Interim Update #1,274: Still Windy (And Rainy) In Welly

After three days at the Lower Hutt Top 10 Holiday Park, we checked out this (Thursday here) morning, thinking we'd drive on to another interim spot, the domain freedom camping area at Ngati Toa, up the left coast a bit. Near the epicenter of last night's earthquake; more about which anon. The high winds and rain persist, however, and rather than drive in this mess, we have just pulled into the carpark of a large athletic complex. No one's using it presently, and things are supposed to calm down in the next few hours. 

Very much to our surprise, it has turned cold, in the mid 50s. The wind chill with 30-40 mph winds is appreciable; and the 100% humidity makes it worse. I speculate that the former tropical and then sub-tropical cyclone, which is now battering the South Island, has sucked Antarctic cold up to our 40-ish latitudes. It is still high summer here. In any case, we have broken out such cold weather under- and outer-garments as we packed, thinking back in December that we might do some of the high country on the South Island in late February and March. See illustrations.

We awoke this morning to news of a 6.3 earthquake that occurred in Wellington. Actually, the epicenter, we've read, was over off the Kapiti coast, where we're going shortly. Since our abode sits on springs and shock absorbers, we felt nothing unusual...our little rig has been blown and buffeted about fairly constantly since Monday afternoon. We did feel an isolated jolt at about the time of the earthquake, but dismissed it as just another heavy gust.

After an earthquake, I suppose the next thing to expect is one of the volcanoes blowing up. Or, even worse, Australia might invade.... In any case, we'll continue hanging around Wellington until our ferry sails, February 22nd. Unless it's cancelled. Whither then I cannot say. Stay tuned.

The poor birds can hardly get aloft in the wind and rain; the mountains,
but a few miles off, are completely obscured

Bundled up but happily reading

Still laughing at the "Australia invades New Zealand"
video, one of the funniest I've ever seen...