After a splendid open-air concert last night at the Botanical Gardens bandshell, we awoke (late) this morning to another glorious summer day. Unfortunately, I've been limited by an ankle sprain, so we headed down to the harbor to view the DaVinci Machines exhibit at the City Museum. Afterwards, we joined up with Patrick for a bloody mary and lunch. In danger of falling into a postprandial torpor, we were suddenly struck with the inspiration to take a helicopter tour around the peninsula.
This is the view of Central Wellington as we lifted off. We live just across from the triangular building to the bottom-right of center.
Here's a view from the air of Oriental Parade and Lyall Bay. In the background is the far shore of Wellington Harbor. We'll be moving over there in February and taking the ferry into the city for work (which as commutes go, seems pretty cool).
Houses quickly give way to hills, and just beyond these, the South Shore and Tasman Sea. As we flew over, we saw wild goats scrambling through the gourse and the giant hulls and blades of wind turbines waiting in piles to be erected. Speaking of wind, it seemed we were getting tossed around quite a bit. Cam, our pilot, commented that the winds along the shoreline "spin like a washing machine". He didn't seem too worried, but we were definitely hoping to avoid the spin cycle.
On the other side of the hills, we sat down at Tongue Point, a remote stretch of rocks between Owhiro Bay and Makara Beach. Here we saw a few male fur seals, early dropouts from the mating season, lounging on the beach. We then squeezed back into the chopper and swung south along the shoreline, passing just over Patrick's studio en route back to the city.
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