I say that?). On the way to brunch at Sharon and Aaron's we went for a walk up Wadestown Hill.  The trees had grown even taller and so the views from the north end are quite limited.  Though, it was a good steep hill for testing fitness levels.

During the week we went to 42nd Street at the St James - continuing our love of going to live shows. We've been spoilt as although the show was very professional it lacked a good story line and compared to others we have seen was no where near the top of our list. Nicki has promised to let us know about the shows put on by the Porirua Little Theatre as they are always fun to go to and usually have a theme that captures the imagination. We've both signed contracts and our working life rebegins on 31st October.  No more sleep ins during the week or long walks during the day. But it is time to get back into the real world.  We climbed Mt Kau Kau on Thursday and were surprised how busy the walk was considering it is a working day.  Maybe more people than we thought do not work a full week.  It was great - sunny, windy, still, warm, cold - one of those days.  The gorse was pretty, but more so the native bushes with the little orange flower (we are yet to identify it by name - google just isn't doing it for us).  Here's some photos from another of my favourite places.