Having a mostly idle day (well, actually, a day when I should be doing a bunch of taxes but never mind that for now), and not having taken my bike out of down for a while I thought I’d go for a ride and take some photos, prompted by another cat-induced early morning:
The problem with this plan is that once I’m riding it’s generally too much fun to want to stop every ten minutes. So my original plan to shoot up to the Wainuiomata hill road, stop at the lookout, and get some shots of Wellington rather fell by the wayside. It was a lot more interesting to keep heading up State Highway 2, cut across Hayward’s Hill to State Highway 1 and motor back into town. It’s a short trip (a little under 70 kilometres), but it’s a favourite of mine.
The views of Wellington harbour going up SH2 are good, and the Hayward’s Hill road runs along mostly rural land still being farmed. It’s a picturesque ride, and the road is a good one; it snakes over the hills and through the valley; then it runs around the edge of a lagoon, past Whitby and Pauatanui, and joins SH1 by Porirua.
It also afford one of the less-discussed pleasures of riding: olfactory. As I neared the valley the weather shifted toward near-rain, with the corresponding cool, wet, pre-storm smell; riding through was the delightfull scent of cut grass, interrupted by the fresh-cut pine from a sawmill. When one drives, the world tends to smell of car and the occupants thereof. Riding smells like the world, and while that’s less pleasurable when ambling down Willis Street behind a bus, it’s a joy out on the open road.
Much of the ride back into town is less interesting, and notable mostly for the unnerving view the rider is afforded of the New Zealand national pass-time of stupid, aggressive driving: Thrill as morons refuse to allow others to merge! Gasp as cretins speed up to avoid being passed! Tremble as Remuera Tractors tailgate!
The compensation for the terrors of the coastal road is the view that sweeps into sight as one comes out of the Ngauranga Gorge and SH1 and 2 merge; for the Wellingtonian, it’s the sight of home that brings joy to the heart.
That’s not to say the day was a dead loss picture-wise. After dropping some mail and old games off with Rhiannon and Rachel respectively I took a quick jaunt up to the Mount Vic lookout to see what I could see.
Massey is located in the old National Museum building, with its distinctive copper roof; the War Memorial is a carillon played from time to time. Further to the left (south) is the suburb of Newtown.