Category: Fauna & flora

Palmy

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Manawatu

We spent some time in Palmerston North last week. This is the first time I’ve explored this much maligned town and I was agreeably surprised. The town centre surrounds The Square, which has pleasant gardens and plenty of benches. There are interesting shops and cafes fragrant with coffee. There is a fantastic bookshop (https://bmbooks.co.nz/) and I had a long, interesting conversation with the proprietors of Pork Chop Hill clothing (https://www.porkchophill.nz/) about the origin of the name of their business. The art gallery and museum (https://www.temanawa.co.nz/) are well worth a visit. Best of all are the gardens and walking/cycling paths along the Manawatu River (see pic above). There is a paved path all the way along the river and it is well-used, judging by the number of cyclists I saw. There are also walking paths through the bush between the gardens of Victoria Esplanade and the river. These are a delight because of the dense foliage and the cacophony of birdsong. Go to Palmy – you may be as surprised as I was.

Tūrangawaewae

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Manu Bay 18 March 2018

We’re back! A brilliant Sunday morning in Raglan: into the surf at Manu Bay (see pic above) for Jim, up the hill into the Bryant reserve for Jane, tūī, pīwakawaka and kererū sighted on the way, coffee and brunch at the Shack. We couldn’t have asked for a better home-coming.

Hokianga

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Earth can have very few sights more fair than this view of the Hokianga harbour. As you come over the hill and round the bend, this breathtaking view greets you. We were fortunate to see it on a beautiful late autumn day when the blue of the sky and the sea seemed boundless. We then meandered down through the little settlement of Omapere and into Opononi, where we had delicious coffee, confirming our opinion that, even in the smallest New Zealand town, you always find good coffee. Then we viewed the statue of Opo  – a wild bottle-nosed dolphin who started following fishing boats in the harbour after her mother died. She soon became a celebrity and would allow children to swim beside her and played with the balls they threw to her. She died in 1956 and was buried in a special plot near the town hall. As I looked out over the magnificent harbour that was her playground, Don McGlashan’s song Miracle Sun went through my head. Only in New Zealand!

A big tree

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Our daughter lives in Northland, which has given us the opportunity to explore a part of New Zealand that we’ve not seen much of previously. Driving through the Waipoua forest on the way to the Hokianga, we stopped to view Tāne Mahuta. This is a giant kauri tree estimated to be between 1,250 and 2,500 years old. Its name means ‘lord of the forest’. While we were gazing in wonder, another family arrived. An older child told her younger brother to look. He gave it a cursory glance, said “big tree” and then hurried over to a bench so that he could climb up and jump off it. I was very amused. To call this giant of the forest a big tree is such an understatement! To a small boy, the opportunity to jump off a bench was much more appealing than looking at a tree. I hope he has the chance to see Tāne Mahuta again when he is older and feel the sense of awe that I remember when I look at this photo of us dwarfed by its magnificence.

Sheep may safely graze

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One of my first blog posts had the same title. I’m pleased to say that New Zealand has not changed much since then (January 2014, just after we arrived in Malaysia) and the sheep still graze safely. It is cause for gratitude when one hears and reads of the mayhem elsewhere in the world. But it is certainly not cause for complacency. I spent a couple of days over Queen’s Birthday weekend in Northland, where I glimpsed this valley sparkling in the sun. It made me heart lift!

I’m back …

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… in magical Raglan. I am staying in our generous friends’ beautiful bach and sleeping in the upstairs bedroom with its breath-taking view. I haven’t been closing the curtains and awoke this morning to a stunning scene – grey-blue water rippling with the incoming tide, whirling sea birds and a pure white yacht circling the harbour. Today was the kind of calm, blue-sky, turquoise-sea day that made up all the summers of my childhood in my memory. I walked up from Manu Bay to the look-out point in Bryant reserve (you can see the edge of the platform in the pic above). I sat there so long and so quietly that the cicadas in the bush around me resumed their song. One even alighted on a blade of cutty grass right beside me. The sound of summer. It would have been perfect if I had walked back down to meet my beloved coming out of the water after an epic surf and we’d shared breakfast at the Shack in town. But I’m here without him alas. The Shack’s coffee didn’t disappoint though!

Summer in New Zealand

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The pohutukawa are in bloom and the sky is bright blue. The days are cool and pleasant. We celebrated Christmas and New Year in Auckland with our girls and our family. We’ve had a couple of splendid beach days and some relaxation. But now it is full steam ahead helping our daughters move to Sydney and Dargaville (two hours north of Auckland) respectively where they are starting new jobs in January. It will be sad for us to think that they are no longer living in the same city but we are thrilled that they are moving on to the next phase of their lives. We still have a few days together in Auckland and intend to enjoy them fully.

Morning walk

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jungle-walk

Apart from the heat (about which I know I sound like a stuck record), taking a walk in Ipoh can be hazardous. I go out early most mornings when it is still dark in order to get a little bit of exercise while it is relatively cool. But there are no footpaths so I have to walk on the road. Because most motorists here drive at well over the speed limit this is a hazardous undertaking. Then there are the dogs, many of which are feral and roam around in packs. The other morning I was barked at ferociously by a guard dog that had come out of a property through a small gap in the fence. Many of the large houses around here have guard dogs enclosed in their yards and warning signs posted on their gates. I usually feel sorry for these animals, who are not pets and never get paid any attention. But I am accustomed to them barking at me from behind sturdy walls. Encountering this dog on the road was very frightening. Fortunately some golf club workers came along on a motorcycle just then and chased the dog away. It is far better if we go on a jungle walk (see pic above) but to do this, we have to get up really early and walk up hundreds of steps in the dark to reach the jungle before it gets too hot, so we don’t do it very often.

In praise of pigs

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I love pigs. When we lived in Ohaupo I had a dedicated bucket in which I collected all our food scraps, which I took to the pigs at a nearby farm. They would see me coming down the road and run to the fence in anticipation of a tasty treat. It used to intrigue me that they would sort through the fruit and vege scraps and eat certain things first – the blackened banana skins were always the first to go. They grunted with pleasure while eating and when all the scraps were finished, they’d look up me as if to ask is that all? I wasn’t surprised to learn that according to the Chinese zodiac, I was born in the year of the pig. The pig in the photo is a Kunekune from the Yealands wine estate, where they have introduced these cute, clean and trainable animals to keep down the vegetation between the vines (http://www.yealands.co.nz/petes-blog/2012/07/09/our-new-addition-kunekune-pigs).

So long, Auckland

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I am heading back to Ipoh in a few days and will miss everything about being in Auckland –  my family and my friends, the coffee, food and wine, the walks and the birds, and the changeable spring weather. It will be hard to leave but wonderful to be reunited with my beloved. If only I could be in two places at once!