Thanks to my Orange Haired friend we found out that the demolition on Willis Street was bigger than first thought. We’ve taken a look around the back and it pretty much is the entire block that’s been destroyed. What I can’t believe is that they have knocked down the apartments-on-stilts that were there. I can remember when they were building those! They’d been there less than 10 years. Such a big hole there now. And no sign of what’s taking it’s place.

More success with filo tonight – unexpectedly delicious – contained a new ingredient for us.

Chicken & watercress pesto turnovers

Made sure when we were out today that we went back to the lagoon to see if the stingrays were still there. They were! At first we just saw the little group of ’small’ ones near the pier however when we were leaving we walked back up over the City to Sea bridge and there were a couple of groups of people on the bridge pointing and looking down and exclaiming “look at that one go!” So we looked – and indeed – there was a very large one swimming quite quickly around the lagoon.

About that time a group of mummies (yes, more 7s costumes) wandered out onto the pier to jump into the lagoon for a dip.

The crowd up on the bridge started rippling with concern “oh no. He’s going to jump. They don’t know there’s stingrays in there!” Too late. In went the first guy. So far the stingray had shown no sign of attacking or eating the little fish that were swimming all over and around them in the lagoon, so what interest was a bandaged-wrapped-beer-flavoured human going to be? LOTS! The big one circling the lagoon turned sharply and began swimming straight for the guy. A woman on the bridge started yelling down “HEY. YOU. MUMMIES! GET OUT OF THERE – THERE’S A STINGRAY COMING!” Yeah yeah har har har whatever lady. Until they saw it themselves and started calling and grabbing for their friend. He scrambled out of the water just as the stingray went by in a ha-ha-made-you-scared swim-by. The mummies all stood looking in and goading and elbowing each other to be the next one to go in. Then they all left rather promptly!

The big stingray came up quite close to the wharf and could easily be seen flapping his, ummm, arms? wings? At one point he came very close to the surface and flapped out in the open.

Tried a couple more amateur marine shots!

I found an article on stuff.co.nz this afternoon dated early January that said that a few stingrays had been seen in the shallow water around Oriental Beach – that they came into the shallows in the summer to bask in the sun – watch out F.I.L! Oh, and another article updated just this minute saying that a guy attacked on a beach in Nelson by a shark was now thought to actually have been a stingray! Oh no!

Had various coffee, juice, rest stops around town today and saw many more costumes, and some of the same people we saw yesterday. Some we saw today were:

• ballerinas (guys actually)
• babies
• the Bucket Fountain (iconic Wellington fountain in Cuba St)
• Hari Krishnas
• guys in pink winter pajamas
• guys in blue nighties
• Hooters girls (guys actually)
• Thomas the Tank Engine & friends
• Bravehearts
• vikings
• The Jokers (as in Heath Ledger’s Joker)
• air hostesses
• patients & nurses
• Olympic swimmer

And here are a few snaps I managed to get:

Oh, and a really bizzare thing happened at Fuel while we were watching people go by. I was chatting away to the barista about some of the costumes we’d seen, we weren’t singling out any orange ones and I wasn’t waring any (visible) orange (other than my hand bag) and a guy that had arrived and was waiting for his order looked straight at me and said “Did you see the guy that was a carrot? Wasn’t he great? Oh, and those guys dressed up as orange traffic cones.”  Ummmm, do you know me? Out of all the costumes it seemed pretty freaky that he chose those to ask me about.