A day sightseeing

Sunday, April 26, 2015
Wellington, North Island, New Zealand
Our first full day in Wellington and we awoke to an overcast sky and the never ending sound of wind howling across the bay. We took a drive up to the top of Mount Victoria and had a very impressive 359 degree view of Wellington and it' surrounds. (359 degrees because a vantage point that high around the city area is a perfect place for an antenna) As with any view that high and unimpeded of a city, it was an impressive sight and well worth the risk of having one's ears blown inside out. From there we went across to the other side of the bay to visit the birthplace and childhood home of one of New Zealand's most famous authors, Katherine Mansfield. A turn on the century timber house that has been preserved and returned to it's former glory, it serves as a nice memorial to a classic author who unfortunately trod the all too sad and tragic road to an early consumptive death. Early afternoon, and a walk around the waterfront to Oriental Bay had us discovering one of Wellington's ornithological wonders, a herd of the famous Wellington Walking Gulls. These birds, through the wonders of evolution have lost the power of flight and are restricted to wherever they can walk to, in some cases along a single stretch of beach between two piers. These gulls did, at one time have the power of flight, but in living evidence of Darwinian theory, began to lose huge numbers of birds as one by one they took off in the Wellington wind and were blown away, never to be seen again. Research has uncovered evidence of their wind blown carcasses as far afield as Norfolk Island. Consequently, only those gulls who didn't try and fly in the perennial wind stayed alive and bred. They have long since lost the power of flight. We did see some in the air, but Jane has theorised that it could be simply a matter of some of the gulls occasionally holding out their vestigial remnants of wings and just being blown up into the sky. She could be right. I remember reading once that there were plans to place a weight restriction on children playing in Wellington parks for fear that kids under a certain weight could be in danger of being picked up by the wind and deposited in the Cook Strait. Or I think I read it. Speak to you tomorrow 

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2025-02-07

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