ZEALANDIA

Now before Robert gets too excited, the 'Zealandia' mentioned in this post heading isn't the old Catholic newspaper:

Zealandia was a  New Zealand tabloid newspaper owned, and published weekly for 55 years, by the Catholic Bishop of Auckland. Its first issue is dated 10 May 1934 and its last is dated 23 April 1989.  - From Wikipedia

No, this Zealandia is the magnificent fully-fenced urban ecosanctuary in Wellington. The 225 hectare sanctuary is an ongoing conservation project that has reintroduced many species of native wildlife back into the area.

The Old Girl and I met Richard (of Richard's Bass Bag) there this morning and we spent a pleasant couple of hours walking around the vast and beautiful area .

My knee was giving me a bit of gyp so I used my hiking stick but was quite slow on the up bits of which there were lots. You don't have to do the climbs though as the layout suits all ages and fitness levels with many easy sections to choose from. There are some interesting features like the viewing tower, the dam and the suspension bridge which connects one side of a valley to the other.

The Curmudgeon was at the middle of the dam when he took this photo of The Old Girl and Richard who stayed safe at the edge of it.

We walked across this suspension bridge which disappointedly didn't swing

The birdlife is fairly prolific although I suspect that at other times than when we were there it could be greater, when the weather is warmer, and it's not the last day of the school holidays with many children making a lot of noise (including barking like dogs).

The rare takahe with the Mr giving his wife a hard look

Richard (of Richard's Bass Bag) showed a remarkable - lack of knowledge- of ornithology when asked which birds were which. This was disappointing coming from a blogger who touts his blog as the 'leading' bass bagging blog. Later however he rescued some of his tattered reputation by showing scepticism at someone's assertion that Bob Dylan wrote 'The House of The Rising Sun', suggesting that it was a traditional song with no known composer. We at The Curmudgeons Incⓒ, in the interest of accuracy did some research (wikipedia) this afternoon and ascertained that Richard was correct. It's an interesting story, the history of this popular song and The Music Curmudgeon will be writing researching borrowing from Google an overview of this soon.


All in all a nice outing. Well done Wellington