The views over the city and the harbour are worth the trek up the hill. The wind was pretty fierce though, and I didn’t envy anyone doing the crossing today on the Inter-Island ferry we saw departing the port.

On our way back we walked along the sea front at Oriental Bay where there were a few people relaxing in a suitably festive manner on the new and improved beach (which hasn’t quite washed-away despite some predictions and has been the subject of some fascinating controversy over municipal spending priorities).

It really doesn’t feel like Christmas Day, despite all the decorations, Santa outfits and our own best efforts to be as festive as possible (can’t have a roast, though – the oven here is broken, so we’re going native and having lamb and fried kumara instead). I think that it’s the climate. Even though I’ve spent Christmas in hot places before, I think there’s something hardwired into me that just can’t quite believe that it’s the right time of year. Ungrateful it might sound, but part of me does pine a little for a bit of frost (cue cries of disgust from friends and relatives back home). OK, well, maybe not that much. Have a good day, wherever you are.

The company is a commercial concern, so you have to pay to log on. They charge on bandwidth usage, NZ$20 for 70 Megs, NZ$80 for 350 (c. 7.50 and 30 pounds sterling), although they are doing a free promo each weekend in Dec. I have no idea whether the rate is reasonable or not, but if it ain’t I might find the motivation to install the gzip plugin on this site to try and cut back on bandwidth, seeing as I reload the damn page about ten times every time I update.

So, motivation to get the wireless card on the laptop working! And after an hour or two fiddling, a bit of head scratching, a trip to an internet cafe and a forehead slapping later, it’s all done, and I’m posting this from the laptop, sitting in the Courtenay Central Entertainment Complex! More details in a separate post in a more appropriate category when I get around to it – tomorrow, maybe.

The parade, which ran all the way through the centre of the city, made me think of a US ticker-tape parade or a Royal occasion back in the UK, but with far less security than you’d expect given the numbers involved. Interspersed between groups of costumed extras, the stars of the film slowly made their way to the cinema for a round of speeches and the Premiere itself. They all looked pretty blown away by the whole event, and all seemed to have big smiles on as they drank in the adulation surrounding them.

Unfortunately I didn’t manage to get any good shots of the stars themselves. I had a reasonable vantage point, but the sheer frenzy that greeted them proved beyond my capabilities to penetrate. I’m not too bothered really, as I’m sure we’ll all see plenty of them all over the coming weeks as the hype continues to build for the film’s general release. In the mean time here’s another shot of some of their escort.

The parade was fun, and seemed to live up to the city’s expectations. There was a general sense of carnival throughout the day, and I don’t think anyone really expected to get a lot of work done (I had a job interview rescheduled for Tuesday). Even the phone company got in on the act (I hope you can make out the screen, it says we’re in ‘MiddlEarth’)

Should you think that the whole country was united in LotR celebration, I should mention a few signs of dissent that were present, albeit almost swamped, on the day. As the band which concluded the parade marched past the spot I’d found for myself, a handful of people unfurled a large banner:

A little further down the road was another small group standing around some graffiti-covered cardboard boxes haranguing the crowd on the same issue. There was some debate with a few of the surrounding crowd, but I didn’t stay to watch for long. There weren’t many people protesting – a tiny number compared to the crowds happily watching the parade go past – but it’s worth a mention, especially as the latest issue of The Package mentions something similar in a short piece on some of the consequences of increased tourism to NZ. There is some concern over these issues here, even if it doesn’t seem to rate much of a mention in the mainstream media outlets.

We watched the speeches in a bar, although for some bizarre reason the local media kept interrupting their coverage of the days events – even in the middle of the speeches – to report on mundanities such as the sports results, or some piece of dull local news. This was actually the subject of complaints in the letters page of the paper later in the week, so it wasn’t just us that found this a bit odd. After the speeches were concluded and the stars enjoying the fruits of their labours in the cinema, the crowds began to disperse. We headed down to Taranaki Wharf to watch some of the entertainment laid on, but it quickly became pretty cold and we ended up heading home to bed rather than sitting up to watch the Two Towers yet again – after all the bloody hype, we plebs still have to wait until the 18th to watch the damn new film ourselves!

I expect to see a few more before the day is out! Right, I’m off to join the fun.

For those unfamiliar with modern protest movements, Critical Mass is the name associated with anti-car/pro-bicycle groups in various cities around the world. There are protests using the same name in London, some of which I’ve witnessed in the past. I don’t think that there is any overarching Critical Mass organisation – the name is adopted by different groups in different cities who have similar agendas but who may not communicate in any strategic manner, except for the odd occasion when an attempt to synchronise protests across the globe is made.

Unfortunately for the Wellington Critical Mass crowd, something kept the numbers down – there were only about 30 people on the demo. Perhaps this is a factor of population, or perhaps the fact that many students will have left the city for the summer holidays had an effect. Maybe no one in Wellington gives a shit – Heaven forbid! Still, top marks for pluck, as those that were present carried on regardless and braved the rush hour traffic. There were no police in sight, and the only camera I spotted was my own – so I felt homour bound to record the event.

There were two main strands to today’s protest according to the leaflet I was handed. First off were the general principles of oppostion to a car-dominated society, with the specific Wellingtonian issue being the proposed construction of an inner city bypass. The flyer recommends a visit to the Campaign for a Better City for more info on this. The second strand was a protest against the Mobil Corporation, which the protesters accuse of having a part in crimes against humanity committed in Aceh, Indonesia. They allege that the corporation hired units of the Indonesian military to provide security for their assets in the region that were at some unspecified stage involved in “systematic torture, murder, rape and other acts of terror”. The leaflet recommends a visit to the International Labour Rights Fund for more information on this issue. I suppose I should take a look through ExxonMobil’s website to see if they have bothered to refute any of these allegations, but I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

A set of commemorative stamps have been released to mark the occasion and these are the source of much of the more obvious decoration – from banners adorning the street lights to billboards to vast sheets tied across the fronts of office blocks. The largest depicts Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf, hangs down about eight floors from the front of the NZ Postal Service building and has become an icon of LotR-obsessed Wellington, but I prefer the (slightly) more subtle approach embodied by this three-dimensional billboard:

There are two cinemas associated with the Premiere, the Embassy and the Reading Cinemas complex, and atop each building perches a Black Rider astride his dragon-like winged steed gazing down balefully on the passing throngs.

There is to be a great big parade on the day of the Premiere winding it’s way through the city to the final stretch of Red Carpet leading up the steps to the doors of the Embassy Theatre. Most of the inner city hotels and hostels are completely booked up and have been for weeks and weeks; had we not sorted a flat this week we might have faced a night in the park on monday!

It’s quite fun being in a city the size of Wellington when something like this is happening – it’s small enough for the excitment to get everywhere, and you can’t help get a bit caught up in it all even as a visitor. We even had a moments excitement ourselves the other day when we realised that we’d just strolled past one of the hobbits!

But Napier is most famous for it’s nearly unparalleled collection of Art Deco buildings, so it’s inhabitants probably don’t lose a lot of sleep over the state of the beach. The Art Deco buildings were all constructed following a devastating earthquake – 7.8 on the Richter Scale – which took place at 10.47am on February 3rd, 1931. The centre of the city was almost completely flattened, and 162 people died either in the ‘quake itself or in the fires which followed.

It took only two years to rebuild the majority of the town, all in the modern styles prevalent in the 1930s. The main influence is clearly Art Deco, but there are elements of other styles of the time too; particularly noticeable are the examples of Spanish Mission and Stripped Classical, but even these buildings usually have a strong Art Deco influence apparent.

In recent times the value of this architectural heritage has become more evident to the local people, and there have been concerted efforts to maintain the buildings in good order and to prevent any demolitions – there were some unfortunate incidents in years past when some of the buildings were destroyed, often for reasons more to do with fashion and whimsy rather than necessity.

Although Napier is not a large city and the central district is easy to walk around, there is such a profusion of great architecture that it’s impossible to do justice to it on a website like this one. I’ve tried to select a few images that provide a sense of town, although I found it difficult to get good shots of many of the buildings. I did manage to get what I reckon are a few good detail shots of smaller features worthy of note, though:

One feature particularly worth mentioning is the use occasional use of Maori imagery in the decorative aspects of some of the buildings. Deco architecture often used designs drawn from the Mayan and Aztec cultures, due to the desire of American Deco architects to use local art as a source of inspiration rather than the more traditional European styles. Much of Napier’s architecture follows the American style wholesale, but some buildings show some Maori influence. A particularly good example is the ASB Bank building which uses such designs on it’s interior ceiling…

…and for decoration outside too, like these reliefs above the windows which mix a Deco-style zigzag with Maori pattern:

It’s not just the buildings which contribute to Napier’s 1930s feel. There are echos of Art Deco everywhere, from the manhole covers and drain grills to the old fashioned cars than seem to appear on the streets more often than elsewhere.

We only spent two days in Napier, and we had a great time. It would certainly reward a longer stay – just sitting and eating or drinking in some of the cafes and bars was an atmospheric experience in itself.

It was a great place, well worth a day or three looking around. I can recommend the Walking Tour run from the visitor centre on Marine Parade every morning at 10. It costs $8, and you follow a knowledgeable local around and get a pretty comprehensive rundown on the city and it’s buildings. If you prefer to be independent, you can pick up a leaflet with a map and enough information to wander around yourself for $2 from the visitors centre or the Art Deco Shop on Tennyson Street. Most of these activities are organised under the auspices of the Art Deco Trust. There is also an Art Deco Weekend at the end of February involving activities like dressing up in ’30s outfits and similar fun for the real hardcore Art Deco fan.

As the bus drivers never tired of reminding us, the Lake has it’s origins in comparatively recent times – less than a blink of an eye in geological terms. It was formed in the aftermath of a massive volcanic eruption, the largest in recorded history, when some 24 cubic km of rock and debris were ejected into the atmosphere causing effects recorded by both the Romans and the Chinese. This has allowed the eruption to be dated accurately to 186AD.

Taupo is a popular holiday destination among New Zealanders. There is the usual array of adventure sports (most notably several Sky Diving operators and the Taupo Bungee over the Waikato River), excellent Trout fishing, more geothermal stuff, water sports and boat trips, the Huka Falls (see below) and the Tongariro National Park, just round the Lake.

Tongariro was our main reason for stopping in Taupo. The Tongariro Crossing is supposed to be one of the best single day walks you can do in the whole of New Zealand. It takes you right through the volcanic heart of the North Island past the three great volcanoes – Ruapehu, Tongariro, and Ngauruhoe. I say supposed because the good weather evident in the photo above did not last, and we were unable to do the walk as the companies who run day-trippers up into the area to do the Crossing weren’t operating due to dangerous conditions. We hung on for a few days, but in the end it seemed we’d be waiting forever so we reluctantly left for Napier.

This did put a bit of a dampener on our spirits, but we didn’t sit around moping all the time. We managed to get our and walk up to the Huka Falls one morning which you can reach on foot from Taupo by following the Taupo Walkway along the Waikato River.

Although the falls only drop about 10 metres, the Waikato is the only river flowing from Lake Taupo so the volume of water passing over the falls is massive, and it makes a fair amount of noise. You get the occasional nutter kayaking over the falls, but it’s not recommended unless you know what you’re doing.

The walk also gave me the chance to experiment with the macro close-up function on my digital camera. This spider was about the size of a fingernail:

Not bad for a fairly basic point-and-shoot type camera. I don’t think the spider’s poisonous – unlike neighbouring Aussie, New Zealand has only one poisonous beastie, the Kaitapo Spider. That’s described as about 6mm long, black with a red patch. Hmmm.

You can choose to be strapped in (the ‘Harnessed Zorb’), thus avoiding most of the risk of injury, or you can elect to have a bucket of water added for lubrication and go unfastened (the ‘Hydro Zorb’). If you choose that latter method you then get a choice between attempting to stay standing like some demented, amphetamine-crazed giant hamster in it’s exerciser, or merely trying to reach the bottom of the hill with all major bones intact. Not only this, but up to three people can pile into the same zorb for a rather wet, bouncy and potentially painful bonding experience.

Believe me, the hill was a lot steeper than it looks in that photo. The whole experience was actually great fun, although it was over far too fast. We spent the entire time slipping around the bottom of the Zorb in the water wondering when we were going to hit something. The guys running the place took some photos of us in the Zorb with Pol’s camera, so you’ll have to wait until we get the film processed and the images scanned to see us lying in a soaking heap at the bottom of the hill with big smiles. Next time, I’m going to try and stay on my feet!

The main geyser action is provided by the decidedly contrived Lady Knox Geyser. I say contrived because at 10.15 every day the geyser is induced to erupt when a chap lobs a block of soap down the spout. I’m told that this reduces the water’s surface tension and allows the build-up of boiling water and attendant steam to escape at high velocity in an upwards direction. The effect is fairly spectacular, though.

Having sampled the joys of Lady Knox, most people head up the road to the main attraction at the Thermal Wonderland. It isn’t inappropriately named, especially if you come from a part of the world with little or no geothermal activity – the various chemicals turn the rocks and waters into a variety of otherworldly colours.

The area to explore is fairly large, and takes at least an hour to walk around at a fair pace. There are slopes and steep climbs, but it’s worth going all the way round to the end to see the bright green colour of Lake Ngakoro.

Other highlights include the Champagne Pool, a steaming body of water lined with cracked red earth which constantly bubbles

And the Devil’s Bath, another unworldly green pool at the bottom of a crater near the end of the walk.

That last one makes me think of rancid milk, but a pretty girl can liven up even the most bizarre place

There are loads of other colourful and bizarre spots at Wai-O-Tapu, but I can’t put up photos of them all. It’s definitely a site that’s well worth a visit, although it is very popular – we were told that huge numbers pass through each day during the peak season, which might reduce the impact a bit. Especially since it seemed fairly busy to me already, and it obviously gets quite a bit more crowded.