September 1-30 - Happy Birthday Peter Gibbs! Started the month celebrating one of our sea swim friend's birthday. Peter turned 75 and his energy is contagious and tremendous! Mark’s work buddies and the sea swimmers have been incredibly welcoming to us and have become truly great friends. They hail from different walks of life- potters, entrepreneurs, teachers, police officers, and medical workers. We appreciate them so much!
The second weekend we pack rafted part of the Pelorus River. The Pelorus Bridge Scenic Reserve was our takeout. It is endowed with Maori and European settlement history. It is also home to one of the last remaining populations of long tailed bats in the Marlborough District.
The middle of September we went back to Golden Bay and stayed at friends’ bach. (bach-pronounced ‘batch' is a holiday home or beach house and are an iconic part of New Zealand’s culture and history.) Our third time here, and new adventures! First, we biked Wharariki Beach winding our way through lambs, sheep, and poo to windswept deserted beaches. That afternoon we walked on Farewell Spit, New Zealand’s longest sand spit (25 km) and a nature reserve. It is an internationally-renowned bird sanctuary with over 90 bird species recorded in the area. We walked from its calm Inner Ocean to the wild west coast Ocean Beach rambling along the crests of sand dunes. Day two was riding the Motupipi mountain bike tracks followed by a gin tasting at the Kiwi Spirit Distillery. Day Three was biking to the top of Gibbs Hill and down to Totaranui Beach in Abel Tasman National Park.
We ended the month with a trip to Wellington (25 minute plane flight with strong winds) to attend a WOW performance. The World of Wearable Arts is an institution in New Zealand! It started in a paddock near Nelson in 1987 by Suzie Moncrieff who challenged artists and designers to take art off the wall and adorn the body. Now, more than 60,000 people attend WOW over 3 weeks. The show itself is like a fashion show ON STEROIDS! The models perform acrobatics, choreographed dancing, and each outfit is uniquely performed according to its theme. Categories for show included Avant, Open, Aotearoa, Gold, and "Bizarre Bra." The WOW submissions are from artists hailing from all over the world. Here is a link to the "Supreme" WOW winner for this year. And this link for the category winners. You get a feeling for what the show is like!
The Barbies you see in our pictures are from the Wellington Museum where Patsy Carlyle, from the West Coast has hundreds of her more than 1,600 Barbie collection on display! She started collecting in the early 1990s and now her home is fondly referred to as the Pink Palace. Our last day in Wellington was day three of wind and rain. We spent most of the day at Te Papa Tongawera Museum (Museum of New Zealand). The Gallipoli exhibit is haunting and extensive. It follows the stories of eight New Zealanders in the World War I eight month campaign with Australians fighting the Turks. Anzac Day, the anniversary of the landing of Australian and New Zealand troops at Gallipoli, Turkey on 25 April in 1915, commemorates the struggle of the Australians and New Zealanders who finally, quietly and secretly, withdrew from the battle.