Some shots from the Petone Winter Carnival and Fireshow last weekend (which was confusingly held in spring this year, the same day in fact as another nearby local spring carnival. Someone said it was something to do with a certain tournament involving an oval ball).

One of those unplanned shots that kinda works. I was taking a pic of all the lights on the beachfront when Charlotte decided she wanted to be in it too.

Petone Wharf

One of those carnival ride spinny nausea generator things.

Burning the fire sculptures

Boats waiting for the fireworks

Hutt Oddities

Listening to: Showbiz Kids, The Steely Dan Story 1972-1980 - Steely Dan (2000). I bought this compilation years ago on the back of liking a few of their more well known songs. I haven't listened to it for years, to the point of not remembering any of it particularly well, so am trying to figure out if I like any of it. It certainly evokes the era well if nothing else.

Couple of odd sights around the Hutt at the moment.

A pine tree has acquired some unusual decoration:

One of the local papers was all 'How in the world did they do that?', but c'mon, its a Norfolk Pine for goodness' sake. Its about the easiest tree in the world to climb (spoken from the experience of having one about this size in my backyard as a kid). Here is a full height shot of the specimen in question:

It isn't even a very big Norfolk Pine; I've been to Norfolk Island and seen these things in their place of origin and they get a lot bigger. Climbing this one traffic cone in hand wouldn't have been a problem. I'm impressed it has stayed up there as long as it has, although the rope visible in the close-up suggests it might be more secured than it looks.

That explains the traffic cone*, but this on a wall in Petone is a lot less clear:

I haven't figured this one out yet, or indeed just what there is to figure out.

*It reminds me of a similar tree that was uprooted in a flood about ten years ago up the river from here. It was swept down the river and into the harbour, but caught on the seabed and effectively planted itself near a marina, in water shallow enough for the top couple of meters to emerge above the water. The pine tree in the middle of the water was visible for several days before finally disappearing, long enough for the harbour master to jokingly ponder putting christmas lights on it as it was that time of year.

Fort Fallen

A local Hutt landmark is no more. The Avalon Park Fort was demolished a couple of weeks ago. It hosted countless battles, games of hide-and-seek, tag, go home-stay home, or any other childhood game we could think of. It also delivered many bumped heads, splinters and fond memories For the older kids there were countless rendezvous' day and night, gatherings and probably some virginity-losings. the Avalon Park Fort was demolished a couple of weeks ago. It reigned over its domain for thirty-five years or more, and was a destination play area for generations of Hutt kids. It had always been there, predating me by a year or so, and was a key part of childhood here. I have many memories of it, almost all of them good (the head bumps and midges and seagulls being the bad minority).

The picture above was taken late last year, after more a few years of neglect, shorn of the tower it once possessed (which older kids would try and convince those younger than them had once included a ladder to get to the very top. Sussing out that the ladder never existed was a kind of rite of passage), and the kayaks and paddle boats it once housed long gone. Here is a picture of it when it was new (including tower), and we were all a lot younger (linky).

While surviving storms, floods, and its users easily, it couldn't survive 21st century health and safety regulations. News story about its demise complete with standard issue beauracratic waffle here (linky).

In the end, the walls that had withstood and repelled thousands of assaults from all kinds of imagined foes were no match for a humble excavator, which dispatched its target in a day or so:

The bridge that was once raced across in anticipation now leads forlornly nowhere.

Before it fell though, one more generation got acquainted with the legend, even if she likely won't remember it...

Postscript: It occured to me while writing this, that out of my top three 80's adventure playgrounds, only one now remains, the fort at Eastbourne. The Queen Elizabeth Park concrete and tube bunker fort in Masterton is long gone, and now the Avalon Park Fort has joined it in being history.

Chilly

Melling Bridge at about 8:30 this morning. Frost on the railing, on the footpath and riverbank. Still crisp mornings like this are one of the few times I like winter.
Kinda cold for cycling though (I had two pairs of gloves on this morning, amongst other thermal layers), although not as cold as Monday and Tuesday were. They were actually icy.

And the novelty of crunching through frosty grass is even more fun on a bike.That said, there are times I am glad we are so close to sea level here and only have frosts and occasional icing to deal with. I probably wouldn't enjoy riding through proper ice and snow so much.

Repping it up

Quietly loving that Charlotte is now big enough to start wearing this particular t-shirt, even if she doesn't quite fill it out yet.....
It's only taken the better part of two years:)

Just for those wondering what this is about, its a reference to where we live (linky). It has something of an unfair reputation, discussed by me a few years ago here.

Lucky we got such a good space!

This was too mint not to share:
The blue car in the middle of the shot outside my Mother-in-Law's house is parked. Engine off and no-one aboard. The neighbours just dribbled up, hopped out and ambled inside. One of the best bits of car-parking I have ever seen :) Apparently they do this fairly often (probably explains why the rear bumper is missing).

Have bike and camera will travel

The only real issue I have with riding my mountain bike to work, is that I live roughly hereish:

Since that picture was taken somewhere near where I work, I'm sure you can all realise the con when it comes to negotiating the journey on a vehicle powered solely by me (as well as marvelling at my ability to free draw arrows in microsoft paint).

The average gradient to get there is something like this, for about a kilometre and a half.

I've had a couple of people say how impressed they are that I do this, but it really isn't that terrible once you have done it a few times. It doesn't get easy, but it does get less difficult. I have noticed I am getting better at it in that the willpower element is now focused on being bothered to ride in the the first place, rather than keeping going. Another measure of fitness on this is I don't notice the climb so much anymore. I have the energy to think about things over than 'just keep pedalling', and my legs aren't so rubbery when I dismount.

I had a play last week with using the video mode on our little point and shoot camera while cycling to and from work. While it's not exactly C'etait un Rendevous, I like the results anyway.

Reading around various traps inspired little confidence in blogger's video hosting abilities, so I herded a couple of clips on to Youtube instead. These were made with a camera held against the handlebar, so the image stability isn't so great.

The first is going through the poky little subway that takes you under the main highway at the bottom of the hill. It's a cheap thrill, but I like the rush of riding through such an enclosed space. Feel free to make any Star Wars/Dambusters/633 Squadron comparisons you feel appropriate:

The second is the full 2 minute downhill from the crest of the road below my place. If I ride, this is how my commute begins, which is good for waking you up if nothing else. I live in a dip on the ridge, so perversely I have to go uphill before I can go down. I pedal to the crest, then let gravity take over and coast (the bike can't be pedalled faster than 35kph or so anyway. not enough gears). The first 15 seconds or so are a bit shaky as I figure out how I am holding the camera but bear with it (the shakiness halfway through is due to the rough road surface at that section. I love front fork suspension). I have the brakes on for most of the way, from about the first bus stop at 00:27, to stay at the 50kph speed limit, which makes for very hot discs at the bottom. I followed another cyclist with rim brakes down once and all I could smell was burning rubber. I could easily go faster, but since it is both illegal and terrifying, I don't. An off at 50 kph will be bad enough, although overtaking cars would be fun. Rain, early morning flying insects, or ice, particularly on the long corner near the bottom which doesn't see any sun in winter can make this descent muuuchhh more interesting.



I quite like the bit where my shadow stretches out on the road in front of me :)

I could add some clips of the ascent, but it takes ten times as long (literally), and is accompanied by liberal amounts of 0900 line style heavy breathing.

Fire

Some shots of the scrub fire across the valley from my place yesterday (brief and slightly out of date story here). Compared to some of the big fires on the same slopes I remember from my youth this one was pretty small (although probably plenty big enough for those whose assets were threatened), but still the closest and most visible scrub fire we have had for a while.

My helicopter likes to hide in shrubbery (with apologies to the authors of "My cat likes to hide in boxes" (link)).

Uplifting a monsoon bucket (link) to give the Rural Fire Service team on the hill a hand.

The yellow dots on the right are the firefighters helmets.

Aftermath with the fire out this afternoon.

Build a bridge

We three braved the elements on Saturday to explore the first part of the Dowse to Petone interchange to actually get finished. I'd been wanting to take some pictures of the project for a while for various reasons (one being seeing it every day in various states while commuting to the hospital to visit Charlotte back in September), so sod the rain, we were in.

Letting people explore a major works project before it opens to traffic is a neat idea. The gold coin donation went to Te Omanga, and it lets people connect with what could otherwise be an impenetrable piece of architecture.

Plus wandering around on foot in a place where it will shortly be very dangerous to do so has a certain cheap thrill frisson to it:
I like watching things come together and seeing them in a half finished state, especially when you can follow progress over a period of months.

Some finishing touches were still being applied around us

And it will be cool to tell someone years from now that they were here when it was brand new.

Having ambled over it on foot, I have since driven over it since it opened yesterday. It has straight bit on the bridge part that is just straight enough to make your indicator self cancel when you need it to not do that, and the slip road back down to the motorway is a little bit short and angled for the required merge. That said the Hutt road entry and exit is really good, with good sightlines for oncoming traffic and clear signposting.

Also it was opened yesterday and has already been tagged. Admittedly it was supporting one of the schools participating in the McEvedy Shield athletics comp presumably held today (since I saw other exhortations in a simliar theme along the rest of the motorway into town), rather than graph art, but that has to be some kind of record time wise.

Mini Rant

More of an addendum to my rant post

Like all newish parents, we have a brag book for those who are interested, including the above pic of my girl at about half a day old, wearing a t-shirt procured for her by her auntie (who is excellent at gift matching like this by the way).

So far two people have responded to this pic with utterances of "Oh that's terrible!" or "How could you do that?" in a "I sound like I'm joking but I'm really not" sort of way, like we should be embarrassed or just joking ourselves by stating so boldly we we are from.

Two is a small number, but it is enough for me to ask,


What the fcuk is up with that?


I've touched on this issue before, but now I have wider interests at stake I find this response a bit miffing. I'll be very nicely asking the next person to respond in this way to explain themselves.


Or am I just over-reacting?


Answers on a postcard please

Unbuilding

Listening to: Everything is Possible-the very best of Living Colour

As part of the biggest engineering project in the Hutt for years (link), this utilitarian office building alongside State Highway 2 has been demolished. In its final years of use it served as part of the Lower Hutt Polytechnic. Prior to that I am told it was an admin block for the car factory located in what is now Valley Indoor Sports. Having such a close association to the block, and seeing it during my trips into Wellington, which became daily after Charlotte was born, I had the opportunity to document its demise.

21 August 2008
27 September 2008
As one structure falls, another begins to rise.....

7 October 2008
11 October 2008
17 October 2008
finis
Partly inspired by this great and fondly remembered book (link), which imagines what it would take to dismantle the Empire State Building.