Jan 16th

Poured with rain all night but apart for a few drops we escaped the rain again. Cycled into Levin at 7am to discover that the only train into Wellington today  had left an hour earlier! Had a bacon sarny and coffee and set off - the road was flat but the traffic intense and so we concluded that the only safe way into Wellington [Welly] was by train when we could find one. Finally we got to Waikanae after about 25 miles and was told that the train would be along in 20 minutes; Jeff went off to get some food not realising his watch was 10 minutes slow, arriving back at the station to find a frantic Linda and a train waiting to go! Train took us along the Tasman Sea coast and our journey whizzed by as various passengers engaged us in conversation. A number of silly incidents - Linda 'why are you wearing your cycling gloves with the pads on the back of your hands, surely they should be on the palms?' Jeff had only been wearing the gloves on back to front for 2 years! We came across 2 bridges today which were too narrow to cycle across so we were directed on the first one to the 'cycle path' which was so narrow that it was impossible to cycle across; the second bridge we were directed under the bridge and we cycled happily along until uggh - a farmer had driven his slurry cart directly across the cycle path which was 4 inches thick with s--t. We came to an abrupt halt.Jeff 'any suggetions?', Linda 'well we are not walking through that', so we cycled through it and will have the tide mark on our tyres for some days. As Linda will tell anyone interested and without prompting it is difficult to find somewhere to go to the loo if you are a woman cycling in the open countryside. A well-known English cyclist and writer, Josie Dew, solves the problem by squatting under her cape. However Linda decided to plunge behind a bush only to impale a long twig in her left ear; she emerged without hearing in her left ear and subsequently consulted a doctor in Welly who confirmed she has perforated her ear drum - ouch!
We cycled from Ngaio station in Welly to Sue Wilton's house and it was great to see her again. The last time we saw her she stayed with us in Clare in 2004. Sue was an old friend of Christina's in London in the 1960s when she worked as a nurse. Sue's house in Ngaio[ pronounced Naio] is close to the district of Wilton named after her great uncle who owned that area of Welly many moons ago. Sue is a 6th generation New Zealander. Her house like most houses in Welly is on a steep slope and the views are fantastic with a wide panorama over the city of Wellington which is full of trees and vegetation. She has her own semi-tropical garden which one could overlook from the sitting room. Wellington is built on a series of tree-covered hills and is very beautiful.