The Wellington Scale

God must have very angry when he created the Wellington region. Maybe he foresaw it would be a hangout for wasters and degenerates and tried to punish them with an unavailability of flat land. But what has really been created is a dangerously interesting place that attracts the best young people to land of magnificence’s.

When going anyway in this city you bound for a rough time. There is normally a gale on the loose and a few hills to climb. This, it would seem, explains the apparent lack of the old set and there certified know hangouts suspiciously called ‘rest homes’. This leaves one of major cities in NZ and indeed the capital in the soft and adventurous hands of the youth to the bravely middle aged.

Along with the steep drives and terraced houses comes the landscape feature that makes riding bikes worthwhile, the hills. So taking to them you will to find a different scale than that found other corners of world. On the roads the small hill that you leave out of route guides when describing to friends go from a few decent pedal strokes to solid 5 minute slogs. And the hills that you leave out when route telling to strangers are the same as the ones that you point out with warning in other regions.

When you depart the road and take the dirt things get more interesting. It is always clear cut here, just up or down. And like on the road hills they are jacked up. With trails smashed out of the hill side which consist of rocks and giant worms at great respect for three things arise. First the good souls who put in the hundreds of hours they could have been sitting at home polishing furniture in to creating a strip of winding track down or up a hill side. Second and more immediately is the need for focus on not ditching in the rough rock strewn surface that is bound act as an effective skin/flesh remover on contact. The third is something unrelated and vastly absurd.

So with this platherinth of intimidating terrain one can only adapt. And the rewards are great for those who open the front door to a northerly howler and lock themselves in for an adventure with the snap of the helmet strap clip.