Journey's End

This post is the last chapter of my Pacific Adventure. I'll be starting a new blog tomorrow which will hopefully run for another year - A Year in New Zealand! The new blog can be found at: www.allasoneword.blogspot.com

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone who checks in here!

For picture of our Christmas, go to http://muddlethru.co.nz/christmas.html

This week, four of us drove from Wellington to the Wairarapa to visit Paul and Joella and to go fishing. The drive took us over the Rimutaka Range along an amazingly long and winding road. After dropping down the other side we reached Featherston - our final destination. Almost as soon as we had caught our breath we were back out of the door and driving on our way to the river, with our fishing poles and tackle in the boot!

We rose at 5am the next day and drove down to Lake Wairarapa. The fish were nowhere to be seen, and did not take so much as a nibble, so we left shortly after and went back to the semi-successful river spot of the day before. Here, Ellen cast her simple hook, line and sinker into the river and pulled out a perch on the first go! Buoyed by this stroke of luck (or skill) we stayed for a further couple of hours and hooked two more perch to add to our tally. We caught five fish in all, over the two days. They tasted good stuffed with onions and parsley!

Before leaving Paul and Joella to their peace and quiet we took a brief walk to Cross Creek, the site of a railway town in the late nineteenth century which serviced a set of Fell steam engines. The Rimutaka Incline was the steepest section of rail track in the Southern Hemisphere until it was taken up in the middle of the twentieth century. All that is left now is a series of old buildings and an exquisite nature reserve which is slowly returning to native bush.


This is a fitting end to the Journal of My Pacific Adventure. Here I am at the site of a historic railway siding in The New World - somewhere my Grandfather would have found great delight. I have been a long way from home and been lucky enough to meet some wonderful people and be shown some amazing things. I feel home here now, in New Zealand, amongst the vestiges of European settlement and the enduring legacy of the Maori people.