Red Rocks Beach

We went hiking on Sunday to the Red Rocks beach near Island Bay. This is a rugged and rock strewn beach where there’s a seal colony that takes up residency during the winter. When we got there it looked like all but two seals had checked out for the season. Actually most of the fun was in the long hike to get to the sea. We started our trip at the wind turbine on the top of a hill in Brooklyn (yes, it was named after that borough of New York City. There’s a park that separates Brooklyn from the rest of Wellington and of course it’s named Central Park. Many of the streets are named after U.S. Presidents. I haven’t determined if they have also have a restaurant named Junior’s that serves great cheesecake). The wind turbine is an experiment by one of the local energy providers to determine if wind power is cost effective and profitable. It’s hard to see how it could be anything but and I agree whole heartedly with the observation that Wellington could be the “Saudi Arabia of Wind”. We hiked with our new friends and fellow American ex-pats George, Susie, their son Wilson and a group of their Kiwi friends. We were blessed with perfect weather; a clear, cloudless day that reminded me of Southern California in the late Fall but without that brown ring of smog in the horizon. The trail we hiked was about 4 kilometres along a high and rugged ridge line that afforded expansive views of Wellington, the Pacific and the snow capped mountains of the South Island across the Cook Strait. I have more pictures at www.flickr.com. Keywords to search for are DannNewZealand2007 and the photo set is called Red Rocks Beach.