Piha

Today we were persuaded by our lovely friend Xanthe to abandon the warmth of the fire and venture out to see the magnificent waves at Piha Beach. So, we wrapped up in our coats and set off. She was quite right, it was well worth the effort. The noise and power of the waves was utterly humbling, the whole beach awash with spray from the sea. Some brave soul was surfing!!! Here are a few piccies, but nothing could do justice to the size, strength and pounding of the waves, you'll just have to try and imagine that bit...

Wildlife

Wherever we travel in the north island we see a variety of wildlife. Sacred Kingfishers love to sit on telephone wires and are common everywhere, not just along rivers. Fantails are the sweetest birds that do a little dance with their tail to help them catch insects. The most amazing call is of the Tui - and noticeably at the moment no crickets churping. Chickens run wild almost anywhere there's a bit of open land or a picnic site. But our favourite of all is the Pukeko. About as common as ducks, they have really long gangly legs and the most brilliant of colours - the beak is the most vivid red and the feathers blue. I am very proud of myself for having got close enough to take a picture of my own this week, here it is, the Pukeko!

Sheepworld

Had a lovely day out this week at Sheepworld! We had a walk along Orewa Beach on the way, and went for a hot soak at the volcanic pools at Waiwera on the way back. After nearly 4 months of only having showers, it's amazing what luxury a hot pool can feel like!

Anyway, Sheepworld, we had heaps of fun and it was a really great day out. Emma was called up into the show to try and "sort" sheep; they demo'd the sheepdog and shearing; and we all got to feed an orphan lamb each at the end. Too cute! Oh, and the obligatory petting corner with rabbits and guinea pigs!

Rainforest!

Gosh, no wonder it's so lush and green here, it really can rain! A couple of days this week we've been rained off and curled up in front of the fire with a game, film or book. Last weekend our friends Jess and Sophia came over and played games & with the dog, Poppy, for the afternoon. Here's a couple of pics...

Kev, this one's for you!

We could only think fondly of how much our brother-in-law Kev would have enjoyed it had he been with us! ;0)

An entire hall of the Kauri Museum dedicated to the Chainsaw! Some of them over 8ft long! On some of these logs you'd have one guy at the top, with the handles of the Chainsaw, and some poor bloke underneath with the other end! It was awesome. Kev, these pictures are dedicated to you...

Kauri Trees

We ventured as far north as we've been this week, to the Kauri Museum just south of Dargaville. Kauris are the largest tree second only to the Sequoia and provided logs for early Settlers - for houses, dams, bridges, ships and furniture. They are huge. We've yet to see a really big one in the flesh but will when we do our tour of Northland, which is coming up soon. Most interesting were the black & white photos of the pioneers cutting and transporting these huge logs with only saws and ox to help them - it often took teams of 16 oxen to drag a single log! As time moved on they built trams and railways to help, and entire shipping routes were set up for exporting them. Many of the original forests were decimated. As well as logs the Kauri also provided gum - a resin akin to Amber. Fossilised it's used like a precious stone, or melted down to make varnish and paint. Gumdigging was an entire industry of its own.

Sun & Rain

After two days of rain we ventured out to a local park called Duder Regional Park, about 20 minutes drive from here. As the bay is so secluded it feels more like a loch than the sea. We saw the rain coming from across the bay and were treated to the most amazing double rainbow on the way back.

PS we went to see Prince Caspian at the cinema on Thursday and we got a really good view of Cathedral Cove where they're stood on the beach! We've been there! :0)

Museum of Technology

This week we discovered a lovely museum in Auckland dedicated to the history of Technology and Transport. There's a tram journey from one part to another; a re-assembled Victorian village; and lots of stuff to do with radios, engines and steam...Pictured is a brick building housing the beam engine from the very first water pump installed in Auckland (for those of you who know the Abbey Pump House in Leicester it's almost identical, and most of the steam engines had been shipped over from Birmingham so Tim felt very much at home!); and a typical Settlers' house from the early 19th century.

Narnia on Location

And here’s the cove itself. Cliffs and islands, bush and waterfalls, it’s very Cornish but at the same time quite unique. Here’s looking forward to the movie, there is debate in the Wilkinson household about what point the cove will appear…we’ll be guessing until we finally see it on Thursday. They are agreed on one thing, though, that Reepicheep will steal the show!!

Bush Walk to Cathedral Cove

Our final destination from Tairua was about half an hour further up the Coromandel at a place called Hahei (haven’t worked out how to pronounce that one!). Cathedral Cove will apparently feature in the new Narnia Film “Prince Caspian”. Emma and Tim have both been busy reading the whole Narnia collection since we found out the film was being released, and finally it will be with us next Thursday. If you’ve already seen it, we don’t want to know!!! NZ is a bit behind, it seems, on world cinema release schedules! :0)

Here are a couple of pictures of the walk down to the Cove. It’s about a 40 minute bush walk from the car park with the most amazing views – islands popping out of the ocean as far as they eye can see…

Trip to Paku

We took an overnight trip to the Coromandel Peninsula this week to a little town called Tairua (pro. Tie-roo-ah), in a motel at the bottom of a volcanic cone called Paku. It’s right out at the end of a peninsula so looking inland there’s a tidal bay, the small town and then the steep mountain range (The Pinnacles) of the Coromandel; and on the other side the sea. Top is the view from our motel window, what a stunning location.

The other is a picture looking back at Paku – ours was the pinky-coloured building to the far-right.

Motels are generally fab and really well equipped – fridge, cooking facilities, laundry and comfortable bedrooms, and space permitting the obligatory Barbie! This one even has kayaks for guests to use in the bay, and spades if you plan to visit Hot Water Beach. That’s where you dig a hole in the sand and it fills with hot water for you to sit in – but the tides are not great at this time of year…

Rangitoto Volcano Island

Here's (top) one of the places we want to visit by boat. Look beyond the shrubbery and you’ll faintly see the volcanic cone island of Rangitoto. It was a bit of a hazy day so you’ll have to look closely. This picture was taken from Omana Regional Park, just a 10 minute drive from here and fast becoming a favourite for a brisk hour-long walk around the perimeter.

The other picture is also from Omana, looking from the cliff top down to the beach. In the foreground are Pahutakawa trees. The Maori origin of the name means something like “sea spray” and “the lapping of the waves” as Pahutakawas are most often found in precarious positions on sea cliffs. They’re not averse to the seawater that most trees can’t tolerate. Apparently they flower with the most incredible red blooms around Christmas so are also known as New Zealand Christmas Trees.

Auckland Harbour

There are hundreds of islands around Auckland and it’s time we started exploring some of them. We went down to the harbour to get boat and ferry timetables. Although the Central Business District (CBD) and Harbour are made up mostly of modern high-rise buildings, there is the odd historical pearl like this one. Architectural history doesn’t go back that far in NZ – the oldest remaining buildings are from the 19th century.

Clevedon Park

We got some leaflets on the Regional Parks in the area and today went out to the next village to Whitford, Clevedon. We did about an hour of bushwalk and have invested in a can of BushMan repellent as even though it's cooler we kept getting bitten, maybe just the last few mosquitoes or sandflies. Ouch! No bites today though thank goodness...

Afterwards we found a really cute little Chocolate Shop for a cup of tea and a small indulgence - well, we had just had some exercise!

PS Claudia kindly let me know that I'd got my settings set up wrong so not everyone who wanted to post a comment was able to....well, I've reset now so if you want to add a "comment" please do!!!

Queen's Birthday

On the Queen's official birthday they have a bank holiday here in New Zealand and everyone gets out for some serious rest & relaxation! We took ourselves off to Auckland Museum, set in acres of landscape designed by the "Acclimatisation Society" in the late 19th century. They were dedicated to introducing plant and animal species to the islands to help the Settlers feed and improve themselves, and to help them 'feel at home' - hence I think we've seen more Sparrows here than back at home. Many of these introduced species thrived and became part of the mainstream - sheep, goats, deer. Believe it or not there were NO native mammals here on the islands except two species of bat. But other introductions have had a devastating effect on native wildlife & fauna (rabbit, possum, stoat, hedgehog). Here endeth the nature lesson for the day :0)

Exploring Gold Mines

This weekend we went to Karangahake. We visited earlier in our tour, it's about 2 hours from Auckland, but hadn't realised before that we needed torches. The reason? You take a fabulous walk over suspension footbridges, through a gorge by a rocky river and there you find the remains of the old Gold Mining Industry. In one set of tunnels there's a cavern where the pumping equipment for the mine used to be. Another is a tunnel where the railway used to take rock from the mine to be processed further downstream. This is really interesting because there are "windows" in the rock face so in some places you can see out. And then finally, the other side of the river is a 1km long tunnel from the old rail link. Really interesting place and fabulously unspoilt - thank god the health and safety police haven't got near it yet or no one would be allowed anywhere near without a hard hat and a guide!!!

Here we are...

It's really difficult to get a good view of our cottage as we're buried in the bush but here's a view from the top of the drive...fabulous location. We're less than 5 minutes away from the nearest shopping mall but the location is really nice and quiet.