Urban Retreats

This Sunday marked the end of my 3rd week here in Wellington and, aided by the most beautiful weather since arriving, I headed off in the road racer for an afternoon trip to the Rimutaka Forest Park. The destination was decided at random from a small booklet I'd bought entitled, Top Walking Tracks of the Wellington Region. It was not a bad choice at all. Having been guided accurately (for once) by 'Nigel', the voice of my GPS in the Nokia E71, I made my way up the approach road and came immediately upon a small but impressive meeting of the Sunbeam Car Club of New Zealand.
My personal interest was not, due to some strange tendency, focused on the three rather well kept Sunbeam soft-top convertibles, but on the familiar powder blue lines of the 1964 Hillman Imp. The reasoning is easily explained as my Dad once bought an identical Imp in the early 1960s and it proved to be the worst car he ever owned. After 6 water pumps or so in the first years of ownership the nasty little Imp was traded in for something more reliable and more hefty. I took up the weaknesses of the Imp's water pump with Gary, the proud owner. He was very well versed in the details of this particular critical part of the rear-engined, low point of British auto engineering dating from the hippie era. Had my father possessed Gary's knowledge back then, and his enthusiasm for stripping down car parts to their basic elements and reassembling them again with improvements then, our old Imp may have had a longer run in the Dean family. Whatever came of 503 BAN? (It's a 'boy thing', remembering the registration numbers from childhood). Maybe, who knows, it's a proud and worthy member of the Essex Hillman Imp Club of Great Britain?

After the pleasant diversion and in-depth discussion on water pump design I finally got moving along the chosen path under a scorching afternoon sun, protected by only lashings of sun screen on face, arms and legs and a transparent backpack (Apple WWDC vintage giveaway from year dot) loaded with two bottles of ginger beer and a pack of plasters in case of mishaps. What a lovely afternoon it was, once under the cover of the forest, all senses attacked from every direction in a constant barrage of sounds, smells and the extraordinary and varied visual tapestry of the ancient hardwoods growing on the steep sides of the Catchpool Valley. The path was rough enough to be interesting to walk but well built and maintained by the Department of Conservation (DOC) so that damage to the forest from visitors is minimised. As the day was especially warm the noise of crickets and other insects was overwhelming. I've tried to make decent recording using my iPhone to help share the experience. I also spent some time trying to catch some of the more spectacular bird songs but Murphy's law came into play and these usually coincided with the drone of small aeroplane engines from the nearly gliding centre. Similarly my attempts at bird photography were thwarted when a playful dog appeared from around the bend of the track and scared off my subjects.
With this I was able to put things into focus and to see that, despite the exotic nature of my walk I am, nevertheless only a 30 minute drive from the city centre and not an intrepid explorer in the dark and hidden depths of some distant rain forest, days away from humanity. These Wellingtonians really are rather lucky.
From the urban retreat of the Rimutaka Forest I headed for Welly and the Urban Retreat in Tory Street. This hidden gem runs as a Yoga business these days but also houses what the regulars describe as, 'the best sauna in New Zealand'. I was very lucky to hear about this place from a guy in the 'nearly a sauna, sauna' of the Freyberg pool. But the Urban Retreat's sauna has a history going back to the 1960s and it is built to a proper Finnish blueprint. The only compromise seems to be the gas heating of the sauna stove which is formidable, even to Finnish standards. After a couple of visits I've now made a few acquaintances and am happily learning more about Wellington and the region from the natives. Here too, sauna really is a good place to relax and socialise away from the hustle and bustle of the city and work.
I go home clean and contented after a day of new places and experiences, new sights, sounds, a few more new acquaintances and with another few gigabytes of images. The only thing I've forgotten to do today is to eat something...

(All pics with Nikon D300).