Graham’s

Friday, March 29: Sunny & warm the whole day, a few clouds in the evening

Old beach, new pier, New Brighton.

The processing of the sunset series was finished this morning, so the pictures were clipped and reduced in size and rendered into a shortish film that was produced with Windows Movie Maker. This took a little getting used to, but in the course of the morning the film took shape. Graham had left rather early this morning, and Joe left for a climbing trip later in the morning.

I had lunch of the rest of my baguette and roast beef, then decided I wanted to go out to New Brighton – would pass by Matt’s place and thought I might call in. Could have travelled in a straight line to Pages Rd, but Google Maps insisted on taking a detour which I was familiar with in any case.

Pier and foreshore, New Brighton

Before leaving had a bit of an issue with the front door – it wouldn’t lock from the outside, so I had to lock it from the inside and then leave the house via my bedroom door, which locked behind me. Drove out to Woolston but took a wrong turn into Pages Road, did a uey and was headed in the right direction. At 307 there is indeed nothing left but an empty block; not even the park alluded to elsewhere had been established and the neighbourhood is quite devastated by the earthquakes, so that the lot where the Aranui Motorcamp once stood was quite littered and overgrown. The lampposts along Pages Rd were standing as straight as the same number of drunken sailors and a peek into the side streets foreshadowed much, much more misery. At least I knew which side of the street the motorcamp had been on.

Café and Library, New Brighton

Then headed for the beach. As we walked this in 1974, it must have been quite some distance on foot. There is a new library on the foreshore, with a new pier. Could the pier I had in memory be confabulation? A sign there says that the old pier was demolished in 1964. Walked around a bit and took a few pictures before having a final hokey-pokey for $2.5 in the pedestrian mall.

End of the mall, New Brighton

On the way back called in at Matt’s, but nobody was at home. Back here tried the front door but my key wouldn’t open it. Tidied up the Flying Spaghetti Monster a bit to kill some time; took the bedding to a clothing container and bought a can of drink for $1 on the way back. Had a look where I might have a final dinner; cleaned the boots and set them up to dry.

Went out to a Chinese fish’n’chip shop for a cheese burger & chips for $5.2 after I had predriven tomorrow’s route. Finally Joe turned up but couldn’t open the door either. We tried opening a larger window through a smaller one but the larger one was bolted; fortunately we didn’t set off the alarm. Joe then texted Graham who arrived after a quarter of an hour. He, too, had a hard time with the lock but eventually got it to open. There appears to be a problem that when the lock is locked from the inside it can’t be opened from the outside with at least two of the keys.

Anyhow, off to some packing.