My Birthday

It’s my birthday. This year I turn 36.

It feels weird, but not because I particularly care about the age thing. I just feel like I’ve done quite a lot in the last year: I broke my arm. James and I got married. We bought a second dog. I went for a promotion. I got the promotion…that’s quite a lot for me really!

For this years birthday James and I were planning to have a trip to Rotoru to run the Tough Guy/Gal Challenge and spend a few days relaxing, but, it was rescheduled due to Covid restrictions. It was supposed to have been in September but rescheduled to October – then cancelled completely when the country was told that we’d be in Level 2 lockdown for a little while longer.

Anyway, we were going away, now we’re not. Instead we’re having a few days off together and a bit of a staycation as it’s a long weekend.

Friday

I started the day editing photos and then James and I spent most of the rest of the day in the garden. It was lovely. We drove into the city to run a few errands later in the afternoon, but overall it was a nice slow day.

Saturday

We went to Matiu/Soames Island. We were supposed to go on my birthday last year, but I had just broken my wrist (and my arm too but i didn’t know that yet then) and I was in quite a bit of pain. This year we actually went to the island and it was lovely!

We got the ferry out from Days Bay. We left at 11am and it took about ten minutes to get across to Matiu/Soames Island. Once there we had to scan in and get our bags checked and then we were on our way. We walked pretty much all of the islands hiking routes, and went to read all of the information about the island. It’s so interesting!

The Island has been used for many reasons over the years. The first was obviously local people, tribes, using the islands secure location and easily defendable placement to their advantage. In 1872 a quarantine facitlity was built on the island after the ship England, an immigrant ship, came into Wellington Harbour flying a yelow quarantine flag.
It was also used as an animal quarantine station for over 100 years! Dogs, cattle, sheep, deer and even llama were housed there until they could be assured that they wouldn’t pass anything on to the animals on the mainland. This was in the days when different breeds of animals weren’t in New Zealand, so the only way to bring new breeds in was to ship them in from other countries.
As well as all of these quarantine facilities, the island has also been used in both World War I and World War II as an internment camp for people that were considered a security threat. Lets not dwell on that.

Now, however, there are a few accomodation buildings and a visitor centre, but the rest of the buildings are there to show what the island would have looked like in days gone by.

The buildings were so interesting! They were also slightly creepy. I would imagine that after dark it would make an epic horror film set.

Sunday

James bought me loads of jars! As part of my birthday present, he used loads of his AirPoints and I got to reorganise my larder. Brilliant. My larder now looks really pretty and I can see more of what is in there.

Monday

We started the day by rafting the Hutt River in a blow up raft. It was so much fun, but my shoulders, arms and abs hurt now! It took about an hour, and we got to jump into the river a few times as well…James also fell in at one point…

The rafting guides took some photos of us:

Later on we tried an escape room together. Neither of had ever done one before – although I have organsied one with my work collegues nect week. It was hilarious. As both our brains work in defferent ways, we approached the room very differently. Overall we managed to solve the room with about 10 minutes to go!

It wouldn’t be a birthday without food, and this year didn’t disappoint. We ate out at Master Kong, an asian fusion restaurant in the city. We ate so much!