Aftermath of last week's storm

Just in case you were wondering what more of our Southern Coast looked like after last week's storm, here's a video that was taken, mainly on Friday.

It starts off in Owhiro Bay, literally at the bottom of our hill. It travels around to Island Bay (you can make out the island in the background before he stops to look at the sea). The video ends up by the airport in Lyall Bay.
We have since been round the coast road and you wouldn't even know this had happened. Nice work Wellington Council - and all the volunteers who helped out.

All Blacks haka

Our trip to New Plymouth to watch the All Blacks meant we were in for a treat to see the haka live for the first time. And here it is:

We found the sun again!

So after this week's Wellington weather bomb, we had already planned a trip to New Plymouth to watch our first All Blacks game. Annalie had won tickets so it was a good excuse to break out the Bach for the first time in a few weeks.

We woke to a continuation of the storm that didn't bode well for a journey north in a high sided vehicle. Wind and rain persisted. But we thought stuff it! We'd planned this weekend for ages. And besides, the can needed a run.

Most of the way up was damp, rainy and grey. It want until we reached the boundaries of Taranaki that the sun started to peek through and we started to get a glimpse of blue sky. It afforded us some lovely views of the snow covered Mt Egmont/Taranaki along the way.

By the time we got to our campsite in Fitzroy Beach, the skies were well and truly clear and the wind was merely a whisper. It made a walk along the black sand beach very enjoyable. A much different prospect to what we were expecting to face here.

We're glad we made the trip.

Windy Welly lives up to its name

After the best summer in decades, Wellington showed its dark side last night. The forecasters had warned that a 'weather bomb' was on its way.

And a weather bomb hit the bullseye.

Winds gusted up to 200km/h and the Cook Strait had 11m swells. The inter-island ferries were cancelled and moored in the centre of the harbour to protect them from being slammed against the docks. The airport was closed. Trees, benches and trampolines found new homes of their own accord.

It was classed as a Category 1/2 Atlantic Hurricane. Wowsers. But we bet you didn't hear about it on the news. Wellington has carried on functioning as normal. The coffee shops are open so all is right with the world!

We came away unscathed (so far). But others were not so lucky.

Annalie's Mum and Colin may recognise these pictures as being right outside the dive shop in Owhiro Bay (for those who haven't been, it's at the bit of coast at the bottom of our road).

We have a new toy

It doesn't have a name. Or a gender. It's just more practical for our needs. We figured our Scooby wad just a little too big for our requirements. So now we've got a mint with a hole...