Autumnal ANZAC walk

I'm sorry my northern hemisphere friends have to hear this, because it seems like you guys are having a pretty average spring, but.....our autumn down here has been freaking amazing. I think its the best autumn I've had since I've lived in Wellington. It's cooler and the days are shorter but we seem to have had sunny day after sunny day and so many blue skies! Normally this time I year I need to wear my woolen coat EVERYWHERE! But I haven't been wearing it to work at ALL this week - where do I even LIVE now?

Last weekend was ANZAC weekend, for those of you not from my part of the world ANZAC stand for Australian New Zealand Army Corps and ANZAC day is in remembrance of all our service men and woman killed in combat and also recognises those currently serving and those who did return.

ANZAC day is always held on the 25 April as its the day the ANZAC troops landed on the Gallipoli Peninsular in 1915.

Given that it was ANZAC weekend Rich and I thought it was finally time we visited the Ataturk Memorial on the South Coast of Wellington.

Sometimes I am still amazing at just how ridiculously stunning country can be - even though I'm a New Zealander and have now been a Wellingtonian for over ten years. I mean look at this place!

The Ataturk Memorial is to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk who was the first leader of the Republic of Turkey.

The spot was chosen for the memorial due to the fact its very similar to to Gallipoli Peninsular - well that's what I read on the NZ History website and it's pretty authoritative on such things.

After looking at the memorial, we decided to walk to Lyall Bay and then catch the bus home from there. Sometimes in Wellington when you're out and about you see signs like this, it makes sense when you live in a place with fairly regular earthquakes I suppose? It's one of many reasons why I enjoy visiting the coast, but would never want to live too close to the sea!

There are little blue penguins along this coast line, I've never seen them in Wellington (I have seen them when we visited Oamaru though) but I have heard them when walking the evenings a few times.

The scenery on the way Lyall Bay is pretty rocky and rugged - these are the kind of beaches I really love. Pretty white sand beaches never really feel like home to me.

I wanted to finish off with this sculpture - any guesses as to what it's called? I'd love to know if you guys can work it out.

 If you guesses "doo doo" or something similar you're right!  I guess its easier to guess if you've had pet sheep or goats (or grown up on a sheep or goat farm!).

Waikanae Weekend

So motivation for blogging is still fairly minimal - I'm hoping at some time it will return. I know I have like a million posts to read, at some point I will catch up (who knows when!).

Anyway onto today's post, a few weeks back Rich and I thought that it was a good idea to get out of the city and have a relaxed mini break. As you my have guessed - I'm not so good at relaxing, or taking actual breaks. So I always knew it was going to be a bit of a challenge.

We decided to book a "cabin in the woods" which was more of a cottage on the edge of a reserve up the coast in Waikanae.

There were some interesting bits and pieces around the house and in the garden. This clown was slightly creepy though, although I don't like clowns - give me a zombie any day.

 We arrived on Friday night on after work and had a quiet dinner out - on Saturday morning we decided to take in some nature and walked along the Waikanae River.

Until we finally reached Waikanae Beach - the island is Kapiti Island (just so you know not everything around here is called Waikanae).

We had a spot of lunch at a cafe at Waikanae Beach and then found a cute retro shop - it was an amazing store, can you believe I didn't buy any fabric or patterns? I was pretty amazed at my restraint!

We were a bit tired from our walk, so decided to head back to Waikanae on the local bus - which was small, cute and so cheap!

Our last stop of the day was to visit the Kapiti Museum - the museum is run by the local community and is pretty cute. It's full of "the way people used to live" type displays. I liked the sewing and clothing displays (obviously).

After our visit to the museum, the skies turned black, there was a storm expected, so we thought it was a good idea to turn back to our cottage.

However, we did manage to have one final walk before returning to the city after our weekend away.

Bye bye Waikanae - I miss the beach and the bird calls and the sunshine!