Well hello winter

In New Zealand, 1st June marks the first day of winter. Ironically, we celebrate this with a long weekend for the Queen's Birthday. We took the opportunity to have a very quiet one to recharge the batteries, but did decide to head out to Wright's Hill Fortress, an old WWII gun station in Karori. It's only open four times a year so we thought we'd better take the opportunity.

Most of it is a series of cold, damp tunnels linking the three gun stations...

The Fortress was built to protect the Kiwi capital from Japanese invasion. However the guns were never fired in anger as it was only finished in 1944! And the Japanese never made it this far. The guns were tested though in 1946 and promptly shattered many of the windows around the Fortress!

However today, it is probably best visited for the views it provides of the harbour and even Makara Wind Farm.

 As you can see though, not bad weather for the start of winter. Don't mind if we have a few more winter days like this one!

First trip back

Annalie is making her first trip back to the UK since August 2010. It's winter in the UK. Here in NZ it's approaching 20 degrees, sunny and still. Remind us again, why is she leaving? ;-)

Well, there is a damn good reason, but still... ;-)

It must be cold here

Despite the reputation as being the sunniest place in NZ, we've found a certain local craze a bit confusing.

There seems to be a local sport of "dressing" trees and other street amenities in woolly jumpers! It's been chilly here but not that cold!