1st Swim for June at Hataitai Beach - check!

Hi there!

Yesterday was our first swim for the month of June.  Whoopee!    From June, we've decided to wear tee-shirts on top of our bathing suits in the water.  Well, it is cold.

When J told a friend of ours at the gym that we were going swimming yesterday, we didn't get the usual "You're mad!" comment.  This time our friend said, "Are you taking a pick axe to break the ice..."  Haha.  Ha.

Just before I got out of my car at the beach, the radio announcer said that the air temperature was 11c.  Yesterday morning  I'd discovered the Lyall Bay water temperature site and it said that the water temp would be 13 for the day.  

What?  It was warmer in the water than it was on land?  If that truly was the case, I would bring my Lilo and laptop down to the sea and stay in the water for the entire winter.   The water temp boffins and the air temp boffins must work with different temperature scales, surely?  I must ring up NIWA  (National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research) and find out.

As we were swimming, a cyclist rode past the beach.  We heard a wind-driven shout of "Oh, my Gawd!" and the guy thrust a dismissive arm-wave out behind him as he shot past us.  We get this a lot.

Because I was so cold afterwards, I bought pizza for a late lunch (what diet?).  Then I felt so guilty over eating it that I took a brisk walk along the Maupuia walkway.  There were lots of owners-and-dogs up there.  One happily-cavorting dog was gigantic.  Surely, it had wolf-hound in its DNA?

"What's it's name?" I asked the two young guys walking this dog. 

"Isher," I was told.  (this is phonetic spelling).  "You want him?  He comes with two bags of dog food!"

"Does he come to you when you call?" . I could tell that this bouncy hyper-active canine collossus might have control issues.

"Only if we bellow in a strong Russian accent," grinned one of the guys..

I meet many nationalities when I do the Maupuia walkway.  Mexicans, Americans, Chinese, British, and now Russian.  A couple of years ago, the world unicycle gathering was held in Wellington, and the Maupuia walkway was one track that was used by them.  I sat on the grass bank and watched maybe fifty or sixty unicyclists scamper past.  Dozens of different nationalities yelled happily over to me.  I cheered every one of them on.

Here's a view from the Maupuia walkway.