Stuck in the Middle With You

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right...here I am.

As promised, we took another hike up to the Centre of New Zealand, a hilltop landmark. Actually, after improved GPS positioning it has been discovered, but not well advertised, that this location is NOT the center of NZ. That distinguished spot is 35 km away. But who's counting? This is a beautiful site with nice benches and a swell marker.

Actually, we were over doing some measuring in the pink house (AKA terra cotta) and looked up at a nearby hill and saw the shrine to centerdom right above us. We decided to run up and take some pictures.

The walk up was tougher than I remembered. Perhaps I have gained a few lbs. When I got here, I certainly was carrying about 10 pounds of extra baggage around the waist. But here they don't talk in pounds, but grams, milligrams, kilograms, megaton-agrams.

Besides, I lost my scale in the fire.

Be that as it may, I think my pounds have made some new kiwi kilogram friends. They seem to be hanging around the house all the time now. I am afraid they will start bringing even more buddies over, hidden in the ice cream.

Whatever.

The hike was steep, but at the top was the aforementioned sculpture and a great view. I snapped pictures N-S-E-W and here you see the different views. I even took a picture of the pink house from here.

The walk down was easy.