Absolutely Positively Wellington

We celebrated Matt’s 40th birthday (Feb 13) in the southernmost capital in the world: Wellington, New Zealand. Wellington is a stunning harbor city surrounded by rolling hills and boasts a sufficiently vague tourism slogan… “Absolutely Positively Wellington”.

If Melbourne is like Minneapolis with its straight well-planned gridded streets, than Wellington is a sister to St Paul, with windy streets and twisting alleys that start and stop with no rhyme or reason. (Sorry, Mr. Ventura, I don’t know how many drunken Irishmen were on the city works payroll in the mid-1860s). St. Paul city “planning” aside, Wellington reminded us of Seattle – it has a similar climate and scenery, a diverse popluation, and a cool, young, urban vibe.

The birthday boy (did I mention he’s now FORTY??) found lots to do. First stop - satisfy dorky inner selves by visiting various Lord of the Rings film locations. This includes screeching to a halt in order to read all LOTR sign posts, exploring "Rivendell", and engaging in embarrassing behavior such as dodging traffic to nonchalantly inspect a small, empty gravel pit that once served as Helms Deep. Positively nerd-tastic!!!

After the dry, scorching heat of Melbourne we loved the mild sunny weather - perfect for exploring the surrounding area. We spent one day in Martinborough wine country (not to be confused with Marlborough which is on the South Island) and a day on the Kapiti Coast hiking along the Tasman Sea.

As the capital, Wellington has some of the best museums in the country. We visited the Wellington City Museum and Te Papa National Museum. The latter is their version of DC’s Smithsonian and has a fantastic permanent collection of New Zealand’s cultural and natural history, including exhibits on earth, plants, earthquakes, oceans, art, birds, marine life, the railway, immigrants, an extensive Maori and Tongan exhibit, and, currently, a temporary exhibit on Monet and the Impressionists. Whew! The pièce de résistance is the world’s only complete colossal squid. This huge mollusc was found and frozen in Antarctica and brought to Te Papa scientists in 2003 to be defrosted and examined (the catching, defrosting, examining of the world's largest invertebrate was captured on film by The Discovery Channel if you want to see/learn more.). How big is colossal, you ask? To give you an idea, its eyes are the size of soccer balls.

Wellington got high marks when it came to feeding and quenching our gastro - oenophile tendencies. With the kiwi dollar at near record lows (Hurray, global financial crisis!), we ate like kings. Our first night we lucked out and got a table at the eternally popular Matterhorn Restaurant (opened in the early 1960’s but won NZ’s top restaurant again in 2008). At the Matterhorn (of all names) we feasted on tuna sashimi, crispy veal sweetbreads, Wairarapa grouper, and Hawkes Bay lamb. We also went to the White House (not to be confused with Obama’s new digs) for carpaccio of octopus (replete with Japanese pickles, kelp sorbet and wasabi jelly), salt and pepper calamari, steak, and salmon. All washed down with crisp Sauvignon Blancs and perfumed Pinot Noirs.

Wellington gets a big thumbs up. Oh. And Matt is 40.

Absolutely positively 40.

The Fires

Marlys and I were going to put out a typically cheeky blog post about the stinking hot weather we’ve been having here in Melbourne, but events in the interim have taken a decidedly more somber turn. If you’ve seen the news in the last 48 hours, you undoubtedly know there have been devastating bushfires across Victoria, with most around Melbourne. The multiple fires have left well over 800 square miles of damage to property and forests. Even worse, over a hundred, and probably hundreds, of people have burned to death trying to escape after little or no warning. It is absolutely, positively horrifying.

We haven’t had appreciable rain for months, and in the past few weeks the temperatures have been brutally hot, with the highs over 110 F several times. Matt went hiking a week ago and we the “grass” was so dry and burnt out it actually crackled when you walked on it. By last Wednesday the forecast said Saturday would be a scorcher with high sustained winds. That, coupled with the tinderbox drought conditions, means high bushfire probability. The TV was full of advisories that people should have their fire plan ready and be prepared to evacuate their homes at an instant. They said it would be the worst bushfire conditions ever – even worse than those for the famous Ash Wednesday fires of 30+ years ago.

Saturday came and the heat was even worse than predicted – 117F, a new all-time record for Melbourne. And it was hotter in the bush. We planned our day to avoid the heat – a trip to the art museum (air conditioned to protect the paintings) followed by a movie (Slumdog Millionaire) in an air conditioned theater. But the time spent outside was like beign in a convection oven, with blasts of heat swirling around. There was no cool breeze.

When we left the art museum about 4pm the sky was an eerie gray. You could see a few white clouds against the dull ashen backdrop but not a speck of blue. We immediately figured there were fires in the area and dense smoke was to blame.

The news Saturday night talked about bushfires everywhere. Numbers jumped from 11 to 26 to over 35 but it’s only been in the last 24 hours that the real horror of what happened, and what is happening, became apparent. All those who have died, many missing, and whole towns destroyed. And the stories: of roads filled with choking smoke. Of people desperate to get back to the house to find a family pet. Farmers going to their fields and euthanizing their cattle and sheep to put them out of their misery. Pictures of poor half burnt kangaroos frantically bouncing to escape surrounding fires.

If you look at our “Places We’ve Been” list along the right hand side of this blog, you’ll see “Marysville” listed. It was one of the first day trips we ever made, and we’ve brought a few visitors up there as well – to see the waterfalls and mountain ashes and eat at the bakery. It had the best Scottish shortbread.

We say “had” because Marysville is gone. Burned off the face of the map. As of today 12 people from Marysville are dead and they figure they’ll find more bodies as they go through the houses and cars left smoldering on the sides of the road. To have this lovely town full of the nicest people expunged from the face of the earth is something we’re still trying to get our heads around. It breaks our heart. And it’s just one of the places devastated. Nearly all the "VIC" places listed to the right have had fires.

We do not know anyone who’s lost life or property personally. Our friends and their families are all currently safe, even the ones who live deeper in the bush. We are very worried about Fay and the farm near Yarram (where Matt suffered his Australia Day injury), but as of today she’s OK. She’s in a spot where the forests behind her house haven’t burned in a long time – and that means lots of deadfall kindling. The fires have come within a half kilometer of her place, she lost power, the roads closed, and she had the car packed and ready to go. But as of now the fires haven’t come closer. We’re keeping up the prayers.

Watching the news and talking to our friends is hard. The stories are so horrific - finding charred bodies of families in cars, families split by the fire and don’t know if the others made it out, stories of last phone calls saying good bye to children or parents from homes about to be burned. It’s gut wrenching. Both the premier (governor) and the Prime Minister have visibly broken down on TV. The reporters have also struggled to keep their composure.

And it gets worse. This is not a natural disaster. Many, if not all, of the fires were set by humans. That makes this mass murder and to consider the selfishness and evil that would lead someone to set one of these fires is something we don’t want to dwell on.

If you want to help, the Australian Red Cross is taking donations for money that will go directly to the bushfire victims. You can donate online at: https://www.redcross.org.au/Donations/onlineDonations.asp. (I’m sure the bankers will take their cut in foreign exchange fees and the like, but every little bit helps.) We’re not ones who typically push donations to a cause – but now this is a good time to start. Today there is a toiletries collection in the office, because so many of the fire refugees (and there are thousands) don't even have toothpaste.

The running joke around our office is that we've seen more of Victoria than the locals, and it may be true. But this means the places on the fire maps are not just names - we can see them, we have memories of them, we know them a little. These are real places with real people that are now gone.

Victoria and Minnesota are almost identical in size and population. While Minnesota is our home state, Victoria is our chosen state. Today we are so sad for our beautiful state, our adopted country, and our grieving countrymen.