Saturday, January 27, 2024: Day 355 – Windy, Rainy, Welly

We scheduled a city tour beforehand. Forecasts indicate that the weather will be nasty. We were two minutes late and they left without us. We are running around like “ducks” with our heads cut off!!

Finally with our city tour amid heavy rains and 30 mph winds, this interesting sculpture caught my eye. Read about it here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/19/terrifying-hand-sculpture-flies-in-to-give-wellington-nightmares

Wellington is called Te Whanganui a Tara which means The Great Harbor of Tara in Māori. The harbor in Wellington is a depression. It is in a place of activity for earthquakes and volcanos. Even our hotel doors have instructions on what to do in case of an earthquake.

The phrase is Stop (no more than two steps) Cover (your head preferably under a table but if not, your hands) and Hold (stay there…there will likely be aftershocks). Incidentally, while we were in Palmerston North, there was a 5.1 earthquake at 3:19 a.m. We were asleep and didn’t feel it.

Little blue penguins can be found in Wellington, the only capital city to have penguins. They are the smallest variety of penguins. They are noisy and grumpy.

These shells made me miss my home on the beach. They are made using corrugated metal from old buildings.

New Zealand is still part of England. The Crown is the head. They seem to be headed toward a republic but more slowly. Our guide commented that Americans fought hard to a quick end by revolution. The people of New Zealand have to be pushed out of the nest. It will likely happen in the near future. They were fiercely devoted to Queen Elizabeth.

There is no Constitution. The need for one will be apparent when they become a republic. The Supreme Court answers to Parliament. It is not a third separate and equal branch. It only came into existence in 2004.

Their meeting place is a copper room in the Supreme Court building where it is protected from outside electronic snooping. However, anyone can go into the court at any time.

Here is a view of the famous Beehive. It would be analogous to The White House in the USA. Cabinet members are on the top floor with the Executive branch on the pentultimate floor.

There will be a lot of nautical references as this museum used to be called the City and Sea Museum.

Ipu Whakanoa holds water to cleanse restrictions associated with taonga (cultural treasures). Dipping your fingers in this bowl will help clear negative energy that may be attached to some of the items on display.

Finally, out of the negative energy of the elements, we go inside the Wellington Museum. This is a rug that looks like an aerial photo of Wellington.

There were heartbreaking recollections of many ships lost at sea: Pamir, Penguin, Delaware, Cospatrick, Wahine, Dundonald, Bluejacket, and Medusa.

Nautical expressions are in our everyday speech:

give a wide berth – avoid
go overboard – get carried away, enthusiastic
hard to fathom – difficult to understand
in the doldrums – depressed, sad
know the ropes – know how to do something
on an even keel – stable situation
plain sailing – easy, straight forward
barge in – push your way in
steer clear – avoid trouble

Work songs, called shanties, helped the crew in the often heavy labour of sailing a ship. For example, capstan shanties were sung when hauling up the anchor. Halyard shanties were designed to get the men to pull on the halyards (ropes) on hearing a particular word or phrase. Several shanties became popular outside seafaring circles, some of the more famous being Shenandoah, Bound for the Rio Grande and Blow the Man Down.