Karori Park

On a sunny summer day, J and I went for a walk in Karori Park. It is just down at the bottom of our hill, but we hadn't actually explored it before, because if we wanted to go for a walk, we tended to head into Makara Peak Mountain Bike Park. However, we've gotten a bit frustrated with the necessity of jumping out of the way of mountain bikers in said park, so we decided to branch out. 

What you see of Karori Park when you go by is this broad expanse of grass, on which people are often playing cricket. We stopped for a bit and watched a girls' team playing, and J explained some of the rules to me. The most exciting part was that I learned what a "bale" was, which is important to me because a cricket bale features prominently in some of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books, and I never could figure out what they were talking about. Turns out, they're little conical things (somewhat similarly shaped to a bale of hay) that sit on top of the wickets, and the batsman is trying to keep the bowler (pitcher) from knocking them off. I feel better about the world now that I understand this, although the rest of the game still eludes me.

Behind the park, we discovered a dog exercise area that consists of a much less manicured series of paths and clearings. If only we had a dog. (We want to adopt one very much, but our flat is a no-dog zone).

We decided to exercise ourselves instead, and had a lovely walk.

I never get tired of strolled through the woods.

We found this interesting trail leading down the side of the hill, and decided to try it. It rapidly became unreasonably steep, but as neither of us could stomach the idea of climbing back up to find a better one, we made our way down until... the "path" ended and we discovered that it was not a trail at all. Fortunately, it didn't end far from an actual path, which we were able to rejoin.

We have not had a very sunny summer. In fact, many Kiwis are asserting that this is the winteriest summer they've ever experienced, as it has been fairly cold and rainy more often than not. So this beautiful, brilliantly sunny day was something to be particularly thankful for. I'm glad we spent it exploring this surprisingly lovely area.