new zealand – Page 3 – Where is Phil now?

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.

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.

Ten days in New Zealand.

Thursday 17 July 2014 – Auckland, New Zealand.

After a fairly relaxing weekend away near Donnington Castle. about two hours out of London I spent the following Monday morning doing a final pack before heading off to Heathrow airport for a two week trip back home to New Zealand, and a final couple of days visiting my oldest son in Queensland, Australia. I had vaguely planned my departure to be after the one time when I would be really close to somewhere where the Tour de France was passing by, sadly I had gotten the time completely wrong and the lead riders were due to pass through Walthamstow as I was due to be heading to the airport, Doh !

I am not one to sleep on planes, I have trouble enough sleeping in bed, let alone planes, and though the flight from London to Singapore was in the evening and was reasonably comfortable I did not really doze much more than a few minutes at a time over a number of attempts – I did watch some bad movies though – and once I arrived in New Zealand found I had left my e-reader in the plane. (Yay to Singapore Airlines, they are sending my e-reader to London for me to collect !)

Changi Airport in Singapore is an interesting place, I was there for four hours so had a pretty thorough look around terminal three, If I had not been so damn full after eating at least three meals in the past twelve hours I would have been up there eating some lovely noodles like a shot.

I was less tempted by the pokie machines though. I have never seen gambling in an airport before!

The airport is pretty massive, and I walked a good ten minutes up to where my flight to Auckland was to depart from, only to find it had moved, almost the same distance away in the opposite direction. It was good to stretch out with a walk though.

But, there was a lovely sunset to make it all worthwhile.

I arrived in Auckland mid afternoon on Wednesday, what seems like two days after I left London. The primary reason for my trip this time was to see my new grandson, unnamed at the time I left and I was thrilled to see him when my son, Aiden, brought him around to my mum’s house after work on the day I arrived. We had a lovely family dinner that night and it was great to see everyone, and I got my first hold of my first grandson – Luca Ken (Ken was my late father’s name, it brought a tear to my eye when I found out) . Yes, it was pretty damn cool!

I hadn’t really planned anything beyond seeing family, apart from sorting through some of the stuff I have stored at my brother-in-laws house, disposing of the stuff to be disposed of, and maybe sneaking some vinyl into a bag and taking it back to London.

I spent the first couple of days relaxing and hanging out with my children and on Friday I took a trip down to Mt Te Aroha for a very windy bit of outdoors adventure with my friend Vicki.

With most of my friends working during the week I had a fairly full weekend of catching up with people and took a trip with old friend Chantal,out to Piha on Auckland’s west coast , which is my favourite part of Auckland and the one part of the city I miss. The weather was not the friendliest but we did get to walk along the beach for a bit between the showers, and had a pretty good lunch at Piha Cafe.

In the afternoon I had a great catch up with some friends I met many years ago via Flickr. I missed seeing them last time I was in Auckland, and I really enjoyed our brief couple of hours together – next time we must go and spend some time taking some photos. We had coffee in a couple of cafes including this lovely cafe on K Rd, It looks to be part of a closed theatre but I cannot place one there.

I also took a quick walk around to look at some of the limited range, but quite cool street art in the area.

On Monday mum and I took a trip out to Muriwai Beach, another one of my best loved Auckland locations, dad’s ashes are scattered here and we always come out for a visit when I am in Auckland.

That was pretty much it for the week, I spent two days organising my stuff, visited the kids a few times, hung out with some friends and saw my sisters my lovely new house.

On my last day I went for a walk around mums ‘hood in Henderson. The council here have done a great job over the years in building and linking up walking paths that snake around the greener areas of the suburb, taking walking and cycling off of busy – and in some cases ugly, light industrial roads. Mum walks these regularly and it was nice to get out for a couple of walks while I was staying with her – especially on such a nice morning, cool though it was.

We walked through Tui Glen which is now a park, but back in the 1970’s it was a caravan park village and we lived here, in this small home when we first arrived in New Zealand from England in the summer of 1973. We stayed here for a few weeks while my parents found jobs and a place to set down roots. I will say it was the most unhappy time for me and I suspect all of us. A lot of the flats have been knocked down, but some like this one – now called Glen Oaks have been preserved.

I had to take a photo of this mill house in Henderson it is 170 years old and an historic place. After recently walking on Roman ruins from almost a thousand years ago in London, I do find it so amusing that anything of a century old in Auckland is considered historic – though it will never get to be a thousand years old if they are not preserved now!

And that was pretty much the end of my NZ trip. I did buy myself a new camera, this time I have gone for a more traditional point and shoot style with a Canon G16. Time to replace my Lumix’s. I won’t say I will miss the GX1, I found it too frustrating to use in the end, but the GF1 served me very well all around South East Asia.

Next stop Brisbane, and my other son Dom. Yay!

Top O’ the South, South Island, NZ

Friday 14 February 2014 – Top o’ the South, New Zealand.

For a holiday we were up pretty damn early on Tuesday, we had to check in for the ferry that was taking us across the Cook Strait to Picton in the Marlborough Sounds at 7:00 AM. We were travelling on the Bluebridge ferry and good fortune rather than good planning saw us on a crossing where my brother in law John, was the captain. Good fortune also saw us on a quiet crossing, apparently the previous day there were five metre swells in the Strait, and vomit bags were well used :

We had a lovely, if cool, morning.

The crossing was delayed slightly as the competing ferry companies ferry broke down again and we had to wait for their passengers and freight to be loaded on our ferry, but after an hours delay we were under way – on the next leg of our wee NZ adventure.

The journey to Picton on a good day is one of NZ’s finest – yet relatively under-subscribed, experiences. The exit from Wellington harbour is lovely and crossing the Cook Strait gives the sharp eyed the opportunity to see all sorts of sea mammals. I was lucky enough to be able to be able to briefly catch up with John and as I asked him about seeing dolphins a school of them passed by the front of the ship, fabulous – though of course I did not have my camera on me at the time!

The real highlight of the three or so hour sailing is slowly cruising up through the Marlborough sounds, being on a large sea vessel as it negotiates these narrow channels is pretty damn amazing. It was very cold out on the deck, I was wrapped up more thoroughly than I was when I walked from my home to the station in wintery London and El was wrapped for the full Antarctic :)but it was worth the minor discomfort to experience the ride.

We arrived in Picton an hour late and by the time I had run around picking up the rental car we were well into the early afternoon. My daughter Mel and her friends had come over on an earlier ferry but had left by the time we arrived – though we would see them later on. (Yay). After some time spent in Blenheim we headed out to our hotel for the night, the Marlborough Vintners Hotel.

Maybe if you have been dead for the last twenty or so years then you would not know that the Marlborough district at the top of the south island is one of the premier wine growing regions in the world, so I am assuming that most people have at least heard of Marlborough sauvignon blancs ! Before we left London we had decided that a visit to Marlborough and a tasting or two was an essential part of our trip.

We were a bit late for tastings on the Tuesday but had a very nice meal and some lovely local wine in the hotel. The local rieslings and pinot gris were just stunning! The sunset was better than what I managed to capture on my camera.

Sadly, the following morning had to check out of the hotel, we had tried to get a second night but it was fully booked. It would have been a perfect place to just laze about for a day and enjoy the main reason for holidaying – relaxing (with awesome wine !). We stayed until kicking out time which happened to coincide with the opening for tasting a number of the major wineries in the area. Our first stop was the obligatory Cloudy Bay, where we shared a couple of tastings. I was driving so this was all very civilised – and it was only 10:00. The wine was fabulous as you would have expected!

Our next stop was Allan Scott, we were looking forward to this as we had a couple of Allan Scott pinot gris in Auckland and they were absolutely lovely. However, after hanging around in the shop for five minutes with no one coming down to see us we left. Pissed off.

Anyway, it was our good fortune as we decided to check out Hunters Vineyard as we had time and capacity for one more small tasting before hitting the road. Wow ! Hunters was great. The tasting was free and very informative, and the best thing was the wine was fabulous, especially the Riesling and gewurztraminer. We bought a couple of bottles and I was especially pleased to know that the London importer was Laithwaites, which is just down the road from where I live. Well done Hunters ! stupidly I did not take a photo 😦

Today was supposed to be a fairly chilled and relaxed drive over to my sister’s place outside of Nelson (I have two sisters for those who have read this blog for a while and may get confused, one in Auckland and one way the heck out in the country outside of Nelson). We decided to take the scenic route through the Marlborough Sounds Drive – oh so lovely. We stopped for photos on a couple of occasions on the way, first at the bay where my sister used to live in a tiny hamlet called “The Grove”.

And then at the top of a hill on Queen Charlotte Drive (I forgot to get its name) with views over Queen Charlotte Sound.

And our next stop, the small town of Havelock.

We stopped for coffee and lunch in Havelock, and as mentioned in my last post, the food and the coffee were great. This cafe had the added bonus of homemade fudge – I bought watermelon, passionfruit and Bounty as after dinner treats for my sisters family. Surprisingly they actually tasted as described, the watermelon was simply delightful!

Our next stop was at the aptly named Pelorus Bridge, over the Pelorus River. The Pelorus River was used for the scene in the Hobbit Part 2 where the hobbits were fleeing the orcs in barrels down the river – one of my favourite scenes in any of the Middle Earth movies. The river was not quite as exciting where we were. We took a short walk down to a swing bridge and back again to the car as out short driving day was slowly getting longer and longer.

We arrived at my sisters in the late afternoon, my bro-in-law was still working on the ferry so it was just my sister and their two sons who were there. They live way the heck out in the countryside and we had drive down two long unsealed roads to get there, El’s first time on metal roads – as we call them in NZ. I had to resist the teenage urge in me to go sideways round the corners…

It was great to see my sister and the boys, it has been a wee while since I last saw them and the boys had grown immeasurably since.

They live in a house on a small farm, and though there are only four of them living there there were EIGHTEEN gumboots !

They have sheep – it is NZ, of course they have sheep!

The following morning we set off towards the north-western corner of the south island and Farewell Spit, I have never been there before so was keen to check it out. The spit is twenty something kilometres long and is only accessible by a day tour, we didn’t have the time for that so just had to contend with a visit to the base. We started with a walk over to Wharariki Beach, on the Tasman Sea. It was howling with wind and once we had passed the farm land we were constantly being sand blasted in the gusts. But it was a beautiful and remote spot and on a fine day would be spectacular. There are baby fur seals in the area which was one of the attractions for me, but we did not see any.

We then headed up to Farewell Spit proper and found a a really nice cafe at the entrance to the park, the coffee was great and the food pretty damn fine, a very nice lunch was had – very much to my surprise. After lunch we walked down to the beach and strolled up for a while before turning back and heading back to the nearest point of civilisation – Takaka, where we spent some time on the internet and booked a bed for the night. This is the closest we got to Farewell Spit – though one day I will be back !

We found a very nice little hotel at Pohara Beach, just outside Takaka on Golden Bay. This whole area used to be very erm, rural and a wee bit hippy, especially towns like Takaka. The game has really been lifted and it is a charming country town. It is very tourist driven, something I am normally against, but it works here. I liked it. And I had the best damn coffee in NZ in Takaka.

We arranged to catch up with Mel and her BF, plus additional friend from the UK here. It was my final catch up with Mel before we left and it was very special to see them in such a cool place like Pohara Beach. So I did get a photo before we left.

The following day we caught up with Mel again for breakfast coffee before El and I drove back to Nelson city where we had lunch with some old friends of mine before flying back to Auckland, and there pretty much ended the holiday.

A very short North island road trip.

Mon 09 February 2014 – Road trip North Island, New Zealand.

On Saturday morning mum took El and I out to Auckland airport where we picked up a rental car for a couple of days of driving down to Wellington. As we were not bringing the car back to Auckland we were charged a monstrous “one way” fee. Almost twice the car rental, outrageous in these modern global tourism times. They all charge it, milking the customers – bastards!

We were going to take two days to drive south, not a huge amount of time given all the cool things to see on the way. We had limited ourselves to two stops on the first day – Hobbitton near Matamata and the Orakei Korako thermal area between Rotorua and Taupo.

We stopped in Matamata at the very neat tourism office, made up to look like a Hobbit house. We were informed that the only way to visit Hobbitton was on a tour, this really didn’t suit our (my) aggressive timetable that much so we sort directions to Hobbitton (not that easy to get) and drove there ourselves.

El is a big fan of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit series (I am little bit) and we were both keen to at least have a look at the site and El wanted to pick up some gifts from the gift shop. After the very cool looking tourism building in town we were both seriously let down to find the entrance to Hobbitton is a large tin shed…

El bought a couple of souvenirs and we then carried on with our journey to Rotorua. Rotorua is the probably the main tourist centre of the north island. One of only a couple of areas of thermal activity in the world it has some fairly unique attractions, combined with a few Maori cultural sites and some extreme sports make this tourist heaven. We took a slow drive through town and then continued on to the thermal area of Orakei Korako, almost in Taupo.

To get to the smallish area of interest you take a small boat from the office and then walk up the edge of a large silica bank, it looks very dramatic with the white silica stained by the different algae growing in the warm thermal waters.

The thermal activity here comprises of a lot of pools of super hot spring water and a couple of small geysers, though the geysers did not spout while we were there. It was incredibly cool though and we both enjoyed the walk around. I loved this, the Diamond Geyser – so East London…

At the top of the trail we found some boiling mud, something I was really hoping to see, as it is something very unique to the area. One of the downsides of thermal activity is the smell of sulphur, just like rotting eggs. Luckily it was not overpowering here; or maybe we got used it !

We spent a couple of hours at Orakei Korako and thoroughly enjoyed it, in a way it was good we did not go to Hobbitton as it gave us more time here to walk around and enjoy such a unique experience.

We briefly stopped at Huka Falls on the edge of Lake Taupo.

Then a further brief stop to photograph the lake, which is one of the world’s largest.

We had original planned on staying in a lakeside hotel in Taupo but I had a brain wave as we were researching accommodation and we decided to stay at the Chateau Tongariro on the edge of the Whakapapa ski-field on Mt Tongariro. The only time I have been in there was to see a band on some ski trip way back in the beginnings of time and I had always wanted to stay there. It was surprisingly ‘cheap’, so we decided to do it. The drive to the Chateau through the central highlands and national park was just stunning. We could have done two days there alone…

We had a great night in the hotel, I was expecting ‘faded glory’ but it has been well maintained and was quite plush.

The following morning we were up early, and under cloudy skies headed off for the long drive to Wellington. We stopped for more photos of the mountain on the way but sadly did not get to see Lord of the rings ‘Mount Doom’, otherwise known as Mt Ngauruhoe as it was so cloudy.

We stopped for coffee in Bulls – NZ pun central, and had an average drink in a place that really did not make us feel welcome at all. The only place in NZ we visited that seemed to not like visitors – or us anyway.

We arrived in Wellington in the early afternoon and checked into our hotel before returning the rental car, the bill still sends shivers up my spine ! We arranged to meet my daughter and her BF for lunch, they are on a longer road trip than we are – lucky them. And then El and I walked down to water front to the Museum of NZ, Te Papa for a look – it was free, and pretty good.

I found some cool anti-shark fining street art on the way 🙂

After a drink with Mel and friends we enjoyed a really nice meal in the hotel and then retired early and tired. Up early tomorrow for the ferry to the south island!