{"id":37385,"date":"2020-01-09T06:30:06","date_gmt":"2020-01-08T17:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=37385"},"modified":"2020-01-08T20:27:55","modified_gmt":"2020-01-08T07:27:55","slug":"a-few-pics-from-mholiday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2020\/01\/09\/a-few-pics-from-mholiday\/","title":{"rendered":"A Few Pics From M’Holiday"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lighthouse at Cape Palliser, Wairarapa<\/p><\/div>\n

The Christmas-New Year holiday in New Zealand also coincides with the main summer holiday. Perhaps because of that, it’s also an important family gathering time, with lots of travelling part of the mix.<\/p>\n

This year (which is also kinda last year now: heigh-ho!) both my Christmas and New Year family times were in the North Island, with the between days and new year focused on the Wellington area.<\/p>\n

This year (2020), Worldcon<\/a> is being held in Wellington, too, so for those who “are definitely” or “thinking about” attending, I thought you might like a few of the local shots.<\/p>\n

The lighthouse at Cape Palliser is in the greater Wellington region (think ‘province’ or ‘state’) but not in the city area itself. Instead it’s an approximately 1.5 – 2 hour drive over the Rimataka hills (quite big and the road is very windy) in an area called the Wairarapa.<\/p>\n

*Warning: You have to climb 261 steps to reach the lighthouse. \ud83d\ude09 Something to bear in mind re fitness levels.<\/p>\n

The coast, as you can see, is beautiful in a wild sort of a way.<\/p>\n

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Cape Palliser<\/p><\/div>\n

The drive is lovely and another option en route is to check out the Putangirua Pinnacles<\/a> that marked the beginning of the Paths of the Dead in The Lord of the Rings<\/em> films. We didn’t have time to walk in given the other things on our schedule, but they’re supposed to be spectacular.<\/p>\n

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Near Island Bay<\/p><\/div>\n

The other coastal photo (above) is of the Wellington Harbour coastline in the Island Bay area, which is part of Wellington City and readily accessible by car and public transport. (By bicycle, too, although cycling in Wellington, which is characterised by very narrow roads, is not for the fainthearted.) The headland in the distance is not Cape Palliser, by the way, but Pencarrow Head, which also has a lighthouse to visit.<\/p>\n

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Island Bay<\/p><\/div>\n

Island Bay also has an olde-Wellington shopping centre and I was delighted to be there when the pohutakawas, also known as the NZ “Christmas Tree” because of their red flowers,\u00a0 were in full and glorious bloom.<\/p>\n

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Pohutakawa closeup<\/p><\/div>\n

Island Bay is also the subject of one of NZ’s most famous paintings — Rita Angus’s Boats, Island Bay<\/em>. The first print I ever bought, in fact! (Side by side with the real deal.)<\/p>\n

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The actual Island…<\/p><\/div>\n

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Food and wine featured throughout the holiday season, of course. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

And that’s it for “what I did on my holidays” — by and large, at any rate. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

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Happy New Year, 2020!<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Christmas-New Year holiday in New Zealand also coincides with the main summer holiday. Perhaps because of that, it’s also an important family gathering time, with lots of travelling part of the mix. This year (which is also kinda last year now: heigh-ho!) both my Christmas and New Year family times were in the North […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37385"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37400,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37385\/revisions\/37400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}