March 31

Hi again everyone... I have been away from the internet for quite awhile and busy surviving 28 degree, sunny beach life in the Cook Islands at Rarotonga so I wanted to update a few of our adventures over the last week and a half.

We left Des's place with great reluctance as we had such a grand time eating his food, swimming, fishing, watching dolphins and walking on beaches.  Here is a shot I took the last morning showing the  fluorescent green NZ hills with terracing from the cows visible on the left of the picture.

I then took Cathy, Nola and Doug to Whangarei to catch the bus to Auckland and I headed to CollaboratioNZ.  More on the collab later.  It seemed rather odd to be separating our group as we had such a great time travelling together and enjoying our adventures.

Cathy had a great time on her bicycle trip to the South Island.  As you can imagine she asked everyone she could find about biking in NZ and enjoyed the ride as well as the conversations. Here are some of her pictures of the trip.

Enjoying a coffee with fellow travellers I found along the trail.

Cathy took a picture of some people stopped for coffee along the trail and they commented 'Hey that person just took our picture'.  That was the only opening needed for a great encounter with Cathy explaining that she was taking pictures of people enjoying bicycle trails for her work with the TCT in Canada. They invited her for morning tea and this led to a few more encounters with this group along the way.

The landscape is absolutely spectacular.

Train bridge converted to bicycle trail.

Doug and Nola's trip to the South Island was a great success.  They had much better weather than I did in the North Island at the collaboration.  The bus trip worked out well and they met lots of people and saw some amazing scenery.

On the boat in Milford Sound.

Top of the gondola in Queenstown.

Round rocks on beach at Moeraki

The collab was great for me.  I had a wonderful time meeting many old friends and making new ones.  It was a frantic time of making things from all kinds of materials that the organizing committee had collected. The weather was quite similar to the last time I was here in 2003 with a cyclone settling in on day 2 with heavy rain and gail force winds threatening to tear down all the tents.  My friend Graeme Priddle was in charge of the site so was up every half hour tightening tent straps and pounding in new pegs as the ground was getting more and more saturated with rain.  A few people suggested that I would probably not be invited back to a New Zealand Collaboration as I was the common denominator for cyclone conditions!
I arrived at the collab. site two days prior to the start so had some time to wander about and take pictures along with helping with the set up.

Setting up the work tents prior to start of Collab.

I remembered this flower from before and really find it inspiring as a shape and exercise in colour transition.  Oh that I could paint like nature.

Red hot poker plant flower.

I spent quite a lot of my time working on three shelves along with Miranda and her friend Ros. I made this fish, hollowed it out, found some glass from left over pieces used in another project, glued it all up and Miranda painted it. I arranged for the glass blower to make the 'kissy lips' for the mouth.  Miranda made the trees out of metal and painted them as well.  It was really fun to have time to make things and not be concerned about the organizational aspects of a collaboration.

'Tropical paradise'

One really cool piece was made using an old sewing machine that was donated for the cause.  A giant propellor was carved and fastened to the sewing machine along with a metal stand and wind vane.  When the wind blew the sewing machine went crazy!!

The following piece was the most expensive at the auction.  It was made by Lyonel Grant (see previous blog about visiting the Mare in Auckland) and some other carvers and makers.  The Maori carvings are highly sought after by collectors.  This piece was a special one with blacksmiths and carvers all working on its creation. The head, arms and legs all move.

After the collab. Cathy joined me again and we went to an amazing place belonging to Hans and Lillian Herleth.  Their place is on the West coast about an hour from the collab site.

Herleth's house made from recycled materials.


View from the deck on house above. (Note bee hive in lower left corner and banana tree in center)

It was the like the Garden of Eden with virtually everything you could want to live off the land.  We ate bananas, pears, fijoa fruit, tomatoes, squash and many more things picked directly from the land.  He had bees as well that had made great Manuka (a tee tree family) honey recently harvested. 

Hans banana tree with fruit.

View from Hans' yard.

 I was able to help milk his cow one morning as well.  It had been a long time since I had milked a cow so my hands gave out after a few minutes and Hans had to finish the job.  After miking we made some yogurt and had coffee and hot milk (called a flat white in NZ).  It made such a delicious drink with the 'oh so fresh milk'.

Milking Hans's cow.

We left NZ with a funny sense of excitement at starting our journey home and a sadness at leaving such a beautiful country and an amazing holiday.  We arrived at the Cook Islands and are now at a holiday home in Muri Beach Resort on Rarotonga.  I'm out of time to include pictures of this so will see if I have time in before we leave late Sat. night.

March 16

Another day in paradise has begun.  Yesterday we had a wonderful day filled with adventure.  We started out with a trip to the island cave just off shore from Des's beach.  It was a treacherous place to get to with sharp rocks and moving swells as the waves rolled back and forth. Once past the barnacles and ocean swells we arrived in a dark cave.  Once our eyes became accustomed to the dark there was a beautiful pool with a splash of light streaming through a crevice in the rock above.  Everyone went in for a swim and gazed at the crabs scrambling over the rocks to get away from us. It was a magical place.

 

Doug and Nola in wet suits ready for the trip to the cave.

Scrambling over barnacles and timing the next surge forward in time with the swells.

In the cave.

After the cave adventure with only a few scrapes and bruises we swam in the 23 degree ocean and played in the kayaks.

Cathy enjoying an ocean swim.

Doug and Nola exploring a beach that Captain Cook missed.

Doug and the kayak.

Nola and the kayak.

Trent is off taking bird pictures while the others are kayaking and swimming.

Variable Oystercatcher.

After the swim lunch was served by our astonishingly talented host Des.  He had some fish smoking while we were out playing all morning.  The lunch was complimented with fresh bread, and fresh veggies and avocado.

Des's fish smoking with Kanuka or Tea Tree wood.

While having lunch we noticed that Dolphin were playing out in the bay.  It was pretty exciting to see them and I was able to capture a very distant photo of one jumping in the air.

Distant picture of jumping dolphin.

Next on our action packed was a planned fishing trip for Cathy and I.  Hoping to at least equal Doug and Nola's catch of three Snapper and a Kahawai (of the smoked fish for lunch fame) Cathy and I headed out with Des in the boat.  Cathy in her normal calm, sedate, non excited way was the first to scream and bounce around shouting she had a big one.  Des, somewhat calmer suggested that it might be a small fish eating her bait.  Indeed the hook was bare when pulled up.  This went on for some time with all of us loosing bait until Cathy did catch one.  Unfortunately it was one of the small fish that was eating our bait so it was returned to the water.

Cathy with the catch of the day.

As we were moving to another spot to fish I was so excited to see a dolphin surface just in front of us.  Thus began an amazing 30 minutes of chasing and playing with the dolphins. It was almost breath stopping to see them swimming directly under our boat and breaching on the other side.  I was like a bobble doll with my camera swinging back and forth trying to capture some pictures.  Fortunately for anyone reading this I did not include all 350 pictures I snapped in a few minutes!!  There are 13 different species of dolphins in New Zealand waters so I'm not sure but I think these are Bottlenose Dophins.  Here are a few that turned out to share with you.

March 14

Yesterday, March 13, was a tourist kind of day.  We left Kaitaia and stopped in Kerikeri where we went to a wonderful farmer's market and bought some Figs and Avocados.

Then we travelled to Paihia were we enjoyed a beach walk and avoided the tourist traps that were everywhere. For some reason nobody in our group wanted to go parasailing or swimming with the Dolphins at the current price for such a venture. This morning I got up early and saw another beautiful sunrise and enjoyed some birds on the beach.

Southern Black-backed Gull

Black-billed Gull

This morning we broke camp (does a Motel count as camping?) and headed off to Kawakawa to see the Hundertwasser Public Toilets.  There is a whole story about this if you are interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedensreich_Hundertwasser

Ladies Toilet sign.

Next we carried on to Des Cogan's ChilloutRetreat at the top of the world were we are staying for 3 days. This is the most amazing place with an exciting trip over switch backs and through cattle gates to arrive at this bit of paradise. 

Driving up to Des's Chilloutretreat.

Sitting on Des's deck looking at the ocean (see below).

View from Des's deck.

After a delicious lunch with fresh baked bread and fresh veggies we went to check out the swimming.  It was Devine to have a swim in warm sea water.

Swimming in the Bay below Des's

Des took Nola and Doug fishing while Cathy and I stayed at the retreat and I took some more bird pictures.

Grey Warbler

Silvereye

Nola, Doug and Des heading off to fish.

Nola was the superb fisher and caught three Snapper and a Kahawai.

Here is Doug pretending he caught the Snapper!!

Lots of excitement waiting for tomorrow.

March 12

We missed an entry yesterday (March 11) due to a long day of driving and arriving to an evening full of disaster in Japan.  What a terrible time for so many people with astonishing devastation.  As you can imagine there was great sympathy and concern here in New Zealand from their recent problems in Christchurch.
Our day was occupied with a stop at the Kauri Museum in Matakohe.  This is a class act as a museum with a hugh display done in world class style.  We stopped at the Matakohe School and I thought I would include the sign that might help some of the teachers in the crowd negotiate their next contract.

We continued on the road which was a continuous series of hair-pin turns up and down gorges to Tane Mautua, the largest living Kauri tree at around 2000 years old.

Trent, Nola, Doug and Tane Mahutua

We arrived at The Historic Wireless B&B just outside of Kaitai, had supper and watched the devastating news from Japan.

Today (Saturday March 12) started with a short walk down the local road.  It is so much fun to see my friends the New Zealand Jersey cows chomping away at the fluorescent green grass.

Our tour operator, Phil, arriving right on schedule at 9:00 along with a lot of uncertainty just where we would be able to go due the warning of a tsunami arriving in New Zealand this morning.  We arrived at 90 mile beach to check things out and a local fire engine was there to keep cars and people off the beach.

Stay off 90 mile beach due to Tsunami warning.

Phil had lots of other options up his sleeve and we went through some forests and saw both sides of New Zealand visiting the west coast and east coast within a few minutes.  Here we are having 'morning tea' on the west coast with the surf pounding in.  Still no Tsunami.

We stopped and looked at a local Avocado farm and wished for some fresh fruit to eat.

We finally did get onto the beach after the tsunami warning was lifted.  All of 90 mile beach is designated as a state highway with a speed limit of 100 km. per hour.  It was quite an experience driving along at speed on this open beach with birds and waves as our road partners.

White-fronted Tern

We came across some wonderful sand dunes as we drove up a river bed to get back to the road.  The patterns in the sand were absolutely breathtaking

We finally arrived at the top of New Zealand and the weather was stunning.  Phil said that we were able to see much further than most of the trips that he makes here. It was quite stunning to see the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet at the top of the world.

After a short walk down to the lighthouse and lots of picture taking we were off to a beach to have our lunch.  The tsunami warning was far enough past that it was quite safe to go into the water for a wade.  Phil did not feel it was wise to go swimming as this beach had lots of undertows and a river with strong currents flowing in.

Doug the surfer dude defying the tsunami.

Phil brought along some lovely New Zealand wine and with characteristic New Zealand ingenuity used garden flower supports for holding the wine glasses.

Phil (our guide), Doug, Trent, Nola, Cathy

We are off tomorrow to Paihai and Russell in the Bay of Islands to learn some New Zealand history.