Riding in the rain

April 4th, 2010 · No Comments

Aro Street

After a week of beautiful, warm weather, it finally felt today like the seasons might be changing, and you could hear people around town talking about it. “Winter’s on its way…,” which is a little strange to hear in April, but I’m getting used to it.

I decided to rent a bike and do a little exploring further out today, so I headed up the street to Base Hostel and chose my bike and helmet for the day. I had found a few walking tours of Mt. Victoria, right nearby, as well as a longer walk from the city center along a greenbelt to the coast, all of which I thought I’d try. After a few minutes of fiasco involving wi-fi, my phone, Dropbox, Instapaper, email, PDFs, and eventually a trip back up to the apartment to use the computer, I eventually got started around 9. I was still having a little trouble getting everything together (and dealing with the scale of my maps; I kept overshooting every turn, because it didn’t take long to get anywhere on the bike), but was able to see some of what the Mt. Victoria Historical Society pointed out.

Aro Street

From there, I headed past the National War Memorial, through several detours, and up to the Aro Valley, home of a recommended video store, coffee shop, and general atmosphere I wanted to check out. I stopped in Aro Coffee and enjoyed a mocha and a “Magic Slice,” which was, to be honest, pretty magical, some combination of fruit, nut, and chocolate, on an extremely dense biscuit base. Mmm. The who little block had a great feel to it, lots of nice houses and cafes, and people out with their kid and dogs for a Sunday stroll.

Aro Coffee

I had decided to tackle to “City to Sea” walk, which would bring me south to Island Bay, and then I thought I’d add on and come back a different way, around the bays past the airport and around into Wellington. As I followed the path using a combination of the Welly Walks iPhone app and some Google Map screenshots, I was quickly discovering that it was a walking path for a reason: there was almost nothing about the path that was flat or sloping; instead, it was all either a steep uphill, or steps downhill. I ended up walking and carrying the bike more and more, and eventually, as I scaled a massive hill overlooking a local rugby pitch in some unnamed suburb, I gave up on the route and hopped on the nearest street. I was in Island Bay in a matter of minutes, which was good, as it had begun to rain, lightly.

Island Bay

I followed the road as it hugged the bottom of a cliff on one side, and faced out to the ocean on the other. As I rounded a corner, I suddenly saw something Aimee and I had looked out for last time but never found, one of Wellington’s famed private cable cars. We saw a short film on them at the Cable Car Museum last time, and I’d now come upon one that was actually just dropping its owner off at the top. It was an impressively steep incline, and led to a house that must have had quite a view.

Private cable car

As the day went on and I continued to ride along the coast, I saw more and more, probably have a dozen in total, of varying degrees of both engineering achievement and trustworthiness, I’d say.

Private Cable Car

Private cable car

I had a tasty lunch (of breakfast, actually) at Elements Cafe in Lyall Bay, and then finished making my way back to Wellington, into the fierce wind around Oriental Parade and back to the apartment. After a little break to dry off, I headed out to take a walk around Mt. Victoria, the Art Deco tour I had meant to do with the bike in the morning, but which didn’t happen. The neighborhood is filled with (appropriately) Victorian homes, perched on the side of the mountain (hill, really), but there are a few deco gems hidden in there.

IMG_8308

IMG_8316

I walked from spot to spot in the fading daylight, and then headed to the Embassy Theatre, beautifully refurbished for the blowout Lord of the Rings final installment premiere a few years ago, to watch Nowhere Boy. Time for bed, and one more day of vacation.

Embassy Theatre

Embassy Theatre

Tags: Film · Photos · Travel