Table Of Contents
One of the last bigger places in Aotearoa I haven’t been to is Tairāwhiti Gisborne, out on the East Coast. I’ve been trying to collect them all. I guess that the places I haven’t been to include the Coromandel Peninsula (which is popular with Aucklanders), and then, much less popularly, Te Urewera (inland from Gisborne) and the East Cape (where NZ’s Pacific Coast Highway reaches, yes, in the east); and also the Chatham Islands (where my bank account is based out of). But in terms of regions, I’d say that I have fairly complete coverage of Aotearoa by this point.
Aside from the trip to Gisborne, I stayed in or around Wellington all month, with a trip out to the Aorangi Crossing and another trip to the Wairapapa, both of which are quite close to Wellington, really.
COVID
It looks like active cases are actually at a low in the US right now; @augieray@mastodon.social (who aims to neither over-hype nor calmwash) and YLE both have written that the levels are record-low for the past 24 months. There is a bump in NZ right now, per poops.nz. Vaccination rates are higher this year in the US than last year.
Here’s my usual link to Absolutely Maybe:
tl;dr: lots of vaccine results, incremental progress on vaccines that are better than what we have now, no silver bullet yet.
Professional
No conferences attended this month. A bit of a recovery month from October for me, and also spent a bunch of time on the te reo Māori course, which I’m not counting as work days. I do count 15 out of 21 work days for November. In particular, I started to engage with potential grad students for next Fall, and there started to be work for Winter term courses (admin: overrides, TA selection; I wish we wouldn’t force students to get overrides for time conflicts, they’re adults).
I also thought about Rust verification in general as well as what we could do on our ECOOP submission to get it in.
Grad students/mentees/collaborators
This month, I had video calls with grad students/mentees/collaborators on 9 days. Have been again increasing the pace of student chatting. Guess that’ll happen more in person in Winter, but I’ll also be crushed by teaching 3 courses.
Collegiality/Service
Did the TOSEM review I was assigned. A few months ago I sent our PLDI/OOPSLA submission to friends to read (now under major revision for TOPLAS). In totally fair turnabout, I got a PLDI submission to comment on, which I did.
Working on one’s own paper isn’t collegiality, but I did do some pretty hard thinking about how to present some of our results there, with collaborators. I think that’s shaping up nicely, and that the reviewer comments are indeed going to improve the paper (if it gets in). I’ve never had a major revisions of one of my papers not get in, knock on wood.
Trips
As I wrote above, this month was mostly local. Gisborne is 400km away as the kererū flies but would be an all-day drive.
Remutaka Cycle Trail, November 1–2
Having returned from the big trip on Tuesday, what could I do on the weekend after that? Well, NZ has a bunch of Great Rides, and the one close to Wellington is across the Remutakas. I’d known about this for a while, and here was a weather window for it. The thing about it is that unlike the highway, which is a windy road across the mountains, the cycle trail goes on old train tracks through the mountains. (There is also a new train track, dating from the early 1950s, that also goes through the mountains, though less steeply).
I planned this at the last minute but it didn’t take much planning. We took the train to Upper Hutt with our bicycles, joined the trail, rode across the Remutakas to Cross Creek and then to Featherston, got cheese at the Featherston cheese store, took the bus from Featherston to Martinborough, and stayed at a holiday park in Martinborough.
The food in Martinborough was excellent, especially at York on Friday night (though not cheap). We then rode our bikes back to Featherston (super windy) and then the train back to Wellington. There aren’t a lot of trains on weekends that go across the Remutakas, like 1 or 2 per day. There also aren’t a lot of things open in Featherston on a Saturday afternoon, though there are a lot of bookstores there in general. Also it was good that we went in early November because there is some screwup with buses and bike racks and potentially blocking headlamps that makes it impossible to take buses on bikes right now in NZ (not impressive).
Well worth the trip. We only did the middle of the Remutaka Cycle Trail. The furthest-out part is currently broken. We could do Petone to Upper Hutt sometime, but it’s less exciting.
Aorangi Crossing, November 22–24
I joined this Wellington Tramping and Mountaineering Club trip to do the Aorangi Crossing, which would normally be somewhat logistically complicated because it is not a loop. There was a fair amount of elevation gain and loss over slippery terrain, but we had great views on the last day. Not sure about the effort-to-reward ratio. 33km, +/- 1860m elevation gain/loss.
On Friday evening, we met up at 5 at the Wellington train station and the WTMC van showed up to pick us up, driven by James, if I recall correctly; basically, they own a van, and members can go through training to drive the van to trips. Super useful. Because there were 12 of us signed up to go on this trip, trip leader Sara (thanks for the organizing!) split us into two subtrips, starting at the two ends of the track. We’d meet up at Pararaki Hut in the middle on Saturday night and then the van would come from the far end of the track to pick us up at the close end.
The seven of us would walk from the Mangatoetoe road end, just an hour to the Mangatoetoe Hut, on Friday night (easy walk, nice sunset reflecting on the stream).
Then, the thing that happens on this trip is up-and-down-and-up-and-down. On both days. With a lunch break in the middle. Good hutbagging possibilities too. So, on Saturday, it was up and down to Kawakawa Hut, continuing to follow the Mangatoetoe Stream. Conditions were pretty dry for us: though we had to cross the stream a number of times, it was low. Very much unlike this September 2022 trip, and hence much faster. The next part, to Pararaki Hut, was drier, and we arrived at 3pm. The two issues with this day were that there weren’t really views, and that the track was not laterally level, in that we were always walking with one foot above the other (“roll”).
The final day did indeed have views, finally. We stopped at Washpool Hut for lunch, enjoyed the views after that, and made it back to the car in good time.
Sophie the dog came on this trip and was the star of the trip. There weren’t any other people on the track aside from another WTMC trip that was just going to Kawakawa Hut on Saturday.
Gisborne, November 28–December 1
This trip doesn’t quite respect the month boundary, but I might as well summarize it here.
Would I want to live in Gisborne? Nah, too car-centric (protests against making Grey St less car-centric, which goes against everything I stand for; less cars please!). Resource-based economy with lots of logging trucks driving through town. Seems to be possible to know everyone.
Arrived in Gisborne on Thursday evening at 8pm. Turns out that all of the taxis at the airport are pre-booked. I heard that they could come back in 15-20 minutes. Nothing is very far. But the weather in Gisborne is warm (high 27 that day?) and it’s a fine day, so I talk MP into walking an hour to our holiday park, with a brilliant sunset. Some of the pedestrian infrastructure is quite middling, but a lot of it is also on small suburban streets, so less critical than on highways.
The plan for the next day was to rent bicycles from Cycle Gisborne and bike to some wineries. An hour’s bike ride, through some outskirts and farms, took us out to Matawhero, where we had the chicken and duck parfait. There was also a Christmas party going on there. Another half hour took us to The Vines at Bushmere Estate, where we had quite good pepper squid.
The ride along State Highways 2 and 35 isn’t awesome. But we managed to avoid highways after a while. It was a bit worse than back roads in Quebec that I’ve ridden on: more traffic, less shoulder.
After Bushmere, we then went and took the long way around. In fact, first back towards Matawhero, and then along an embankment along the Waipaoa River. The Cycle Gisborne staff had highlighted this on the map, and it’s kind of part of the Motu Trails, but Google didn’t suggest it. I did manage to use the Internet to find a description of this path, and it worked pretty well. At one point on the Waipaoa River there were heaps of paradise shelducks (odd, usually we just see 2 at a time) and what looked to be dabchicks but were actually grey ducks/mallards upon picture inspection.
Dive Tatapouri runs a Reef Ecology tour with stingray petting. (With that name, you might think they provide other diving services, but there’s no mention of them on their webpage, though apparently easy diving is available in the area.)
Apparently a few years ago the owner of Dive Tatapouri had noticed that stingrays came to visit him while he was out photographing and fishing, and he turned this into a business. There is a group of guides who can take groups out on the water. They have developed a rapport with some of the stingrays in the bay, who come by for snacks, petting, and minor mayhem like pushing the guides into holes. The stingrays are wild animals but also kind of like 200kg puppies, and the guides have named and can recognize some of the stingrays. We had two kinds of stingrays: I think it was the NZ long-tailed stingray and NZ eagle stingray.
I did not have an underwater camera nor a GoPro so photography was not ideal, alas.
Finally, before our 3:25pm flight out on Sunday, I thought we’d do some hiking. Unfortunately we had to drive an hour back north to Tolaga Bay again to get to the hike, but it was worth it to get the better weather for the view of Cook’s Cove and also yet another rock with a hole in it. The track is well-formed and there is a bit of elevation gain, but not too much. There is a monument pointing out the Cook landing site, though it’s easy to miss. There were a few other groups on the track, but not super busy on this first day of summer.
Finding breakfast on Sunday morning was difficult and we had more pies. I had a Gear meat pie from Kaiti Hub, since the actual bakery was closed for Sunday. The meat was tender, but the pasty was not that flaky. Maybe it’s better from the HQ.
I’ve been starting to make a collection of Captain Cook statues and added the one in Gisborne to my collection. We had lunch in town and then, since our flight was delayed, I had enough time to check out the Tairawhiti museum for 30 minutes. There is enough there for at least an afternoon, including lots of local artifacts and art.
Back at the airport, I dropped the car key in the slot and we waited for the flight back to Wellington.
Travel Planning
Remutaka was an impromptu trip. Not much planning. Did plan the Gisborne trip in November, i.e. finding things to do in Gisborne. Booked airbnb for Regina in January and Edmonton in March. Did not work on the French Polynesia trip all month! Should get back to finishing details for that.
Movement statistics
Only one flight in November, WLG-GIS.
And the usual movement statistics:
- 🚶 Walking: 107.6km on 21 days (would’ve thought more)
- 🚲 Biking: 207.1km on 14 days, including across the Remutakas and around Gisborne.
- 🚗 Driving: 414km on 5 days (to the Aorangi Crossing and in Gisborne)
- 🚗 Taxi: 2.8km (up the Kelburn hill after the Aorangi Crossing)
- 🚌 Bus: 30km on 4 days (Featherson to Martinborough; within Wellington; and to WLG)
- ✈ Plane: 405km (WLG-GIS)
- 🚆 Train: 101km on 3 days (to Upper Hutt; from Featherston; out and back to Silverstream)
- 🚡 Cable car: 0.7km (1×)
That makes 131km of transit.
Walks
- Johnston Hill/Otari-Wilton Bush (Wellington), 9km with some random meetup group; MP brought me along.
- Aorangi Crossing: hmm, not sure about the effort-to-reward ratio of this one. There was a (singular) good view of Palliser Bay and Lake Ferry from the part between the Pinnacles and Washpool Hut. There was also a lot of elevation gain and loss over a track that wasn’t quite level (left-to-right).
- Ernest Reeve Walkway/Tātarahake Cliff Lookout: climb 75m up to get a good view of Tolaga Bay.
Pictures
This month, I processed 50% more photos than usual (and produced other content as well). Easier to do when not travelling and not actively submitting papers. There are a lot of sets and there are some big sets in there.
It’s always hard to know how to count sets for the month in progress. Anyway, I removed 22 sets from the queue and added 7, with only 3 net-new sets from November 2024 that I didn’t process immediately.
The “earliest unprocessed” set pointer moved from November 2022 to December 2022. There are tons of pictures from December 2022 though (in 15 sets). Not sure I’ll get through them in December 2024. But, after December 2024 and 5 days from January 2024, the next set is August 2023.
Picture logs still available. As always, pictures are clickable to go to the full gallery.
- Sets of pictures posted: 22 (October: 12)
- Total pictures posted: 900 (284)
- Total pictures in selection pool: 3011 (767)
- Accept rate: 30% (min 12%, max 59%) (37%)
November posts
This is definitely the most posts I’ve written in a long time.
Original content:
I went to the library and a couple of book reviews resulted from that.
- Review: How Infrastructure Works: Transforming our shared systems for a changing world, by Deb Chachra
- Review: Epic: Adventures across Aotearoa, by Ray Salisbury
I’ll link the trip reports even though they are part of the October report.
- Full trip report: Arizona
- Full trip report: Rotorua
- Full trip report: Ontario, California, and Manitoba
But wait, there’s more. I really did finally finish the Overland Track writeup!
- Part 7: Overland Track day 5, Bert Nichols [photos]
- Part 8: Overland Track day 6, Narcissus [photos]
Miscellaneous
This month, 27 days in Wellington, if you include the Wairapapa but not the middle day on the Aorangi Crossing.
Courses
Finished the te reo Māori course: spent significant effort on it on 6 days at the start of the month. After the October travels, there was a lot of catchup to do, so I kind of binged it. Can recognize more of what’s going on when I see written text and maybe orally. Not confident in my ability to generate sentences on the fly. A1 maybe?
Acquisitions
Did go to a bunch of restaurants, but didn’t buy much.
- got my monocular case re-velcroed for $35
- got two spokes on my bike wheel replaced, as well as new brake pads, $94
- pottery: an objet d’art with Oribe glaze and two sake cups from Kelvin
- received new DSC-RX100 M7 as trade-in for broken DSC-RX100 M4 and mailed back loaner camera
Sports
Just regular life mostly. 7× judo, 9× Faultline. Missed a Thursday judo practice due to leaving for Gisborne, but went climbing instead. Am probably actually getting better at bouldering after the past few months with Faultline easily accessible (which didn’t happen so much when I went to Grand River Rocks Waterloo somehow; I probably have a more regular schedule here?)
Food
Wellington
- Hong Kong Foodie food truck, quite good dim sum.
Featherston / Martinborough
- C’est Cheese: good selection of cheese and related foods
- York Bistro: worth every penny; high-end restaurant in Martinborough
- Martinborough Bakery
- Tirohana Estate: reasonable high tea; they didn’t do the crustless sandwiches, but really, that’s fine
Wellington
- Taco Addicts: actually decent tacos in NZ
- Ngon!: a good option for more experimental Vietnamese food in Wellington.
- Le Saigon: (no picture) I think it was the banh mi which didn’t impress me so much, but the curry was good, and our options on Lambton Quay on a Sunday night coming back from the Aorangi Crossing were extremely limited, so that was all good.
- some stall at the Wellington market with a fried chicken burger and lychee drink: interesting presentation, tasty burger
- Nam Nam: high-quality banh mi from the place in Willis Lane; indeed, one of the top Wellington choices
Gisborne
- Mediterranean kitchen & Grill: surprisingly good dinner of kofta with real grilled flavour
- Flagship: maybe too much food, even without getting two full breakfasts; super busy on a Friday morning, though kind of slow.
- Matawhero: not full meals, but pleasant outdoors dining (“gourmet platters”) available
- The Vines at Bushmere Estate: full meals available but we just had the squid, which was excellent
- Crawford Road Kitchen: one of the handful of mid-fancy places (though less than York) in Gisborne, not open Sundays, would go again
Volunteering
It was AGM time for the Ontario Alliance of Climbers and I MC’d it (though we had others prepare the materials, thanks Charles and all!). Also put up the OAC Annual Survey. I went and set up my a6600 as a webcam for that one. Also some Judo Ontario Referee Committee and new Scout leader interviews.
Conclusion
Quiet month, didn’t submit anything, worked with students, kind of getting ready for teaching in January.