I woke up around 8am and wandered through to the living room, with an idea as to how to make the calendar plugin work with the blog pages, not just the photo album.
After making breakfast I got to work on that so that the idea didn't leak out, and discovered that while the overall concept worked, there were limitations to the Content Management System that meant the solution wouldn't work without a helper script, but that was easily overcome, so now both my photo album and blog have got an intuitive calendar selection tool :)
After that I started trying to establish how I was to proceed with my journey south, as the main route from Picton down to Christchurch was and will be closed for the forseeable future due to the damage caused by the earthquake.
To add to the confusion, there had been a storm overnight, and it was still raining pretty relentlessly, so all the routes in to Wellington were closed due to flooding.
The rain was scheduled to ease off for the late afternoon, so we decided that rather than suffer cabin fever and stay indoors, we would head to the beach and walk to a shipwreck called Hydrabad.
The boat had been built in Port Glasgow, Scotland in 1865. She was a 3 mast full rigged boat, and was carrying rolling stock from New Zealand to Adelaide in Australia, when she got caught in a severe storm in 1878. Rather than risk the crew and passengers, the captain ran the ship aground, and everyone got away safely, but despite 2 attempts to refloat the boat, it began to take on water, and then caught fire, so was abandoned, and washed further up the beach.
Now it is covered by sand, but sometimes it is not covered by sand and can be seen. There is a blue post marking the spot, which is all we got to see today, but the walk in the sea spray and cloud was enjoyable none the less.
When I got back I managed to get in touch with a 5 rhythms dance instructer who holds classes in Wellington, and established that the Friday class should be still going ahead.
I have now booked a bus from Levin to Wellington for Thursday, and accomodation until Saturday morning, when I will get a flight down to Dunedin, that being the only practicle way to get to that part of the island currently.
Tomorrow has no real plan, but if the weather is clear (unlike the last 2 days!), then I will go for a wander around the area to see what walks I can find.