I haven't been reading about the Mayans. So, no, I don't mean that as in 'The end of the world is nigh' but as in 'New Zealand is the end of the world'.
We were looking up at the sky and discussing the fact that you never see aeroplane vapour trails in New Zealand.
You come to or go from this country. You never transit through it to anywhere else internationally only internally or possibly to some of the Pacific Islands - in which case you would never fly over New Zealand's main landmasses at vapour trail altitude anyway.
Funny really because I can't think of any other major country where that is the case. Unless you know otherwise.
PS I recorded 38℃ on the terrace in the shade at 1100 hrs this morning. It was wonderful.
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We do get the odd vapor trail... I'm guessing from planes going directly to Invercargill or Dunedin, but yes, they are rare here. Worthy of comment when we see them.
ReplyDeleteBeen a glorious day, but came home from an outdoor event frozen to the bone.... Southerlly wind I guess.
Yes, Fiona, I should have said 'very rarely' and not 'never'. I have seen one that I can remember and that was one of the things that caused the post. We spent ages speculating where it was going to or from. It's a while ago now but I think one of the odd things was that it was going from South to North which, over Napier, didn't seem to make any sense at all.
DeleteIt's like the Torre di Ligny here in Trapani...it is the beginning or the end, depending on which way you come from. If you come from the West, it's the beginning of Italy, if you come from the East...it's the end of Italy!:) It's 18 Centigrade here and quite hot.
ReplyDeleteYes Francesca I hadn't really thought of that but when you consider Islands there are outlying parts of the UK which fit the same criteria as yours. I think the difference with New Zealand is that the whole country is the start of beginning of journeys.
DeleteYeah, yeah, rub it in!! 38 Celsius... *sigh*
ReplyDeleteThis thing about the vapour trails (or, rather, the lack of them) would make a good pub quiz question: "Which country is the one where vapour trails of aeroplanes are seen the least?" And I'd know the answer, thanks to your blog!
That would be funny. There was, apparently, a question on University Challenge in the UK a few nights ago "What town in New Zealand North of Wellington was rebuilt in Art Deco Style after an earthquake in 1931?" Students who had had an Antipodean gap year were presumably well placed to answer it. It's cooled off today - it was down to 26 on the deck.
DeleteThat's very interesting....we see the contrails here all the time because of our location.
ReplyDeleteWhen I look up at them I always wonder where the folks on the plane are headed off to....and whether good or bad times are ahead for them.
When I saw the title of your post, I thought, Oh no, GB is worried about the Mayans and the end of the world on Friday, Dec 21st....say it isn't so...but after reading, you have put quite a clever spin on the title.
On our breakfast news show Virginia they were showing some of the preparations that people in the US are making for the event with shelters costing a fortune in some cases. If the world ends I'll be amongst the first to admit that I got it wrong.....Oh perhaps I won't be here though. What I want to know is if it's going to end on the 21st at what time will it end. After all if it ends at 0001 on the 21st here then it will still be the 20th in the rest of the world to the east of our time-zone. Ah puzzles.
DeleteOh darn it all, google. Somehow my comment flew the coop on me! So, it's hot there. It's chilly here with very close to the same temp in another way of converting. We're at 38F, you're at 38C....yikes, the contrast.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of NZ, I think purity! It's kind of nice to roam my mind with a thought that there are places existing without the flow of sky traffic.
Peek in on my world in a little bit, I'll post a picture on the blog.
It is rather nice Heather and, yes, on the whole NZ is a very pure country in that it's much freer from things like industrial air pollution than most of the developed nations.
DeleteSounds logical really - no planes, no vapour trails.
ReplyDeleteAs for the weather - don't !
As for the end of the world, just before Christmas sounds a great time for it to happen. OK, maybe not Christmas, but definitely before New Year.
You know me Marcel: logical to a fault. Yeah right!
DeleteRob says the world won't end tomorrow -- that's because he got his teeth cleaned yesterday, and if he'd known six months ago that the world was coming to an end, he wouldn't have bothered to make the appointment!
ReplyDeleteWhich reminded me of a strange little guy I used to see when I was at University. Every day the bus I rode went past his corner. He had signs and a handbell. The signs said, "The world is ending on April 15th." April 15th came and went and nothing happened. He just crossed out April 15th and wrote August 10th, then November 8th, etc. This went on for a couple of years, until he finally got fed up and gave up on the whole idea, and I never saw him again. It sounds silly, but darn it, I kind of missed seeing him there, on his corner, trying to warn us all of impending doom.
Maybe his world ended.
DeleteWhen I was a child Carol, there was a man with a sandwich board outside Woolworths in Church Street in Liverpool which simply read: The End of the World is Nigh. He never specified when 'nigh' was. He was there for years walking up and down. I can well understand how you would wonder what happened to your chap. Ours was such an institution I bet the Liverpool Echo carried a story of his retirement or demise at the time.
DeleteRegarding the end of the world as constantly "nigh" may be the wisest way to deal with it. I'm not so sure that walking up and down the streets with a sandwich board is, though...
DeleteI'm certainly not sure what he was trying to achieve Monica. If it was religious conversions then his advertising wasn't too good.
DeleteWell, you see, for me, having been born and bred here at the end of the world, I think it a novelty to see vapour trails when I holiday at the top of the world... Actually, they get in the way of nice sky-scenes I reckon...
ReplyDeletePwoar! 38 is far too 'ot. 29ºC when I was lugging firewood here yesterday was too 'ot!
The world can't end tomorrow because I just treated the car to its annual bought car-wash.
As you say, Katherine, they are a real pain for photographers - or they were before Photoshop enabled one to replace the sky with one of one's choice.
DeleteYes I wondered why the Police were bothering to stop cars and check on Registration (car tax) and WoFs (fitness tests) today when tomorrow it may well not matter anyway.
Aren't all we sceptics going to look silly if the world ceases to exist tomorrow? Oh no I forgot. We won't be here to look silly. Phew. That's a relief.
Well, it's just gone 12.10am and the world's still going around, so I guess that means we're all right then. Unless we have to get through the WHOLE day without a meteor or comet or something...
ReplyDeleteIt's still Thursday in Europe...
DeleteMonica at the final hour of Thursday we will be 25 (not 24) hours ahead of some places so the opportunity will have been missed if the apocalypse doesn't happen until the last moment.
DeleteThat weather report makes me realize that even though I'm not a huge fan of snow and cold, I actually prefer -1 to +38.
ReplyDeleteMonica, if it was very humid I might agree (might!) but we were fortunate that it was a reasonably dry heat.
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