I think I was a little premature in declaring that winter was on its way yesterday. This morning was as beautiful, blue-skied and cloudless as any in my nine day here. I decided to take advantage of it by heading for a run up to the Mt. Victoria lookout. It was about a 20-minute run, just about all of it straight uphill, for about a 600 foot elevation gain. The view from the top was just spectacular, from Wellington Harbor on one side, and off to Island Bay, Lyall Bay, and the other spots where I’d been rained on yesterday to the south. Oh well. The run back down was fast, needless to say, with mind and feet working at breakneck pace to avoid roots, rocks, and other obstacles.

My planning didn’t quite work out; I thought leaving my “museum day” to the last was wise, but then that day happened to be beautiful… Anyway, I started with a tasty breakfast at Scopa on Cuba Street, as I’d run out of muesli and thought it would be a good reward for a tough run. From there, I continued my fruitless search for a good New Zealand t-shirt, a search that was actually leftover from our trip here last year. I’d seen some I liked being worn by people over the last week, but either couldn’t quite find the right one, or couldn’t find the right size. I’ll be back…

From Lambton Quay, I headed to the Wellington Museum of City & Sea, which we didn’t have time for last time, but which was a quite wonderful, a very impressive small museum.

I found the exhibits, and especially section dealing with the Wahine disaster of 1968, really fascinating. The film dealing with the shipwreck was surprisingly moving; I think everyone who was there watching it was left a little shaken. The whole museum was very well done; the exhibits on 20th century Wellington as well as the city’s maritime history were great, and the 10th anniversary exhibit was surprisingy strange and creative.

I had lunch at Joe’s Garage, a repeat visit that was a bit of a mistake, but they can’t all be winners (I eventually gave up in my quest to see how long it would be be until my order was taken because I thought it would never happen without my intervention). I headed over to Te Papa, the massive and massively popular national museum, for a look around. It turns out we had pretty much seen everything the last time, and I wasn’t particularly interested in their special exhibition on Pompeii, so I decided to change course and try to catch a ferry across the bay to Eastbourne, a recommendation from the folks at the film archive.

The trip over was quick and calm, with the only turbulence coming when we crossed over the wake of of the passing Interislander. We arrived in Days Bay, and I headed south on the 1.4 km route to Eastbourne, a walk which hugged the coast and was dotted with idyllic houses.

Eastbourne was an adorable one-street town, with about half the businesses shuttered for the Easter holiday. I had some gelato, headed out onto the historic wharf, and then made my way back to Eastbourne in time for the last crossing of the day at 5:30.

After a quick break at home, I went back to The Craftsman to cash in my winnings from last week’s movie trivia night, and see how it went the second time around. This week was significantly easier, and my team of one ended up triumphant, beating out ten other teams for the $50 first prize. Turns out that was a bit of a curse; apparently, I had to use it all at once, and couldn’t use part of it tonight, as I’d planned, and give the rest of it to someone at the film archive to use.

I spent as long as I could there after trivia was over, watching the South Sydney Rabbitohs and the Canterbury Bulldogs play rugby. Seven out of eight Fox/Sky Sports commentators picked Canterbury to win; naturally, it was the Rabbitohs’ night. Maybe it had something to do with the repeated cuts to Russell Crowe cheering his team on from the stands – who knows? I had a few beers and some apple cobbler, and left the rest of my winnings to the bar staff. The bartender said “Sweet As!,” which I’m pretty sure is about as high a compliment as one can get in New Zealand.