Five Go Mad

Day 5

Up with the diminished light. Yep it’s still blowing and raining.  No walk. Yet.  Robyn said last night that she would come and look at the fishes under the bridge today; even if it was raining. We’ll see.

The storm has gone through several phases.  It started out with not much wind and a few big plopping raindrops as if to threaten worse.  That lasted for quite a while. Then there were squalls.  Bursts of wet wind.  A bit like New Plymouth on a grey day when you’re walking the dog on the beach.  This was followed by a long period of little wind but sustained rain.  Not really very heavy by Taranaki standards, and vertical. Good umbrella rain because you can keep your shoes dry. We see this sort of rain a lot at Pukawa, on Lake Taupo.  The wind gradually rose until it was fairly full on; Wellington rain with cyclone palm trees. It would stop from time to time, be quite still and then just chuck down, monsoon like.  The dog and I are very familiar with this type of rain and have designated spots on our route earmarked for shelter.  Well covered spots you understand, like someone’s carport; a bushy tree, even a really dense one doesn’t cut the mustard for this type of rain.  As I write this it’s drizzly, windy rain coming in from the sea with a uniformly grey sky.  A dirty Auckland North-easterly at Long Bay.

It’s now early evening and I think it’s dying down (the tempest).  Just a bit of drizzle really. Quite warm and humid.  Spent the afternoon out and about in the on-again, off-again rain. I introduced Robyn to the delights of the fish under the bridge.  I think she was quite impressed just quietly.  She had to go and read somewhere dry to calm down a bit.  I went for a long walk to find the Pacific Ocean; the wild one, not the lagoon tamed one.  Found it on a rocky headland after going cross country for a while.  It was a deep blue marble rolling and crashing against the coral. Very choppy after the blow and with reflected waves from the cliffs but I could spot the ocean swell pushing up under it all to heave against the land.  Couldn’t help but think about how miserable it would be out on that. Bilious.

Wandered back via the sand path (stream-bed) between ranks of forest.  Happened across a troupe of Japanese schoolgirls, matron in the back wearing high wedge jandals, heading back from a damp trip to the Oro Bay pool (scene of the nipple attack).  They were laughing and squealing through the rainy stream crossing that the path was taking them.  They weren’t even carrying umbrellas.  Impressed.

Back for a rest and a read. Got to the end of sailing around the Pacific. He had a breakdown on his way back to New Zealand from sailing solo too long and flew to London from Suva for a bit of dark winter therapy. Very unsatisfactory.

Dinner: Fish steamed in a banana leaf with rice. Parrot I’m told. Tremendous.  Seem to have become stupefied by a combination of background French conversation and a day of lounge jazz.  If all conversations had speech bubbles like cartoons, French conversations would be actual bubbles.

Can barely keep my eyes open at 8pm.  Bed and read.  The history of the New Zealand wars by Gordon McLauchlan.  Oblivion by 9 (Props to Dee Doherty for the word oblivion- Cheers mate. See her poem discussing the matter at https://www.facebook.com/dee.doherty.3/posts/2063471873697118).