Ascent Of Mt. Cleese

There remained another mountain I wanted to add to my list of New Zealand ascents: Palmerston North's legendary Mt. Cleese. Of course, I did it by the direct north face route, direttissima, alone, solo, un-roped, unaided, and without (supplemental) oxygen. It was a fine day for climbing, and I took a number of pix.

Cleese is of course a living, growing mountain, and so it is now
probably a bit higher that 45m; alas, my excitement was such I
forgot to look at my phone's altimeter

At the base of the mountain

Foothills

Looking toward the north face

Palmerston North in the distance

Still on the approach

On the north face

Crux of the climb, this couloir

On the summit plateau

Treacherous footing

Now on the summit

Summit views

Not sure whether this is extracting or injecting

Souvenir found near the summit

The sea birds celebrate my triumphant return

Feilding [sic]

We were so grateful for the freedom camping provided by the city of Feilding that we spent an hour or so in the downtown looking for more art deco buildings. We found a few, but it was a misguided search, as it turned out: Feilding [sic] was founded in the late Victorian era (before spell-check, I might add), most of its historic structures are Edwardian, and the city actually has ordinances encouraging and preserving Edwardian architecture. Whatever that is. Nonetheless...

As noted here, one of the architectural heritage buildings
burned in the 90s, but was faithfully rebuilt...

Struck us as art deco nonetheless

As did the one across the street

Same block...the dates on this building structure us as art nouveau,
something one does not see in New Zealand...

Back to art deco

Another curiosity...

Detail: sort of a Guimardian sea horse?

Nice place, Feilding; BTW, it has won the "most beautiful town"
in New Zealand award 15 (fifteen) times

Whanganui (Wanganui)

Down the road a bit we stopped at Whanganui (Wanganui) to walk the centro historico a bit, looking for curiosities and also any art deco that might be still there. In the latter regard, Whanganui (Wanganui) fairly knocked us out in the extent, concentration, and preservation of its art deco structures, easily surpassing Napier and any other North Island town we've seen. I'll let the pix below speak for themselves and make my case.

BTW, is it Whanganui or Wanganui? you ask. We wondered ourselves, noting finally that both names seemed to refer to the same place. At first we thought it was a case of "politically correct" linguistic change, from an Anglicized pronunciation to a proper Maori pronunciation. Wrong. The change, we were authoritatively told at the TI had to do with different dialects of Maori, the Whanganui version becoming now more prevalent. Just FYI.

Interesting food truck/trailer park; rain pouring down

1870 flood; after the cloudbursts we saw in Whanganui, we decided
to move on

Most of the downtown was covered, thus, fortunately;
pouring again

Still pouring

Gents

Finally, a ladies facility larger than the men's

Not art deco, of course, but had you ever heard of the W[h]anganui
Royal Opera before?!

Detail: the haka faces

Beautiful glass wrapping all around this building

Still the cinema, too

We did move on, but found ourselves enveloped for an hour in a passing thunderstorm cell. Had to pull over three times. (The drama). But we finally landed at a beautiful city park in Feilding that permitted freedom camping. (Happy ending).