E-bike around our suburb

On Monday 24 November, we went for a short ride around our suburb. Now that we have the electric assist, it makes it so much easier to tackle the hills. We meandered around, and went into several dead-end streets that we hadn’t been into before. We discovered some earthworks going on between the Ohariu Valley Road and Winsley Terrace. It looks like there may be a new road, or at least new housing, going in some time soon.

Ground preparation for new housing? (photo by John)

The same earthworks seen from Ohariu Valley Road, a few days earlier (photo by John)

Half-way down the new-ish Westchester Drive extension, we stopped to have a look at a memorial on the side of the road. When you drive past in the car, you can’t readily stop there, but now we were able to read the plaque. It seems that in 1841 a woman died at Glenside, and because the roads were so bad in winter in those days, her body could not be taken to the town burial ground, so she was buried locally without a proper service. Her grave was consecrated by Bishop Selwyn the following year when he happened to travel past. The full story is in this Wellington City Council website link.

A memorial to an unknown woman buried nearby in 1841 (photo by John)

We made our way down to our local café Thyme, next to the Twiglands garden centre, where we had lunch in amongst the potted shrubbery. We had to fend off the bold advances of a small swarm of rather intrepid and persistent sparrows, which were all hovering around, hoping for crumbs. Waving of arms and stamping of feet did not deter them one bit.

Lunch at Thyme Café (photo by John)

We returned home via Glenside Road and a very steep track extending from Stebbings Road which ended up on Westchester Drive again. All up, we did 12 km on this nice little suburban ride.

The top of the Stebbings Dam track. This track is steeper than any of the Churton Park roads!
  (photo by John)