Dominion Post Ferry Trip
Batten the hatches and crack out the rum
Sunday 20th February 2005

There hasn't been much "traveling" going on recently that I could create a page on here about, mostly due to my only transport being a little underpowered for hauling Jo and I anywhere more remote than the local shops. The fact that the only road out of Wellington is a scary two-lane highway driven along at arrogant speed by most of the local populous doesn't help matters. However last Sunday, we escaped briefly by way of the Dominion Post Ferry.

Not to be confused with the two large inter-island ferries that link the north island of New Zealand to the south, this ferry is a fairly dinky catamaran which chugs between Lambton Quay and Days Bay with occasional stops at Matui (or Somes) Island, located in the middle of the enormous Wellington harbour. Matui is a wildlife reserve where, due to either the lack of introduction or eradication of rodents (I'm honestly not sure which), New Zealand's indigenous birds and animals are clinging on to survival. We didn't stop off there this time, but hopefully we'll be back in the near future and can try and get some photos of rare animals, including the wonderful prehistoric proto-lizard, the Tuatara, a species I met on my first trip to New Zealand five years ago. It made a strong impression on me then, and I'd love to see one close up again.

Anyway, I digress. Not stopping off at Matui Island, we stayed on the ferry for the remaining ten minutes or so and reached Days Bay, a pleasant.... place on the eastern side of Wellington harbour. The reason I hesitate to clarify what Days Bay is, is that it's not really one thing or another. It's not really big or developed enough to classify as a resort, it's not really a town by itself... it's basically part of the smattering of sub-suburban housing that exists on the fringes of Wellington. There doesn't appear to be anything that could really constituent a community in the way I'd expect from my experiences at home in Scotland. There's a couple of cafés, a couple of local shops, and a lot of housing. No industry, no business... the areas seems to have grown from it's visual proximity to Wellington, possibly from a past as a summer house location or the quiet side of the bay to retire to.

This day was anything but quiet though. The jetty the ferry docked at was veritably thronged with people, mostly teenagers. As we arrived I thought perhaps they were waiting for the ferry, but quickly realised they were just interested in the jetty as a launching platform for hormone-fuelled bravado. Back-flips and spins resulting in arcing splashes of water were cheered and yelled, with particularly effective impacts causing the walkway to the jetty and it's denizens to be soaked by the erupting spouts of water. To be honest, aside from possibility of a particularly painful belly-flop, it looked rather fun.

Sadly we'd overlooked any swimming things, and with my penchant for electronic gadgetry I certainly wasn't going in for a dip in what I was wearing. Whilst my gps might by waterproof, my pda, phone and digital camera are all certainly not.

Instead we went for a wander southwards through Eastbourne near the sea front. It's a pleasant walk, with attractive views of central Wellington across the harbour mouth. Looking landwards the architecture of the area seems to swing wildly from building to building with nothing much matching any of it's neighbours. This eclectic variety does tend to the hit-and-miss but certain buildings manage to stand out from the jumble. Tucked around a bend in the road, one place (seen on the right of this page) was composed of brick turrets with flanking wooden chalets; Rapunzel and Heidi do flat-share.

Continuing southwards, as Eastbourne merges into Muritai, the sea was thronged with dozens upon dozens of tiny sail boats from the Muritai Yacht Club, all engaged in some sort of checkpoint-based race. I'm not much of a sailor so I can't really comment on their activities with any great detail. One thing I did note that the boats, barely bigger than a wind surfer, seemed to lean at a fairly steep angle in the wind. Given Wellington's blustery and gusty climate though, I'm surprised they weren't being blown over completely. That said, I'd still love to have a go at windsurfing out on the harbour. Just not when it's too windy.

By this stage we'd walked some considerable way in quite warm weather, so we decided that we'd spend the remaining time before the ferry departed homewards in a local bar. Thankfully there's one almost directly over the road from the pier, so Jo and I sat in the shade and enjoyed a quiet beer. And in my case played with taking Dutch-angle photographs of Jo, for which she was as amenable as she usually is when having her photograph taken.

© Barny Russell 2005