Best of Wellington

It's been that long since I blogged I have almost forgotten how. Decided there was one last post that needed to be posted before we began to blog about our lives here in Ireland. By the way all is good here and Sharon and Bump are in good form.

Considering we almost lived in the capital for a year I decided some time ago to do a best of Wellington. It's the most southerly capital in the world and was voted the fourth best capital city in the world. Again I keep meaning to add to the post but can't seem to get the time. So here it is the best of Wellington.

Best Public Art Galleries: City Gallery and NZ Academy of Fine Arts

Best Bar: Matterhorn, Cuba Street.

Best Beaches: Scorching Bay & Oriental Bay

Best Breakfast: Floriditas (Best organic eggs on the planet)

Best Bus Route: No. 14 although I can't say I have been on them all.

Best Cafes: Astorias, Ernestos and Chocolate Fish

Best Drink: Any Pinot Noir in my opinion!

Best Restaurants: Pravda, Matterhorn, Olive

Best Public Park: Karori Wildlife Sanctuary

Best Theatre: Downstage

Best Cinema: Embassy

Best Live Entertainment Venue: San Fransisco Bath House

Best Supermarket: Moore Wilson's

Best Local Bar: The Realm Hataitai (Slightly biased!)

Best things to do: Cable Car to Botanic Gardens, Botanic Gardens, Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, Te Papa Museum, Coffee in a cafe on a sunny day.

Best Tennis Club: Kilbernie Tennis Club (Again completely bias!)

Best Relaxed Walk: Oriental Bay

Best Night Course: An Introduction to Wine (OK I only did the one but I really enjoyed it!)

Best Neighbourhood: Hataitai (Pronounced Hi-tie-tie, this was our neighbourhood so again we are being biased!)

If you are caught between living in the Capital or Auckland and you are worried about the weather in the windy city remember the phrase "If Wellington Blows, Auckland Sucks!"

The Hutt

The Hutt is an area in the suburbs of Wellington and they have been advertising it's many advantages over the last year to entice people out to their little piece of paradise. Here's just some of the clever ideas they came up with. I hope you enjoy them as much as Sharon does!

I am afraid it would have taken more than a few posters to make us move from Hataitai!

Cathal

Murals

I personally don't have a lot of time for murals of any description so when I kept on passing one that I actually liked I decided it was worth a closer look. The following set of murals are on the boundary wall to Clyde School on Elizabeth St. here in Welly.








Maybe the simple fact that this set of murals hasn't been defaced is a testament to the quality of the work? I know they brighten my day.

Cathal

An Introduction to Wine

I mentioned on a previous post that I have been taking an introduction to wine course in Wellington High School for the last few weeks. What follows is a random list of things I found interesting over the eight weeks.

All wine competitions use the same standard XL5/ ISO glasses to help make the competition results more consistent. There are surprisingly small but designed to funnel the smell of the wine towards the nose.

Wine judges are not supposed to wear perfume or aftershave at a competition. Well you don't want the judge describing his or her buddies "CK One" instead of the wine!

Sometimes when you open a bottle of wine with a cork closure there will be crystals or wine diamonds on the bottom of the cork. This is due to tartaric acid and is completely harmless. It does not mean that the wine is corked.

Sometime in the 18th century American grape plants were introduced into Europe. Unknowingly there was a parasite that lived on the American grape plant roots and it was introduced also. Within a very short period of time most of the European grape plants were killed by the parasite as they were not immune to it. However the Europeans noticed that the American grapes were immune so they grafted the European grapes onto American roots. The majority of grape plants in Europe therefore have American roots!

If you open a bottle of wine and do not plan on drinking it all the best thing to do is keep a half sized empty bottle of wine in the kitchen. When you open the standard size bottle pour half the contents into the half sized bottle almost to the top and reseal. This will help keep the wine as less oxygen can get at it. Pumps and putting the lid back onto a half empty bottle of wine doesn't work!

The next trendy white wine in NZ will be Viognier and has been trendy for some time in other countries. Get it while it's still cheap here!

Contrary to popular belief Blue Nun, Black Tower and Liebfraumilch are not Rieslings but Muller Thurgau! A German came to NZ a long time ago and sold the idea of Muller Thurgau to the masses as it is the first grape to ripen. Apparently what he forgot to mention was that it makes awful wine!

Next time you see a medal on a bottle of wine remember it might not be a good thing. Some competitions are run over a week and the judges can be asked to judge 100 bottles of wine in one hour! After the first few they can't really taste the subtleties anymore so the winners are usually "in your face" kind of wines. After the competition the wineries note which one won and why and make there wines even more "in your face" than the winner for next years competition! This is obviously not necessarily a good thing for wines! A judge once said that he awarded a gold medal to a wine but when he tried the same wine a week later he couldn't drink it!

Pinot Gris is a Pinot Noir Grape that has reverted. For no apparent reason you can plant Pinot Noir and walk out one day and some of the plants will have become Pinot Gris. Not only that but they can revert back to Pinot Noir again at a later stage!

There are two types of red wine drinkers generally. Those that like red wines with red fruit berries and those who like their reds with black fruit berries. If you tend to like Pinot Noirs and Grenache then you like your red berries. If you like Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrahs then you tend to like your blackberries. Merlot and Malbec tend to fall somewhere in the middle and depending on the wine could fall into either category.

Red wine varieties ripen in the following order. Pinot Noir, Merlot, Malbec, Cabernet Franc, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot.

White wines ripen in the following order. Muller Thurgau, Sauvignon Blanc, Gewurztraminer, Chardonnay and Pinot Gris. (Can't remember where Rieslings fit in!)

Shiraz is what the Australians call Syrah.

If you want to spice up your baked beans add in the dregs from your bottle of wine apparently it makes them taste yummy!

"Clarets" is the general name given to the red wines of Bordeaux. Bordeaux is not the hottest of areas and the French have managed over the centuries to perfect the art of blending grape varieties to produce some excellent wines. The reason for this is that in any given year a specific variety might fail due to the weather. The climate is very similar to NZ and it is suggested that therefore NZ could be the New World equivalent of Bordeaux!

If you buy a wine in a shop or order one at a bar or restaurant and it has either cork or screw cap taint you should bring it back to the shop or ask for a different bottle in a restaurant. The shops and restaurants return the defective bottles to the wineries i.e. they do not suffer any loss. They estimate that around 5% of wines sealed with a cork have cork taint or as it is more commonly referred to as "corked". Corked wine is also know as TCA and you can find out a bit more about it on the link. It basically smells like wet cardboard.

The supermarkets are more or less responsible for the growing use of screw cap bottles as they decided a number of years back to charge the wineries for a 5% loss due to cork taint whether the bottles were returned or not. Some clever Aussies and Kiwi's came up with the solution of the screw cap and the Supermarkets agreed to drop the 5% on wines sealed in this fashion. No one at the time foresaw any difficulty.

There has been a lot of debate over the problems with corked wines and the salvation that screw caps have supposedly brought to the industry. I googled cork and screw cap taint and was amazed at how many contrary opinions are out there on the subject. Our teacher firmly believes that screw cap taint is a real problem especially in wines that are over a year old. He went as far as to suggest that almost 20% of screw capped wines have a problem with sulphide reduction and that no one in the wine industry was prepared to accept that there is a problem because of the obvious consequences. He also suggested that since the cork industry has become more regulated and quality control has greatly improved the number of wines with cork taint has reduced to as little as 1-2%.

We tasted a number of wines during the course, up to 14 per night, and a significant amount of screw capped wines had problems with sulphide reduction. The basic test is if there is a smell of struck matches or flint when you open the bottle and if there is a metallic astringent after taste to the wine i.e. it doesn't end subtly. I am no expert but have definitely tasted screw cap tainted wines and they are not nice.

However I did manage to find one article that I believe is quite even handed in it's consideration of the problems associated with wine taint and you can read it here and judge for yourselves. There is obviously more than two ways to seal a wine and aswell as the rubber "corks" there's the likes of the Zork!

Perhaps we just have to accept that there is no ideal solution to the problem of tainted wines and come to terms with the fact that most of us never even know we are drinking one, myself included!

Cathal

Karori Wildlife Sanctuary

You would be forgiven for thinking that you had just arrived at Jurassic Park when you walk up to the gates of Karori Wildlife Sanctuary. Unlike Jurassic Park, however they're not trying to keep the wildlife in, but the wildlife out! Here's a pic of the gates I borrowed from the web and one I took which shows the two metre high fence that surrounds the entire park.

If you arrive at the weekend or during the summer you have a choice of transportation, your feet or the electric boat that runs up and down the lower lake. The boat leaves from beside the old pump house more or less at the entrance. There are two distinct levels to the park consisting of the lower and upper lakes. Here's a pic of the pump house and the boat.

We made our way on foot, up to the second set of fences within the park where we took the following pics looking back along the lower lake.

The park is divided at its centre by a second temporary fence in order to keep the flightless birds such as the Weka within a certain area and protect vulnerable lizards and invertebrates. You might think that using Jurassic Park as a metaphor is a little far fetched, however it's the Tuatara pictured below that makes the comparison a little more plausible. Tuatara are from an order of reptiles that evolved around 220 million years ago and became extinct everywhere except NZ. There are some more interesting facts about the Tuatara's here.

The Tuatara are not that easy to see. The second pic below is a cropped version of the first. If you can't see the Tuatara in either not to worry as they have notice boards up at the beginning of the track where the public and guides can mark down where they have spotted them to help the less eagle eyed! You can test your eye sight on the pic directly below!

I mentioned in a previous post some time ago that the Kea was NZ's only parrot and rightly got a "slap on the wrist" from Loose Yarns & UFO's who reminded me of the Kaka! There are feeding stations in the park for these parrots and if you are lucky one or two might come and feed while you are there. We were lucky and got the following pics when we passed it on our way back from the upper reservoir. The last pic is the middle pic cropped.



We were lucky enough to see the Kaka both times we have been to the park. However this time we got to see it actually eating and drinking from the feeding station. The feeder is very clever and works on the fact that the Kaka are such large birds. They literally land on a perch/ lever and their weight acts as a counter weight to lift the lid of the feeder letting them access the contents and means that the smaller, lighter birds cannot take their food.

The pic below is taken from the dam at the upper reservoir looking back over the park.

We joined the growing membership of the park the last time we were at the park. Membership entitles you to free entry to the park at any time and you also get a discount for the guided night walks which we hope to do before we go home. On the night walk there is a chance you will get to see glow worms and the nocturnal Kiwi amongst other things.

If you only had a few days in Wellington and your time was limited I am not sure whether everyone would find the sanctuary a good use of their time. It is a great place to spend a sunny afternoon however and there are plenty of places to sit down and listen to the amazing sounds of all those NZ birds. The Bellbird I think is my favourite.

Cathal

PS I will start posting about our trip up north tomorrow just wanted to do this post while it was fresh in my head.

PPS You might have noticed the new counter that Sharon put onto the side bar. We are heading home on the 27th September 07 for two weddings and we, like the counter, are literally counting down the days!

Winter in Wellington

Winter is usually the time for night classes of some description or another and when Sharon signed up for a night course in Wellington High School to learn how to sew she encouraged me to take a course too. If you click on the link above you'll see the extensive list of courses available.

Not to be outdone I decided to take an Introduction to Wine course being taught by Paul White on a Wednesday night in the same school. This week is the third week and I am planning on doing a separate blog post about what I have learned so far in the coming weeks.

We also started going to ballroom dance classes. All I can say is that I must have been really bad in a former life as I am certainly being punished now! I think it would be fair to say that most men in the class have been dragged there, kicking and screaming, by their partners. I actually did ballroom dance classes years ago and it's not like "riding a bicycle" in that you forget the moves very quickly. So far we have done the quick step, rumba, foxtrot, rock'n'roll and last but not least the waltz. It's really well run, the ratio of teachers to pupils is very impressive, although at times I feel I could do with some private lessons!

On Monday nights while Sharon's out sewing I go and play Korfball. Korfball is a dutch game and is a cross between basketball and netball. If you click on the link here you will get a better idea about the game. It's quite a unique sport in that it is a mixed team sport with four men and four women on each team. There's also clubs in Christchurch and Auckland. I took some pictures one of the nights I was there, but they were pretty crap, so here's a few I borrowed from the web site I linked to above.

So that keeps us pretty busy during the week leaving the weekend free to take in some of the other highlights of Welly, such as the many festivals, cafes, art galleries and the like. There's really no end of things to do in the capital!

Cathal

NZ Bird Watching

I go for a walk along Hataitai Rd towards Roseneath most days around lunch time. Coincidentally it's the same route the number 14 bus takes although I don't travel as far! I posted about the number 14 bus route here previously. (It's actually my favourite post out of all the posts I have done!) I have been walking the same route for a few months and kept meaning to bring my camera with me as there was these cute little birds in the bushes every time I past by. The other day I finally remembered and brought my camera and took the following snaps!

The first pic is one I borrowed from the post mentioned above. I find it fascinating how the car ports littered along the route have such great views. In Ireland we would have built houses on them by now. The second pic has a part of a car port in the foreground. Lucky cars!



The next pics are some general views that keep bringing me back on the same old route.

The pic above is a view towards Wellington CBD (Central Business District) with Oriental Bay and beach in the foreground. The next pic is of the bush that the birds I like feed in, I don't know the name of it though.

And finally the birds in question. It took me several attempts but I finally managed to get some good pics even if I do say so myself. I don't have a zoom lens so I cropped the photographs of the birds in the bushes. It is amazing how clear they still are although a few are admittedly a bit blurry.

They are primarily green but as you can see from the above pic have this striking contrasting colour around their eyes. It took me forever to find the name of the bird out. I looked up all kind of sites for NZ birds and I think there are called wet eye fantails? I think I am correct as one of the days as I was trying to take a pic a lady passing by mentioned the name also, at least I think she did!

They seem to be more elusive on the internet than they are in reality!

Cathal

This is New Zealand

The New Zealand International Film Festival started its Wellington leg just over a week ago and Sharon and I were keen to take in a few movies. We went to see A Mighty Heart last Tuesday in the Embassy Theatre. I am not sure which we enjoyed more the theatre or the movie!


The Lord of the Rings had its debut in the Embassy and the theatre is a real throw back to the days when going to the cinema was seen as a "night out." The theatre seating is really generous, you don't have to stand up to let someone pass by, and the ergonomics are terrific. No slanting of the head in order to bypass someone else's. The real treat however is the leather seats in the centre of the theatre and if it's "free" seating you'll find people literally queueing up to get them! Here's a few pics which gives you an idea of the theatre.

However it was last Sundays three short movies that interested us the most. This is New Zealand, C'mon to New Zealand and This is Expo made up an hours worth of NZ promotional movies. C'mon to New Zealand was a twenty minute tourist promotional video made in 1969 and was aimed at luring the Aussies over to NZ. It was hilarious! Apart from the side burns, big lapels, flares etc. the airline food got the biggest reaction. There was no cheap flights in those days and if the film was anything to go by the meals were five courses and works of art! Air hostess with sweet trolleys offering the most sumptuous of deserts! Lobster laid out on silver platters to whet the appetite. In short food you would expect in some of the finer establishments around town. Along with the visual quirks of the movie the commentary didn't disappoint either. With the stereo typical "righty-ho chaps" English gent orating for our benefit.

However the film we really wanted to see was This is New Zealand. In 1969 Britain joined the Common Market which meant that NZ had to start promoting itself to the world in order to develop alternative markets for their goods. NZ decided to take part in the 1970 Expo in Osaka Japan. The star attraction of the event was a revolutionary twenty minute film that introduced viewers to New Zealand. It was shot over three screens as per the pic below and I assumed that it was done this way to be more creative. In reality NZ didn't have a 70mm camera so they were forced to use three 35mm cameras instead! Necessity is the mother of invention and what materialised was some amazing collages of images.

The film itself is not as funny as the first movie but what it lacks in jocularity it makes up for in camera work. Although both Sharon and I were surprised that the NZ landscape didn't feature more heavily. After This is New Zealand there was a short documentary about the people working at the NZ pavilion during the Expo.

The film festival goes on until the 5th August here in Wellington and you can check out the web site to see whats on in the coming days. We hope to see a few more movies before The End!

Cathal

Newtown Nuances

We managed to bring a piece of art home with us from our honeymoon. It was an abstract acrylic painting of Portofino in Italy. We bought it in one of the small towns along the Cinque Terre. Ironically enough the painter was Welsh!

We were on holidays last year at my sister's house in Perpignan in France and happened to pick up a contemporary piece of modern art in the form of an oil painting. Painted, again ironically, by an artist better known for his sculptures. We picked the painting up in a gallery in the lovely town of Collioure.

Quite by accident the idea of having a piece of art, to remind us of somewhere we have been, has become something we aspire too. We didn't find anything that appealed to us in Australia and were determined not to let the same thing happen here in New Zealand.

We have been popping in and out of galleries where ever we travel and apart from one painting that I liked, but Sharon didn't, we haven't seen anything that appealed to us, until last Sunday that is.

We go into the New Zealand Academy of Fine Art every time we pass by and happened to come across a photographic exhibition called Newtown Nuances. The exhibition was by 18 second year students from the local Massey University and it was fabulous! The next two pics are by a photographer called Elizabeth Cohen who kindly gave me permission to show them on the blog.






The exhibition was about trying to capture the character of Newtown, a suburb of Wellington known for it's cultural diversity. Elizabeth wrote the following description of the above pieces:

"In this project I have created a montage of images which illustrates the interaction between various cultures in the Newtown community. The diversity of Newtown is represented in its wide variety of ethnic restaurants.....I have explored this through the overlaying and blending of images, accentuating the busy Newtown environment"

As you have probably guessed by now, her work really appealed to us and we bought the photograph, or piece of art as I like to refer to it, directly above. Elizabeth only displayed the two pieces above and was the only student to represent Newtown in a very abstract way, a very brave move that for us made her work stand out. (To be fair there were some other abstract pieces, but they were more conventional.)

As the scans above are very small I have enlarged sections of the piece we bought so you can appreciate the detail better.

Unfortunately the show is now over and the collection of photographs will probably never be displayed as part of an exhibition again.

We think we are very lucky to have a memento of it and by default Wellington.

Cathal

The Holy Bag

We went to hear the 14th Dalai Lama speak in Wellington yesterday about "The Human Approach to World Peace". The talk marked the end of a 16 day Australian/ New Zealand tour which brought its own share of controversy.

The Chinese didn't like the fact that the Australian Prime Minister met with him and let their objections be known. Australia turned around and told the Chinese that the Dalai Lama was welcome in Australia at any time and asked China to respect their democracy.

The New Zealand Prime Minister, Helen Clarke, refused to say whether she would meet with his holiness when he arrived in New Zealand. (New Zealand and Australia are currently in free trade negotiations with China.)




The talk was interesting in its own right and the Dalai Lama, was keen to show off his humour, stating that it plays an important role in one's happiness.

At the beginning of the talk he put on a sun visor and explained how it helped shade his eyes from the spotlights. He explained how at a previous talk someone had gifted him a visor which he wore. However some people took exception to the fact that the visor was branded so an American friend sent him a visor that matched his attire and had no branding.

He then proceeded to laugh at the amount of mystery that seemed to surround what he called "the holy bag." The bag he carries everywhere with him, asking if people would like to see what was in it. He proceeded to take out a tube of toothpaste and a pair of shades. He also said that he carried his breakfast in the bag explaining that on long haul flights the breakfasts might be nicely presented but lacked the desired quantity. It all got a good laugh and he kept the whole thing quite light.

He started his talk by talking about the individual and about approaching life with a calm mind and dealing with problems logically. He gave an example of the neighbour doing something to annoy you, which culminates in you feeling hatred towards them. This hatred makes you feel very unhappy and drives away people close to you. Ultimately you end up alone and vulnerable. All this time the neighbours state of happiness remains unaffected and if anything he will delight in your unhappiness. He finished the parable by saying that his message was not to walk away, but to deal with the matter calmly, if it meant bringing the neighbour to court then bring him to court, provided that you can remain calm and content.

He then broadened his talk to the world stage and said that he had met with the green party during his visit to New Zealand and he told them that the green party was his party. The green party understood that all issues were global issues and gave the example of global warming. He explained that years ago when one country invaded another country the affect remained more or less isolated between those countries but now everyone is connected by economics and so forth. (I wondered was he referring to the free trade negotiations mentioned earlier). His summary was more or less the same as before. The solution to world peace was similar to self peace or happiness and that every leader needed to approach a problem calmly and logically again stressing that a wrong must be corrected but that the manner in which it is dealt with is critical. (At least I think that is what he was saying I'm not the Dalai Lama!)

The talk ended with a questions and answers session after which the final speaker thanked him for coming and stated that he was more than welcome to New Zealand at any time but hoped the Prime Minister would be able to meet him on New Zealand soil the next time. Ms Clarke having met him in an Australian airport while their on official business the previous week.

We enjoyed it and might even buy his latest book, The Art of Happiness, on the back if it.

Hopefully some of the contents will rub off.

Cathal

Lost in Translation

We went to see the All Blacks take on France last night in the Westpac Stadium here in Wellington, it was the second and final test match France were to play.

It was a game of two halves but unfortunately for the French the All Blacks kicked seven types of "joi de vivre" out of them in both, the game ending 61-10 in the All Blacks favour.

Here's a few pics of us at the match as you have seen the stadium in a previous post.

Although we decided to support the All Blacks it has to be said that we were pretty neutral and wanted, most of all, to see an evenly contested match. As you can appreciate from the score however it was all a bit one sided. Although the Kiwi's didn't seem to tire of the endless All Blacks tries as much as we did.

So why lost in translation. Well you probably think it had something to do with an encounter with the few French supporters at the stadium, but in fact it refers to a conversation I had with our Kiwi neighbour on our return from the match.

Cathal "Well it wasn't great viewing"

Neighbour "Why?, were you stuck behind a pole or something?"

I didn't take it in at the time, and perhaps it's a "location joke" i.e. you had to be there, but it was typical of situations we have encountered from time to time. It is amazing how often such situation arise even though we are supposedly speaking the same language!

Yesterday Sharon said to the same neighbour something along the lines of "well fair play to them" which was followed by general silence and confusion on the part of our neighbour. Not the easiest thing to explain either.

So although there is no language barrier, as such, there are the minor incidents which are kind of funny in their own right. Don't get me wrong living here, as the Kiwi's might put it, is awesome, as good as gold and sweet as, eh!

Cathal