New Zealand – Page 7 – Where is Phil now?

Visiting and old friend with an old friend.

Monday 04 April 2016 – Auckland, New Zealand.

Like most bloggers I also follow and read a few other WordPress blogs and sporadically randomly read a few others. I like to see what is out there, what other people are seeing and doing and maybe get ideas about writing and photography for my own use. I recently read a post by a youngish guy, I think he was English, who had just left Auckland. He was moaning about how boring, expensive and unfriendly he thought New Zealand and specifically Auckland was. In between his moaning he described what he did in Auckland. Pretty much nothing, he never left the city. No wonder he was bored.

I, on the other hand, always get out of the city, and today was going to be one of those out of the city days. I had yet to see my good friend Vicki on this trip, there just hadn’t been time so far to fit enough time in, but I had kept a day up my sleeve just in case. Vicki and I usually catch up over a walk or a run somewhere in the hills, as I did not have a huge amount of time we decided to keep it semi-local and go to one of my favourite places in the whole world – Karekare Beach.

Karekare is on Auckland’s west coast, it has no shops, few houses and a toilet block was only built there in the last few years. It feels remote, yet it is under an hour from the centre of the city, less if there is no traffic on the very winding road. It is a magical place and I have been here to run, walk, swim and photograph many many times.

There was not going to be much running today, I am woefully unfit and Vicki is very very fit and would leave me for dead on the trails, but we had lots of gossiping to do so a good walk was definitely in order. We started walking along the black sand beach – following where we could find them, the trail markers for the Hillary Trail.

I have mentioned the Hillary in previous posts, it was created in honour of Sir Edmund Hillary, and is 75kms of interlinked trail traversing the Waitakere Ranges from South to North (or Vice Versa). When it was first created it was a rugged and gnarly walk using old hiking trails. Over the last few years, it is slowly being ‘dumbed down’ and made easier and safer – though it was never dangerous. This is to cater more for the walking tourist who may not necessarily want to get their boots dirty, well that is how it seems to me. This section along the beach did not exist when I left the country, the trail was back in the hills then.

Back in the old kauri logging days there used to be a train line running along this section of the coast, ferrying the great logs to Whatipu where ships used to take them into Auckland, the train line is long gone, but the old tunnel at Tunnel Point still remains, as does a rusting hulk of a cylinder.

I stopped to take a few photos of the small lake that has long been here, stuck between the sand dunes and the cliff face, over a rainy winter this whole area can flood as the water comes down from the hills and finds nowhere else to go.

One of the things I really love about New Zealand is, apart from some people, there is nothing dangerous, too bitey or poisonous living here. Wading barefoot and legged through a swampy flooded lake might not feel good on the feet, but at least no animal is going to try and kill you. Being the end of summer, there was no flood, and no need to wade barefoot through anything at all. The only life we saw were a couple of black swans.

We turned inland past the lake and headed up the start of the Pararaha Valley. The first hundred yards or so cuts through reed beds and the track is a low boardwalk. Designed to allow 365 day access to the area, though I have walked up here before when the boardwalk has been submerged as well.

And then it was UP ! Buck Taylor was always one of my least favourite tracks on a long run or walk, it is steep ! But the view back down over the entrance to the valley is always worth it.

I was surprised by how much mud there was when we got to the ridge line at the top, there wasn’t huge amounts, but I was surprised to find any at all, given that it is the end of summer. It was good to see the tracks here are still proper hiking tracks with mud and roots uneven steps. Just how I like it.

We followed Zion Ridge Track, it is pretty flat and a real joy to run on, the bush up here is really nice too, with lots of manuka, kauri and puriri trees leaving layers of crunchy leaves on the trail.

We came across this big old puriri tree, slowly being taken over by the vine like rata. It is a massive tree, ancient and twisted. Lovely.

Very soon we were on the cliff top overlooking Karekare Beach where we started. Looking back down the beach towards Pararaha Valley.

Karekare Beach.

Now you can see why this is one of my favourite places ! Beach, surf, hills, mud, trees, wilderness. What is there not to love about Karekare.

It was a great couple of hours out and about, Vicki is good company, a not too old friend, but one of my best friends and it was great to catch up. Vicki is the editor of Kiwi Trail Runner magazine and is very enthusiastic about anything trail and trail running. She gave me a couple of issues of the mag to take home with me as I was not quite up to date !!

She also stores my trail shoes at her house, to save me carting them back and forth from England. Now that is a true friend !

The end of the road–trip.

Sunday 03 April 2016 – Auckland, New Zealand.

Wow, our little road trip is over today, and we only have two more days in New Zealand before we head back towards London. We have a couple of days in Hong Kong to break the journey, which is a relief as the jet lag has hit me big time. Man, this trip has gone by so fast.

The sky was refreshingly gentle this morning, there is still cloud about, but it is not as dark and broody as yesterday. The view from the deck of the bach is down over Goat Island, our only destination of interest for the day, before we head back into Auckland.

After breakfast and a quick tidy and clean of the bach, the four of us headed down to Goat Island. The island is in a small marine reserve which was established, I think, in the 1970s. As a reserve there is no fishing or shell fish gathering allowed so there are literally hundreds of fish and other types of marine life.

It appears that fish are less stupid than you would think, around Goat Island there are big old snapper, rays, moki, mau mau – all sorts of species that make coastal north island their habitat. We used to do a lot of snorkelling here in the early 1980s, and you could and still can hand feed the greedy snapper. Go around the corner to Mathesons Bay and you will see no fish at all. All the fish came here Smile

I see that feeding the fish is no longer encouraged!

El and I were not going to go snorkelling, just a walk around, though Mel and Dickie ventured in for a look around after we had left.

The tide was quite low so we got to walk out a way on to the rocks so we could peer over the edge to look for fish, the water was quite clear but we didn’t see anything apart from a few tiddlers in the rock pools.

It is a nice beach, with some really cool gnarly old pohutakawa trees.

It was soon time for El and I to farewell Mel and Dickie and head back to Auckland.

We stopped in Matakana again, just for a quick for coffee, in a very crowded Sunday brunch type cafe before taking the hour long drive back to mum’s place.

Road trip over. It was good!

If it’s yellow, let it mellow.

Saturday 02 April 2016, Northland New Zealand.

The morning broke open with a better sky than it closed with last night, solidly grey but not raining at least. Today we return to the car and continue our journey south. Not a long day driving again, we are spending a night in Leigh, an hour north of Auckland. We were not in any rush.

We took in the view from the front of the B and B as we were packing the car, I love the way the mist is curling up out of the hills, feeding that big wet blanket looming above them. Perhaps that rain might come back?

We left just before 10:00 and I made my first stop not far out of town, my last Northland church on this trip. The church at Taumarere was originally built in Paihia in 1874 and was barged here in 1926. It does not look like it is used overly much anymore. I was trying to get a photo with the mist and low brooding hills as a backdrop, but there was not enough space on the narrow strip of land surrounding the church.

Our first stop was in Kawakawa at the famous HunterWasser toilets. I had been looking for these a couple of days when we passed through Kaitia on our way up the country as I was sure they were in that town. I was really pleased to find I was wrong and we got see them today. I have heard about them before but never seen them in the flesh. Friedensreich Hundertwasser was an Austrian architect and artist who migrated to New Zealand in 1975, he passed away in 2000. He has designed buildings all over the world and I always thought it bizarre he built a public toilet in northern New Zealand. They are a shining light in an otherwise unspectacular rural NZ town. And they are free to use !

Whangerei Falls was a fairly regular stop on any northern journey, though the car park and facilities have improved since I was last there, there are some facilities at least. The falls sit in a residential area and the size of them really come as a surprise to the newcomer. At 26 metres high they are bigger than you would have thought.

There is a nice circular path from the top to the base and back up again to the car park. They were a really enjoyable diversion on our travels south.

There was a huge amount of spray coming off the falls, I took a quick snap before heading back into the trees.

We were meeting my daughter and her B/F on the way back south. We had agreed to meet in Matakana but sadly ended up being forced to meet at the Brick Bay Winery Smile The pinot gris was really really nice and I was gutted to be driving. Even though it is sunny in this picture, a very heavy shower passed over soon after, and heavy showers passed over for the rest of the day, we got damp a couple of times. Me thinking ‘I wish I was not driving!’

After a soothing glass and a shared cheese board we headed off to nearby Snells Beach for a walk. It has been a popular Auckland holiday destination for many years, but I was shocked at how big and built up it had become since I was last here.

The beach is still lovely, and this photo of my daughter Mel and her B/F, Dickie is one of my favourites of the whole trip, the light was just perfect for those few minutes.

As you could tell by those clouds, we did not get to stay for much longer and they were soon on top of us, and they dumped a fair amount of rain in a very short time. Though it did not seem to bother these two old blokes netting for their tea.

We stopped in Matakana on the way out to Leigh to pick up some provisions, cheese, crackers etc for a pre-evening drink. El really liked Nosh, the deli we shopped in, and Matakana in general.

I had rented a bach for the four us to stay in. The original plan was my son Aiden, and grandson Mason would join us as well. However, Aiden had tickets to a music festival in Wellington and had stuffed up dates for the weekend… A bach is basically a beach home, they used to be small and full of shabby furniture, mismatched crockery and cutlery, piles of board games and a BBQ outside. Seems these days that most cost more than a million dollars and are palaces for the rich. NZ is changing like the rest of the world. Though, our bach, in the village of Leigh, is a proper bach bach, we loved it.

Brown Fibrolite is classic New Zealand bach building material, it made me nostalgic for times old.

I was really pleased that I had picked such a good place to stay, Leigh itself is a little bit inland and does not have the spectacular sandy beaches some of the other places on this stretch of coast have but this place made up for any of that. El really liked it though she was not so impressed with the loo poetry.

The other reason for selecting this place was it was walking distance of Leigh Sawmill Cafe, where we went for dinner – and a couple of bottles of, you guessed it, pinot gris.

Kicking about in and around Paihia.

Friday 01 April 2016 – Northland, New Zealand.

Wanting to stay away from the main tourist hubbub of ‘downtown’ Paihia, I booked El and I a room in a small B and B in Haruru Falls, a couple of kilometres inland. The room was very comfortable, (it had the nicest chairs ever !) had nice views and good wifi. Perfect for a down day on our small road trip, and a welcome opportunity for me to not be driving all the time. El does not have a drivers licence so we could not share the driving. We had expected that the day was not going to break like yesterday with a great sunrise followed by clear a clear sky, so we were not surprised to look at the window at a grey old view. It is still a damn good view!

After a very nice breakfast in the B and B we headed out to see Haruru Falls, and maybe get a short walk in before the forecasted downpours arrived. In the very early 80s friends and I hitch hiked up here from Auckland over a couple of summers for the new year celebrations in nearby Russell, we used to stay in the campground near the falls and it was pleasing to see the old campground is still there, looking a bit run down mind.

We were lucky in that there had been a little bit of rain over the past few days as this meant there was some water passing over the falls.

We spent a bit of time around the top of the falls, I was waiting to grab a photo without other viewers, something I always try to do. We didn’t have to wait too long mind.

The rain that was due to come had not materialised so we decided to do a short walk along the path to Waitangi. I had originally planned that with good weather we could do the full three hour return walk, but with heavy rain forecast we decided against it. We did get down to the water edge and through a small section of mangroves, before turning back as rain drops started to fall. Naturally the rain stopped before we got back to the car.

The walk we did was nice enough, we got to stretch our legs a bit and saw some interesting flora along the way. This is a very unusual and spiky plant, it looks quite n nice, but it is wild ginger and is an imported noxious pest and one of the most invasive weeds in the world. I have never seen it flowering before and was not sure what it was until I looked it up.

The owner of our guest house told us to visit Mt Bledisloe; at a mighty 105 metres high it is hardly a mountain, not even higher than the hill next to it. It does have a big view over Paihia, Waitangi, over to the Hen and Chicken Islands and up and down the coast. On a clear day I am sure it is spectacular. I liked the useful sign at the start of the track.

Bledisloe was the governor general of New Zealand and presented this ceramic plaque on the top of the hill to the nation in 1934. The plaque was made by 11278 miles away in London by Doulton and is fabulous.

We drove down to Waitangi to have a look at the treaty grounds. The Treaty of Waitangi is the founding document of New Zealand and is (in theory) the guiding principle by which the government make and change law. It was signed in 1840 as a treaty between the British Crown and a group of north island Maori chiefs and was the document that made NZ a part of the commonwealth.

The treaty grounds are now part of a large new museum which now attracts an entry fee of $40 each, which is far too expensive for us. I was really unhappy that all the museums we wanted to visit had what we considered an exorbitant entry fee. Maybe we are just too used to free museums in London, or low cost museums elsewhere. I was particularly disappointed by the fee here as this location and its history is fundamental to New Zealand’s history and should be made as widely and freely available as possible.

Carrying on to Paihia we stopped near the very cool ‘wee’ public toilet.

We had a bit of a walk around, and stopped for coffee and a cake, but as a tourist centre there is not a heck of a lot in Paihia itself. Especially on such a grey day.

There is a a lot to do and see nearby, but apart from eating, drinking and sleeping Paihia holds limited attraction. So we drove up to nearby Kerikeri instead.

Like Cape Reinga I do not recall ever having seen the Stone Store since I was a child. It is one of the classic north island tourist locations, but I just never had cause to go there as an adult. Showing El around was a good excuse to check it out.

The Kerikeri mission station was founded in 1819 and was the first European settlement to be built under the blessing and protection of local Maori chiefs. It was part harbour, part safe haven and part mission site.

The stone store is New Zealand’s oldest stone building. It was built in 1832. Living in the UK, I do find the fact that it is so new, but still the oldest stone building, quite laughable, but in a cute and loving way!.

I recall the church at Bonchurch on the Isle of Wight that was REBUILT in 1070, and it is so insignificant that hardly anyone has even heard of it, ‘old’ is very subjective.

Kemp House (or the Mission House) is the neighbour of the stone store and is New Zealand’s oldest building, it was completed in 1822.

One of the things I find amusing in an angry ironic way, is that the early European settlers decided to bring little bits of home to New Zealand, the church at the mission station has a lovely old English oak tree growing next to it.

While the oak is fine, what the settlers also brought with them were pests; rabbits, deer, possums, rats and mice. These animals have devastated the New Zealand countryside, destroying native vegetation, birds, insects and reptiles. With very few exceptions, New Zealand had no land based mammals prior to European visitors. The early Maori bought pigs with them from Asia, and prior to that there were only bats and sea based mammals. The native birds and insects had no chance.

I loved these epiphytes growing on the branches in this tree, I have seen these on a few occasions before, there is small one in my sisters garden, but I have not seen one this massive, or close to the ground. An epiphyte is a plant that grows on another plant without harming it.

On the way back to Haruru Falls we stopped in the Cottle Bay Winery for a small tasting, I was driving so needed to be very careful. They made a really unusual walnut liqueur which was really nice, so we ended up buying a bottle of that and a white port to take back to London, as well as a bottle of wine to drink later on.

I ended up driving a lot more than I wanted to today, but the weather sort of dictated what e could do, but it was good to get too a few places I haven’t seen, as well as show El some more of my lovely adopted homeland!

Cape Reinga

Thursday 31 March 2016 – Northland, New Zealand.

After a really nice evening, we slept well and were up early. We had quite a big day ahead, with five or six hours driving to get up to the top of the country and back down again, but to Paihia on the east coast. El was up to watch a great sunrise, but slack bugger that I am I missed it entirely. I am not much of a photographer! I did catch the glow just before the sun fully popped up over the horizon.

After an unspectacular breakfast (I still ate like a pig) we checked out and were on the road early. I had planned on catching the car ferry from Rawene, but foolishly did not check a timetable before we left and arrived with a 45 minute wait for the ferry. I took a photo of the great old church at Rawene.

With another half an hour to go we checked out the local coffee shop and sat out on the deck in the sun, gazing over the harbour and enjoyed a very nice flat white.

The car ferry is small, it is only a 15 minute journey, and there were only eight cars on it, still more than I expected for a mid-week morning.

I took a photo of the route planner that was outside the car window on the ferry. We drove up from the bottom of the map to the top, up the right hand side and down the left. Luckily there are not too many road choices !

The small town of Rawene.

Another church, stupidly I forgot to note the name of the church, and even more stupidly I cut the top of the spire off. Doh!

The drive up to the cape is very pretty, wild and remote, and fairly deserted on the road as well. We decided to not take the beach route (and the rental car terms forbid it anyway) and with so much driving already planned we did not take any detours either. We could have gone to 90 mile beach for a look. Next time.

The road to the cape is excellent, it was unsealed not that long ago, pleased to see some of the petrol tax dollars I paid in NZ put to some good use.

We arrived at Cape Rienga early in the afternoon, the car park was about half full, which was a relief, I was half expecting a load of tour buses, but it was pretty quiet. The walk to the tip and the lighthouse takes about 20 minutes. I was a little bit excited as I had very much been looking forward to coming here, and showing El some of my adopted homeland.

Soon we were there, at the cape.

where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean at the very end of New Zealand.

Only 18029km back to London!

We were a little snackish as we set off back southward. I had been big-upping the fish and chip shop at Mangonui on Doubtless Bay on the way, so we stopped there for a very late lunch. We were not impressed, service was a bit confusing and not particularly friendly and the small fish and chips were nice, but massively overpriced. I was disappointed to be honest. It is not on my recommended list any more, sadly. We had such a good eating and drinking experience in New Zealand, shame to have a couple of places bring it down a bit.

After the break we carried on driving down to Haruru Falls, just outside Paihia where I had booked a room in a B and B for two nights. I was glad to get there, after six hours in the car, albeit with lots of breaks, it was nice to not have to get back in and drive again.

Though we had to in the end, there are no restaurants in Haruru Falls, so I had to drive into town for dinner. We did have an amazing Thai at Amazing Thai.

It was another good day.

Lord of the Forest

Wednesday 30 March 2016 – Northland, New Zealand.

As this New Zealand trip is a large part of El and my holiday allowance for the year I snuck a few days away for just the two of us amongst the family and friend visits. Family and friends are a crucial part of my visits back to NZ and I really enjoy them, but after long flights and jet lag I find them stressful and draining as well – especially trying to fit everyone who wants to see us in to such a tight schedule. El and I were both looking forward to going away by ourselves for some R and R. Naturally I planned on squeezing in touring and road trips and sightseeing and as much as possible. I never learn.

I wanted to go up to Cape Rienga, the most northly tip of New Zealand, the only other time I was there was in 1975 – mum and I think so anyway. It is pretty much a new bit of New Zealand for both us, though I have been as far as Omapere before. It is a long drive from Auckland so I broke the trip up over three days so we could relax a bit and see a few other things on the way up, and down again.

It was a slow start to the day, we left mum’s place at 9:30 and after a wrong turn here, some incredibly bad traffic there and some stupid lane choices and getting stuck going the wrong way on a non-moving motorway it was an hour before we actually were officially ‘on the way’. I had elected to go up the western side of the island and come back down via the eastern.

By some sort of miracle, it was a stunning day, warm and sunny and perfect for driving. I have slowed down a lot on the last few years, Kiwi drivers are notoriously awful, not madly suicidal like some countries, just rude, arrogant and ignorant. I was that person behind the wheel. No longer; cruising ‘up north’ at a sedate pace was the order of the day, enjoying the reasonable quiet off-season, mid-week roads, and some great scenery.

Our first stop was Matakohe, at the Kauri Museum, we decided not to go into the museum as it was a bit pricey, but we did look in the shop and I took a couple of photos of some of the buildings outside. I have a thing for the old churches in Northland, I have a few photos from ‘back in the day’ kicking around somewhere. I was going to stop and take photos of as many as I could, but only managed to grab a few. They are quite unique, mainly built in the latter part of the 19^th century when Anglican missionaries flooded into the country, they are small, wooden painted white, often with a red roof. They look lovely.

The old Matakohe post office – also lovely. New Zealand’s history is not very old, there are no ancient buildings, but the ‘old’ buildings are quiet unique to New Zealand.

Heading further north we came across this wonderful old derelict church.

After a pretty reasonable, though quite expensive lunch in Dargaville we were soon heading north again up to the Waipoua Forest. The Waipoua is one of the largest areas of northland kauri remaining in New Zealand, and I was keen to stop briefly to see Tane Mahuta, New Zealand’s biggest kauri tree. The road north was surprisingly good, a lot of work must have been done here in the last few years, though it is pretty windy and we got stuck behind someone going really slowly and the Kiwi driver came out in me for a while and I was muttering and cursing for the ten minutes we were held up.

We stopped by the Waipoua River to take a couple of photos of the river and some of the other kauri growing.

After a leg stretch, we were back in the car and finally stopping at the entrance to the short path to the big tree itself, Tane Mahuta ‘Lord of the forest’. It is not a particularly tall tree at only 58 ft tall, but it is 45ft round and looks massive. It is quite impressive up close.

The tree is accessed via a board walk to prevent visitors from trampling too close to its roots, as the bush is quite dense the tree almost appears by surprise when you walk round a gentle bend in the path. I have been a bit obsessed with taking photos with a bit of flare in them but went full flareage here !

It is only a short drive from the Tane Mahuta car park to our final stop for the day at Omapere on the edge of the Hokianga Harbour. There was a viewing point at the top of the hill above the harbour so we stopped to have a look. I hadn’t really told El much about the places we would be staying and she was really excited to know that we were in a small hotel right next to the wharf in the bottom of the photo. What a view !!!

I had booked a room on the internet, but had not really specified any particular requirements, once we were there I asked if we could upgrade, for a nominal increase in cost to a beach view room, and thankfully we could. Wow ! out of the room, on to the ground level deck, across a small stretch of grass was sand and then sea. We could not be any closer. After nipping back up the road to the shop to get a bottle of pinot gris, I was togs on (NZ for swimming costume) and into the sea. My first swim in 18 months. It was cold, but not too bad, El watched…

Once dry and refreshed with a glass of wine, it was camera out and I took a lot of photos as the sun slowly sunk into the sea in front and to the side of us, the golden hour was truly golden.

The sky started off with a nice set of clouds and I was really looking forward to a great colour show once the sun dropped out of sight below the horizon.

However it was not to be, as the clouds slowly dissipated before my eyes and the wild red and purple sky that was in my head did not materialise. It was very special all the same.

A great start to our road trip, tomorrow is Cape Rienga!

There are dreamscapes and realscapes.

Saturday 26 March – Tuesday 29 March 2016 – Auckland, New Zealand.

El and I arrived back in London two days ago. With my body clock completely wonky I was fully awake at 5:30am so spent some time in Lightroom and finished sorting through all the photos I took in New Zealand. After staring at completely blank pages where notes should have been written in my notebook, I suspect that this post will be quite short. It is a wrap up of all the days between doing other things, things that I will write about separately; in the not too distant future.

Our time in New Zealand was short, we only have 12 days in the country and for five of those days El and I are heading ‘up north’ on a wee road trip. I am really looking forward to that, getting out of the city is something I always want to do when I come back, and showing El more of the country I call(ed) home is exciting too. Of course, I am really looking forward to spending time with family and friends as well. With such a short time I am not going to see many of my friends unfortunately, but I expect to be back in November and will make more time for people then. If I didn’t see you this time round – I am sorry.

After a shaky start to the weather since we arrived on Thursday, Saturday morning broke nice and clear. I have rented a car for nine days and El and I caught the bus into the city to pick it up. We left nice and early and I got a bit of record shopping done on the way, picking up a new compilation LP of material from an old Dunedin Flying Nun band The Stones – I have no idea how they got away with that name! I also got two LPs by another Dunedin based Flying Nun band, The Clean. One of the LPs is a vinyl reproduction of a cassette that came out in 1982 – ‘Oddities’. I did not know this existed and I was so happy to pick it up, the cassette copy I had is long gone and the title track is my favourite The Clean song.

After shopping we dropped in to my daughter’s recently refurbished cafe for breakfast and coffee. The place was pretty busy, though the food was fabulous, and the coffee was good enough to want to have two. Mel and her halo 🙂

After breakfast we picked up the car and headed north to Orewa Beach to visit El’s only New Zealand based friend, an ex-work colleague from London. We arrived a little early so parked up and went for a walk along the beach, stopping for a half pint in a small bar. It is Easter Saturday today, when I was a kid Easter weekend was usually the last weekend you would expect to go for a swim, so it was pleasing to see people in the sea today. Actually, to be honest it was just pleasing to see the sea, the beach and the sun!

We had a good afternoon with El’s friends, I was driving so it was light beer for me!

On Sunday we moved to stay at my sisters house for a couple of nights, we had a family lunch and I managed to sneak a few more photos of Mason Smile , it was a great lunch and good to see my nephew and ex-brother-in-law as well.

Four generations of Platts… (and a Wither Hills pinot gris :))

I love my sisters house and after a nice walk – which I covered in the last post, El and I slobbed on the couch over a glass or two of pinot gris – a wine we drank a bit of while we were in NZ.

The sunset was pretty good too!

Monday was another fine day, now we had a car we headed back into town again, aiming for lunch with some friends. Unfortunately I got the day and the time all horribly wrong and there was no one home. We drove down to the waterfront, and up to the viewpoint at Achilles Point with its great view out over the harbour, the gulf and Rangitoto Island.

Some wonderful friends of mine had a BBQ at their place with a few of our other friends along for the fun. It was great to catch up with people again, a short but brief catch-up this time, and one of only two opportunities to catch up with friends.

On Tuesday El and I went back into the city again, we had coffee at Mel’s cafe again – it was nice enough to sit outside this time.

We then crossed over the road to Albert Park for a walk around the magnificent old trees there, really old Pohutakawa and Moreton Bay figs, I love these venerable old guardians of the park. When I get back to London I am going to look for a course on how to take photos of trees, something I want to get much better at.

On the edge of the park is the Auckland Art Gallery, I always visit when I come back, and this time was no exception. We did not have a huge amount of time, so did a quick pass through. I liked this giant web from John Ward Knox, though I missed an exhibition by Fiona Pardington which I am a bit annoyed about, she is a wonderful photographer.

We had arranged to meet mum for lunch down by the old ferry building and once united with her we walked out to the Wynyard Quarter, a more recent development along the waterfront. To think, that not six years ago I used to work just around the corner from here…

It was a really warm day and we found a nicely shaded table outside one of the many cafes that adorn this section of the harbour side. Lunch was excellent, washed down with yet another pinot gris. After eating too much we walked out to Silo Park, I used to come here to take photos a few years ago, especially on foggy mornings – but there was none of that today. I still like the lines and shapes made by the old silos.

Street artist Askew One, painted some of C.K. Stead’s poem ‘Auckland’ on the side of these tanks as part of the broader ‘Tank Art’ project. The title of this post is the opening line of the poem.

The next day El and I headed off on our road trip and I will write about that shortly, but we did have an awesome time away.

Visiting one of my happy places, the Waitakere Ranges.

Sunday 27 March 2016 – Auckland, New Zealand.

Breaking with a long held, and slightly ridiculous, tradition I am going to post some photos taken over a few days, but in the same general location. Over the four year history of this blog I have pretty faithfully stuck to writing in chronological order. This vexes me mightily on occasion; especially when I have a photo I want to post ‘right now’ but there is a backlog of older things to write about so I can stick to my self-imposed fascination with chronological order.

This process change is a bit of annoyance as I had written a whole load of text over the past few days that followed the right order of things, so now I am going to hit delete and get rid of it. I am going to rebel against myself. Maybe this will be the start of something new – non-date based blog posts, change is good right ?

Mum, El and I had arranged to meet my daughter Mel and her partner DIckie at the Arataki Centre in the Waitakere Ranges. The ranges are pretty much entirely forest (or bush as we call it in NZ) and form the bulk of a regional park running along the western edge of the city of Auckland, separating the city from the Tasman Sea. The ranges are why I love Auckland, I lived on the fringes of the forest before I went travelling and moved to London. The Arataki Centre is the information hub for the ranges and quite a tourist spot, with some lovely views out over the national park.

El and I visited the centre when we last came to New Zealand, but this time we are going to do the 1.6km nature walk. I haven’t done the walk since the kids were small and we had a horrible experience dragging small children up a steep path amongst some trees – they hated it, and made sure we did to. I was hoping for a lot more now I am doing the walk with adults, even if one of those adults was originally one of those kids.

I have always had a love of trees, but this has become a bit of an obsession over recent times, especially the naked winter trees I see in England. New Zealand native trees are primarily evergreen, so seeing tree skeleton forests in wintery England is something I am really fascinated by. There would be no tree skeletons today. Early autumn in the Waitakere Ranges means a sea of green; there are very few colours in a northern NZ forest!

The nature walk is on the other side of the road from the information centre and there is an underpass to get there. This sign was at the entrance to the tunnel. A message we need to think about as cities expand into wilderness areas and we deforest our world in the name of growth.

The thing that stood out for me the most in the walk was the kauri trees. They are my favourite NZ tree and get to be very big over time, the largest remaining kauri in New Zealand is Tane Mahuta and I am planning on seeing it when El and I take a trip up north in a few days time. Tane Mahuta is somewhere between 1200 and 2000 years old, this tree is about 600. Stupidly I forgot to note its name, thinking the internet would supply it for me when I got home. It appears the internet cannot.

It is a magnificent tree, but looks to be suffering. The Waitakeres, and large areas of other native forests are inflicted with Kauri Dieback, a fungal disease which is killing both young and old kauri. Once a tree has been infected there is no cure, and a number of un-logged kauri groves have been devastated, it is terribly sad. The kauri is a tall, straight hardwood tree and covered the Auckland and Northland regions. They were hugely popular with European house and ship builders when they arrived in the 1800s, which resulted in almost all the forests being wiped out by loggers, with only a few ancient trees remaining across the northern part of the country.

It is a really nice walk, quite steep in parts, but it is short so overall it is not too strenuous, we took the small detour at the furthest end from the car park to the kauri knoll to see a few, much younger kauri trees. Not all hope for these trees is lost!

Dickie, Mel, me and El

There are a few other interesting things to see, perhaps if we had walked along the trail with tree names I would know what this rather interesting plant is called.

The New Zealand bush in the north island is sub-tropical, it is predominantly evergreen, and is pretty much entirely green in colour, there are very few plants that have bright flowers or berries.

The rata tree is an exception with lovely red flowers.

It was a very nice walk, and given we were outside for only a short time and it was not particularly sunny, it was all a bit hot and sweaty!

A couple of days later El and I had moved to stay at my sister’s house in Titirangi, she has only recently moved in and has renovated extensively, it is a lovely space to live, and is surrounded by immature kauri trees.

These three kauri are right outside the back door and the deck is built around them.

After the family had left after a very nice lunch El, my sister and I went for a walk around the block. (I will sneak a quick after lunch Mason photo just because I can. It is my blog after all)

A walk round the block where my sister lives is nothing like a walk round the block where El and I live in suburban London. There are some houses, she is very close to the city after all, but there is plenty of not-houses as well. Exhibition drive is a flat, gravel road that runs from the edge of Titirangi out towards the dams in the Waitakere Ranges. It is about 3.25km long, is closed to all motor vehicles and was a very regular running track for me. It is popular with walkers, and forms part of a good loop to walk from my sister’s house.

The road is used for service vehicles that monitor the pipes that run water from the dams to a nearby water treatment station.

The pipe runs fairly straight so there are lots of short tunnels on the way, when I was young you could walk/crawl through them, health and safety means they are all blocked off now.

The path is through a very scruffy, and regenerating part of the forest, it is a lovely walk, especially on a sunnyish day like today – and especially after a large lunch!

As the large trees were cut down a long time ago the lower level trees and scrub have taken off here and there are a large number of nikau palm and punga trees all along the walk.

I was looking for a bit of flare action through the nikau palm leaves.

I am fascinated by how the palm fronds appear to interlace with each other, forming patchworks of shadow and light.

I really like these roots, I think they are from an old macracarpa tree. I have photographed them before, may years ago, and I was pleased to see they were still intact, popping out of the bank below the tree, merging with the rock and the hard old clay.

We cut down a steep, and considering it is the end of summer, surprisingly muddy track down to a newer pipeline, and short cut back home. Not many people know about this section of pipeline, I found it years ago, when I was looking for short tracks to ride a mountain bike in this semi-urban area.

We were soon back at my sisters after another really enjoyable walk, in one of my favourite forests, and time for a glass of pinot gris before dinner.

To New Zealand. (Warning – this post contains gratuitous grandchild photos.)

Thursday 24 March 2016 – Auckland, New Zealand.

It has been an interesting few weeks since I last mentioned looking for a flat to buy, or made any visits to Folkestone, the main location I was looking at flats in. It has been a slow start to the year at work and I have been a little nervous about getting a mortgage I could not afford to pay if I was suddenly out of work. I have taken a break from flat hunting until things become more certain. I am a little disappointed that I have had take a break from finding my own place, but it has also been good to take a break. My three day weekends are my own again!

Earlier in the year El and I booked return tickets to New Zealand, it has been almost a year since I was last there and 24 months since we were there together. Like all visits this was to be short, and hopefully sweet. We had 12 days in New Zealand followed by three days in Hong Kong on the way back to London. It is a lot of money, but it will be good to see family and friends.

With so much on at work we have employed a contract applications analyst who will cover for me while I am away, and then do the grunt support work when I return, so I can concentrate on some projects that are coming up. It has been so busy these last few weeks I have been really looking forward to the break!

I have also been looking forward to some nice weather too, we have had a pretty mild winter in London, no snow (yet), so it has not been too cold, but it has been grey and damp and the thought of 21 degrees in Auckland was very exciting. Naturally, the day we left London was glorious.

Our flight left London on Tuesday evening, we had a day at work to contend with, which is never fun, and even less fun was lugging big suitcases on the tube through rush hour traffic. We left home at 7:00, hoping there would be less people than 7:30. There seemed to be more, oh well – at least the walk to the station was nice.

We flew Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong, it was a full flight, and unusually for me I slept for four or five hours of the 11 hour flight. I was quite happy with that outcome. El has a much worse flight than me, poor girl. Mine was aided by a couple of red wines at the Heathrow before the flight. I watched a bit of inflight TV – most of season 6 of Archer, and one movie. The entertainment options were not too bad. We had just under two hours in HK airport, we stay here for two days on the way back to London and I am really looking forward to that – especially after my last ill fated visit to the city. It was all looking rather grey out of the airport window.

I didn’t realise the flight on to London was code-shared and on an Air New Zealand plane, I may have planned differently and grabbed a few more Air NZ air miles for next time. I recently found out I am going to be a grandfather again, my oldest son and middle child, Dom’s partner is expecting in October. He lives in Aussie and sadly I will not see him on this trip. I will come back to NZ and Aussie once the baby is born, hopefully using some air points to either improve the flight or reduce the cost.

We were seated over the wing on both flights, which meant there was no spectacular view out the window – a waste of a window seat really ! I put the camera away after taking this picture, didn’t seem to be much point.

We left the terminal slightly late and missed our take off spot, this ended up with a massive delay in leaving and we were in the plane for over an hour before take off. It really adds to the joy that is long distance travel ! it was another very full plane, El had a better flight than me this time, so I guess we were even !! The 10 half hours to Auckland seemed to take forever, possibly because we lost a day – we left on Tuesday and arrived on Thursday morning. Wednesday failed to exist for us. We did watch the movie Wild, which I have been wanting to see, I also watched the final Hunger Games movie, the second Divergent series movie and four episodes of the TV series Blindspot. Got them all out of the way, though none were on any particular must watch list.

We landed on time fortunately and ever more fortunately had a quick trip through customs and out in to the arrival hall where my mum was waiting. It was really good to see mum again ! We haven’t Skyped for a while, and of course we have not seen each other since I was last here almost a year ago.

Unlike London, Auckland was grey and warm – 21 degrees and quite humid. We were, apparently, very lucky to have just missed a really bad storm that blew through over night. With heavy rain and high winds it would have made for a lousy approach and landing, and I really hate those !!

We are staying at mum’s place for a few nights, and not long after we arrived my youngest son, Aiden arrived with his son, and my grandson Mason who is about 20 months. He was a little cautious about these strangers for about the first two minutes, but soon settled in to playing and interacting with us. It must be unusual to see me face to face when he would normally only see me on the computer screen, I was very much out of context.

He is a delightful wee boy, and very hard to take a photo of…. he loves cars, bikes and trucks. Like most boys his age I expect.

Mason takes his food very seriously.

Aiden is teaching him to pull faces, a skill that he will obviously need later in life.

Aiden and Mason left soon after an early dinner, I was falling asleep on the couch by 7:30 and ended up being soundly asleep in bed by 8:30. I had a great, and very unexpected sleep too!

Lovely to see mum, Aiden and Mason today and looking forward to seeing my daughter, Mel and her partner, Dickie tomorrow.

A quick family catch up in New Zealand.

Sunday 21 June 2015 – London.

I have been back in London from my quick trip back to New Zealand for over four weeks now and this is my first attempt at writing about the visit. I have been busy again with work, and we have had some lovely English summer evenings that have been perfect for an after dinner walk – but really it has just been a hard post to write. It is not getting easier with time either, my feelings towards the country in which I was brought up are very mixed now. I loved seeing my family and friends, but I hated the central part of Auckland, was ambivalent about the rest and felt very disconnected from the place. It was as if I did not belong in the city anymore.

Maybe it was the fact it was a short trip, that I was jet lagged and tired for most of the time I was there, who knows. I knew it was not going to be a ‘fun’ trip before I left, but I found it far more draining than I expected.

I arrived on Friday 12^th at 5:00 am, after three mostly reasonable flights via Dubai and Melbourne. I would not normally elect to fly with an airline that makes two stop offs, but I had old air points with Qantas which were slowly disappearing with age so thought I would use them to get an upgrade to premium economy on the trip to NZ. It made a huge difference and I really liked the leg to Dubai, great flight. I witnessed a sad experience at Melbourne airport security as one of the officials was screaming at (I think) an Indonesian couple who obviously had limited English as they tried to take a stroller through the security gate. He was a miserable prick, and a classic example of what I hate about Australia.

It was great to see my mum as I walked out into the arrival hall, I was very appreciative of her coming out so early on a Friday to collect me! I spent the morning with mum and after a brief rest went in to Auckland city to do my shopping and visit my daughter at work. I was staying at a mates place near the centre of the city and was lucky to have a car again for the entire time I was there. You have to have a car in Auckland, much as I want to use public transport, it is a bit shit – especially compared to London.

It is early winter in NZ in June, though the weather for the trip, in the main was pretty good, though Friday was miserable, windy and wet, and I was miserable with it. I really hated the city centre again, no soul, no spirit and not the place I enjoyed. The shops I frequented over many years, like Whitcoulls on Queen St and (tears) Real Groovy Records are closing, Real Groovy so another hideous, unnecessary and stupid tower can be built, though fortunately it just moving. I did get some great second hand records though!

Though not all was changing, I was after a couple of books and managed to get both of them at my favourite Auckland book shop Unity Books, and I was so pleased it was still there on High St.

My daughter works in a lovely new organic cafe on Victoria St, and I was very excited to be able to go and see her for lunch on my first day, wonderful to see her smiley face.

I walked up to the top of town to visit a new record shop Flying Out records, I was after some new NZ music, but ended up with two English albums Smile Loved the store though.

And back down again through Myers Park, one of the few highlights of the city centre.

It was way too early to turn up at my friends place for dinner, so I stopped at Mission Bay on Auckland’s beautiful, glorious, wonderful waterfront for a glass of pinot and to catch a traditional photo of Rangitoto Island.

I stayed the night at my friends place with the plan of going for a mountain bike ride on the Saturday morning. I awoke with a mild hangover and to some lousy windy and rainy weather. Mountain biking was off, not sure if I was happy or sad with that.

Once the weather had settled I decided to head out to Piha just to get sand between my toes and to enjoy a brunch at the Piha Cafe. The cafe was full when I arrived so I settled for some lovely cold sand between my toes. Living in London I don’t get to visit the beach that much, and I do miss the easy access to these lovely wild beaches I had when I lived here.

My little red car.

I stayed at my sister’s house over the weekend, she moved here last year and has a really nice small growth of young kauri trees out the back. Lovely!

I also managed to spend lots of time with my family, including my grandson Mason. I see him on Skype fairly regularly,

I spent the rest of the trip staying with my mum and seeing my family as much as possible. Apart from a day out walking on Monday, which I posted about previously the rest of the trip was busy with jobs and organising things.

I have finally committed to moving the last of my stuff from New Zealand to London, there was not a whole lot of stuff left, and the cost of shipping all of it versus shipping most of it was negligible so I organised for a shipping company to come round and pick up the lot. I will finally have my records and my turntable in the same country as me.

On Thursday night I went out for dinner with some friends and my daughter and NZ based son, the kids and I then went to Whammy Bar and the Wine Cellar to see my nephew the drummer in the band ‘Heroes for Sale’. I have never seen them play so it was awesome to get to go to a gig while I was here, they were pretty damn cool.

Friday the 19^th was the reason I came to NZ, it is Mason’s first birthday, and my oldest son is coming over from Australia for the weekend. I didn’t do too much during the day, final organisation and a last bit of shopping before going to pick up son from the airport to take him to my daughters house and for the first time in a couple of years I got to see all my children together in the same place.

Saturday we had a family party for Mason, firstly at my daughters and then at my mums. I think he had a good time! I am not sure about those dodgy moustaches though !

And then Sunday, it was brunch with the family, before taking my son to the airport and then heading their myself. 8 days and my trip was over.

My journey home was the reverse of the trip out, with stop offs in Melbourne and Dubai. I had another mini-drama in Melbourne when I left my glasses on the plane after they fell out of my pocket. I was in a mild panic in the airport as I had visions (blurry) of 20 hours of flights to London not being able to read or watch movies, but fortunately Qantas managed to reunite my glasses with me before we left. Well done Qantas !

I loved Dubai airport.

It was good trip to New Zealand, really busy, so no proper holiday – I look forward to that at the end July.

It was great to see my family, especially to have all the kids and my grandson together in the same place at the same time. I was disappointed in NZ, I don’t like the politics there and I was disappointed in what I read in the papers and saw on TV news about the state of the country and the attitudes of some of the people. Auckland seems lifeless and desolate and will only get worse as they build more flats and apartments for overseas buyers who leave them empty, driving more people out of the centre of the city. Thank God for the west coast beaches, the Waitakere Ranges, the bush and my friends and family.