Before I tell you about today, let me tell you more about the lifts here. Not only do they threaten to gobble you up quickly or refuse to let you enter, they can’t count.
In
this Travelodge there are 22 floors. Except there are not.
Not
having been up that high, I haven’t really taken notice of the higher numbers,
but the lower ones that we pass through a definitely a bit screwy.
Counting
back from 15 there is no 13. This isn’t surprising as it’s not uncommon for
hotels to not have a 13th floor. But what about the 9th?
8th? 3rd? 2nd?
I’m
not kidding. The reception is on the 7th floor and our room is on
the 10th. If there are two hidden floors in between this is an
extremely fast (and I’m not talking closing doors) and smooth lift. And as for
second and third... Well, so much for the Thunderbirds countdown.
Right,
onto today.
Three
of the things that we’d planned to do this trip (this doesn’t include tomorrow’s
treats) all have links with Fred Butler. Diana worked at Puke Ariki and had a
lot to do with us when they had a display of Uncle Fred’s quilts. Ann
photographed Uncle Fred’s “scrapbooks” and turned them into an art form. And
today we saw Kay Sanderson, who is incorporating Uncle Fred into her thesis for
her PHD.
Kay
lives at Carterton so we started the day (after a stop at New World to buy some
Hot Cross Buns and Easter Eggs for her) on the train! This trip through the Wairarapa
took over an hour and on the way out we were the only ones on our carriage.
Not
that we could see much. The rain finally decided to settle in during the
daylight hours. I thought there was a grey wall on our right. That was until Somes
Island swam out of the mist.
But I
did see PlaceMakers Kaiwharawhara, Donna. ;-)
One
of the highlights of this trip was the 8.798 kilometre Rimutaka tunnel. I didn’t
expect to be inside a hill for so long on the way out, but I set the stopwatch
on my tablet on the way back and it clocked in at six minutes, 30.54 seconds. That’s
a long time to be underneath a great pile of rock.
Kay
met us at the Carterton Railway Station, which was very handsome, if closed up.
(A friend of ours was on the restoration committee.) She then gave us a tour of
Carterton, which took about as long as it will take you to read this blog.
Then
we went to the The Clareville Bakery, so Kay could buy some bread for lunch and
we could all have a cup of coffee/hot chocolate and enjoy some of their wares.
How does almond and chocolate croissant sound?
While
there Kay gave us some pamphlets to check out about local attractions. Yes,
there are quite a few. The one that caught our eye, because it was so different
to anything else anywhere else and I wanted to compare it to the real thing,
was Stonehenge Aotearoa.
This
is a modern structure, created in 2004, which looks how you would imagine THE
Stonehenge to have looked quite a few centuries ago (if it had been made out of
hollow concrete). But it isn’t a replica. Instead it follows definite
multi-cultural, southern hemisphere, scientific and codswallop guidelines.
What
do I mean?
Okay.
Like that on the Salisbury Plain, it lines up with the summer and winter
equinoxes so that the sun will “sit” on the Tane Stone in line with other
stones. But this one also has an obelisk in the middle and if you look up through
the hole so it is round, you are looking at the south celestial pole. All we
could see was grey forbidding cloud, but here down under, we don’t have
something like a Pole Star to mark south. I could give you a lesson in a
variety of ways of achieving that goal by using the stars such as the Southern
Cross/Crux, The Pointers, Orion’s Belt etc, but I won’t bore you…
Any
more than I already am.
Through that hole is cloud, I mean, the South Celestial Pole |
That's reflection in the puddles. Not a shadow. |
The
foundation stone bears the following description. These standing stones, these
stars, configure the compass of Earth and the heavens. That was dedicated
by “The Royal Society of New Zealand”.
Other
stones map out Maori legends. Like that of the sun god, Ra who has two wives. One
wife he spends a day with in winter and one in summer. So when the sun is
resting over one of the two stones named after those wives, you know what
season it is. The rest of the time he moves between the two.
The
obelisk also points out what astrological sign we are currently in, depending
on where the obelisk casts its shadow on a zodiacal infinity chart. The three
of us experienced great excitement when the sun poked through long enough to
cast a shadow onto the ground.
The shadow's tip is here, so that's what zodiacal month we're in. |
Not
that it told us anything. We had to get back to the visitors’ centre for an
explanation.
I
knew that what we are told are our zodiac signs are wrong because of the Earth’s
rotation and movement in the universe over the millennia, but I thought it was
by a couple of months (I just didn’t know which way). What we learned today is
that that change is one day every 71 years. Apparently some pope decreed that
the dates of the zodiac should remain fixed so they are the same as they were at
the time of Jesus. So, also apparently, I am a Pisces and not an Aries.
And
it all is definitely a load of codswallop.
We
were wondering why there was a statue of Diana (with her bows and arrows – the Roman(?)
deity, not the English one.) It turns out that her Greek(?) counterpart Artemis
got rather annoyed with Orion, who was a bit of a trickster (and whose picture
made up the 13th symbol in the zodiac we saw. Principally because he
brings attention to himself wherever he goes). Diana got so annoyed with Orion that
she killed him with a scorpion. The rest of the gods thought he was a bit of a
Jack-the-lad and were disappointed about this, so they made him into a
constellation. (I’m sure you know that his belt makes up what we in the
southern hemisphere call “The Pot”.) Diana was even more annoyed with this so
she sent the scorpion into the heavens to chase after him. So when Orion appears
alone in the summer/winter skies (depending on which hemisphere you’re in) the
weather’s settled. And when Scorpios makes an appearance alone in the
winter/summer (depending on which hemisphere you’re in), then the weather’s
also settled. But when both Orion and Scorpios are in the skies at the same
time in autumn/spring (depending on… You’ve got the message) then the weather’s
unsettled.
Diana/Artemis. Behind her is seven stones called the Seven Sisters. The associated stars are known in astronomy as Pleides, in Japan as Subaru (check out their logo), and in New Zealand as Matariki. |
Like
we had today as it drizzled on us again.
The
acoustics of the place was amazing. You could clap your hands, or sing, or make
a noise (same thing) from within the circle and you could hear the sound reverberate
around you.
We
did learn that it’s much easier to clap your hands if you’re not holding a sun
umbrella against the rain.
I
enjoyed the trip and I guess different people get different things out of it,
depending on your beliefs and viewpoint. And it was something totally different
to anything else we’ve seen in New Zealand.
As we
were leaving Kay pointed out the “Ghost House” on a hill overlooking Stonehenge
Aotearoa. It’s not actually haunted, but in the 1980 a couple decided to cut it
into four and move it to a spot with magnificent views. The relationship fell
apart leaving him with the kids and a house that he couldn’t afford to
complete. So now it’s rotting away on the horizon, dark and foreboding.
Especially
with rain clouds behind.
Our
next stop was to Kay’s where we had lunch (homemade soup – Very tasty if we
ignore the bones).
We’d
been admiring the garden and a group of fantails flittering around when we were
surprised to have one fly through the door and into the house. As you would
expect the poor thing was desperate to get outside and was fluttering against
the window, so I opened an adjacent one and tried to encourage it to leave that
way. It actually sat on my hand!!!!!!! (One of my favourite birds! Magic!!!!) Sadly
it wasn’t for long enough to get a photo, or to get it to the window, so D.C.
managed to grab it in both hands and let it go outside, where it happily flew
off to freedom.
We
won’t mention the Maori superstition that a fantail in the house foretells an
upcoming death.
Then
we, along with Kay’s Jack Russell, Yip, went for a walk down her property. The
grass was long and damp, so D.C. borrowed a pair of the Sanderson’s shoes. I
thought my mid-calf leather boots would be adequate from the damp, but I was
proven wrong. I think the water must have seeped through the stitching. When we
got back to the house, Kay fussed about to make sure that our socks and shoes
were dry enough for the trip home. They were.
"Nope." |
'Maybe here?" |
Yip
found something down a hole. Something that was way more interesting than three
humans. We left her, digging furiously, and yipping on occasion. She
reappeared, all muddy, but proud of herself, a short time before Kay took us
back to the station. (Having picked up some fejoias to scoff.)
The
train trip back was just as dark as it was this morning, in part because of the
disappearing sun, but mainly because of the rain.
Our train coming into Carterton Railway Station |
We
got back to the Wellington Railway Station and went in search of our evening
meal. There isn’t much in this part of the CBD, certainly not much that is
within our price bracket. One place even had a lamb dish for $110.00!! Turned
out you got a whole roast lamb, not just a hunk.
We
eventually ended up back at the hotel and went down two floors(!) to floor six
and the restaurant. I had almond crumbed pork schnitzel, which was very nice.
Then
we came back and D.C. worked out how much I owe her so far.
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