In this rare piece we see indigenous artists from Whaketalup offer us an installation of cultural significance.

Placing the treated remnants of a sacred hunting animal reverently on a plain timber support they emphasise the division between the modern and the past. The ethnobiological trope speaks to the link between culture and place, clearly informing the arrangement of objects and contrasting with the simple shape of the support which guides us on our way.

The sensitive use seen here of found objects makes a profound statement about the way in which the departed soul of the animal calls to travellers passing through the natural landscape of their forefathers. The creative form gives pause to, and refreshes, the modern journeyman through this ancient land.

Reminds me of the west coast of Tasmania, or Indian reservations in the US.

The road through to the sourth was billed as a difficult one.  In fact it was a winding dirt road, big drops sometimes, but very spectacular. Wouldn’t like to do it in midsummer when full of tourist vans like ours though.

And that night camped next to this lovely waterfall in a quiet site.

Detoured off the road to do a 11km walk in the forest to Whirinaki waterfall – beautiful, sunny day, sunlight filtering through the trees.  Plenty to see from the tiny to the large:

Murupara is the last stop on the supposedly rugged road through the mountains to Lake Waikaremoana.  Nice campsite. Everything clean, the lady in charge made fresh bread for breakfast and provided free vegie gardens for the visitors.

I’m somewhat taken with gliding, and managed to squeeze in another go at ‘club rates’ this time – 1/3 of the original fee.  The afternoon looked good, but actually there wasn’t that much thermals and we spent a long time going round in circles. Then we had to land.

The instructor let me do most of that, but it didn’t work too well since I discovered that gliders are made for right handed flyers, the wind spoiler lever being on the left.  So just as we came in I had to transfer my left hand to the flap, take the stick in my right hand (naturally I’d taken off the bandages for the flight), and coax it down.  Not surprisingly he took over round about then.

So there I was springing back down the steep bit like a young mountain goat when I slipped back, put out my hand to save myself and it hurt. A young whippersnapper jumped forward to help up the old dude (bah!), grabbed the offending hand and that hurt too.

By the time I got to the bottom the wrist was swollen and painful and I thought I’d broken something.  When I don’t have the benefit of Xrays in the bush, my rule of thumb in these situations is to treat the offending limb as if broken, and, if it’s still painful after 48 hrs then there’s a fair chance it is.

Since we were heading south away from civilisation and we didn’t want to hang around hospitals, Sally made a splint in the traditional fashion using a pair of underpants and a cardboard box, which worked well for a couple of days till we found some decent quality tourist brochures to replace the cardboard and a clean hanky instead of underpants.

Now fast-forward to Gisborne, where I’m doing these posts at the next available wifi, and after 5 days it still hurts.  Which injury has meant Sally has had to do all the driving and the washing up.

I’ve just had the required xray, and sure enough there was a small avulsion fracture of the triquetral.  Happily the triquetral, one of the 9 wrist bones and the second commonest to be broken by my classic outstretched-hand fall, heals pretty well with a simple immobilisation.  I’ve swapped the tourist brochure splint for an official one (which actually doesn’t work any better, but looks good), and will no doubt get better in about 4 weeks.

It’s hard to convey the size of the landscape, but these pictures show something of it:

This is a series of panoramas from various parts of the crater complex, showing the immense size of the volcanic landscape

In the main South Crater area, which is quite old, there are grasses slowly establishing themselves on the lava, with the very occasional flower bringing life to a barren landscape – it reminded me of Antarctica, where there is just rock, ice and snow.

But one of the interesting things was the different types of rock on the ground – some lava, some dense and heavy, some shiny and flat – all showing a record of the activity this area has been subject to.

The main flat area is of sand, but to emphasise the activity beneath it, clouds of steam come off at intervals.

Off to one side is a lake – nearly dry now but filling in winter – whose colour comes from dissolved minerals. In other parts of the crater complex is a blue and a green lake, again their colours are from the minerals in the water.

I find people interesting, and there was plenty of interest on this trip.  Many nationalities on the same path – naturally the Swedes were thin, fit, and coming down as we went up, probably having started at dawn after a bowl of muesli.  The Brits, Poles, French, Indians and Asians, a tranche of Israeli girls, Yanks in the biggest brightest gear, and harassed teachers looking worried and tired.  And us of course:

This guy ran all the way…..why?These two took their kid up with teddy firmly tied on – reminded us of when we did this with our kids in the Kimberley for up to 2 weeks, lovely time,
And the lady in the middle, just next to the pole, went all the way down the steep hill on her bottom, which impressed me.  Took quite a while though.
But the guy who impressed me most, and for obvious reasons I didn’t take a picture of him, was a small chap with a partial right hemiplegia who, dressed in an ordinary coat and trousers and with a stick, hobbled at the same speed as the rest of us along the track.  He didn’t seem to be with anyone, but just went on by himself.  How very much harder it must have been for him than for us.

There had been a few days of bad weather, which makes the crossing pointless and dangerous, so the first good day was crowded with about 300 people.  Despite this we enjoyed it – the mountain is too big for the little ants to spoil it.

The mountain is still active, and has erupted 3 times in the last 100 years. The last lava flow was in 1975 and is seen here as a darker stain on the side of the mountain. We tend to think of these things as happening in the distant past, but that’s not the case here.

This is a cutaway bit of the track about 1200mm high at the top of the mountain.  Note the different layers of deposition from the various eruptions.  The bottom layer was warm and steaming, and remarkably, sandflies were  prolific up there.

The Tongario crossing is a 19km walk going between the two mountains of Tongariro and Ngauruhoe, then dropping off the N side of Tongariro down to the road at Ketetahi. It’s billed at the thing to do in the Tongariro park, and, naturally enough has considerable support in terms of bus shuttles from one end to the other. It’s quite a high walk, going up to 1,900 metres and the conditions can get fairly nasty if the weather turns.

Mt Ngaurahoe:

We had a look at the route and decided that doing the whole thing wasn’t such a good idea, since the second half was basically a long walk down a steep mountain. Accordingly we decided to do the first half, which involved walking up to the crater area and coming back the same way. That meant we could go at our own pace, had more time in the craters, and weren’t dependent on picking up a bus.

This picture shows the track up to Mt Ngaurahoe, from the carpark at the base of the cinder cone in the L middle of the picture

Turned out this was the right thing to do. Since this was the first day in a week or so that the weather was good, there were hundreds (literally) of people doing the walk. The track was pretty good, well maintained as you might expect but it needed to be, since for most of the way up we were walking in bunches of people – queueing to get up the steps, standing aside for the fast ones (and I have to admit we were doing a quite a bit of standing aside).

At the very top we had lunch while the crowd kept going, and on the way back we pretty well had the place to ourselves, which was good. Despite the crowds the mountains were vast and impressive, and we could forget about the people around us and marvel at the scenery.

I found that the immense size of everything put the meaning of volcanic activity into perspective and gave it the scale I hadn’t hitherto appreciated. Reading about volcanoes is all very well, and they are easy enough to understand, but seeing them is something else. To see huge mountains simply blown apart by the forces of the earth brings home the reality of vulcanism.  And seeing the mountains giving off smoke – as this view of the back of Tongariro shows – emphasises that it could all still happen:

This view from the southern end of the lake shows its immense size.  lts really too big to imagine an explosion blasting away the size of the lake (and at the centre 500ft deep) into the air.  Not surprisingly the effects of this were seen in China and Rome 1800 years ago.

This volcano is not predictable, whereas others are.  This means it could decide to do the same again.  Erk.

The two cones, one in the centre and one off to the left, are cinder cones from smaller volcanic vents.  The island right of centre is what is left of the epicentre of the explosion.

Make sure the fridge is locked shut before you drive around a corner.

With all that hot water and steam going free it makes sense to use it, which they do.  Big pipes running across the paddocks feed into the central power station.

This was the best fun we’ve had in a long time.  We spent many hours in the air during the 10 years in remote medicine, and it’s still a big buzz to take off.  I’ve always wanted to go gliding, never had the chance.  Wonderful experience – no noise for a start, and the plane – a $190,000 German glider, was light and responsive.  Took a while to get used to turning and so on, but toward the end of the flight it started to feel natural.  Might just do it again….

Happy Sally pre-take off.
Just about to release the tow

Figuring it all out Catching an updraft Coming in to land

We climber to the top of the mountain through the green forest.  The top was bare, with a cold wind but a magnificent view.  Directly north of us was a mountain, a cinder cone with a remnant of the core sticking up.

Halfway up the mountain, where the trees get smaller and the rainfall is greater, moss grows over everything, including up the trunk and along the branches, with only the leaves sticking out of the green mass.

Looking up it is a wonder how the huge trees support massive branches sticking out many meters from the main trunk.  It is all done by balance.  The large branches, several tonnes worth, seem like they should overwhelm the trunk.  But it can be understood if this weight is thought of in terms of two forces. And the forces are separated into horizontal and vertical components.

The vertical component, magnified by its distance from the centre, is directed down the trunk where the dead central cells easily support compressive loads.  The remaining horizontal component is directed toward or away from the trunk and pulls the tree one way or the other, but its effect is more or less balanced out by similar forces from other branches.  So, just as a boat can be balanced on its keel by supporting timbers, so can the trunk support massive branches.  To stay balanced it only needs to counteract the sum of the horizontal pull of the branches.

This balance is done by the growing outer ring of wood in the trunk.  This horizontal pull is a dynamic force, changing with the wind and shifting as the branches grow and sometimes fall. If the tree is on a hill there is a tendency for increased force in the direction of fall.

This outer wood contains fibres under tension like tent guys.  This tension is visible sometimes when milling a log.  Cutting into the upper surface, you find  the timber will peel off  and curl up like a banana.  And the rest of the log, left overnight, will form a hump as the fibres on the opposite side contract.

An artist once said how dull it must be to see things with a scientists eyes.  Knowing all about how something works takes the mystery out of it which, he thought is essential and sufficient for the artistic view.

It isn’t that way at all.  I see the beauty in the forest, the light playing on the endless patterns made by growing things, rocks, the earth and the clouds.  But knowing the structure of these things, far from detracting from their beauty enhances it.

Ferns have a beautiful fractal symmetry, shown in these pictures.  But the beauty of that idea goes much further – nature makes incredible complexity out of an elegantly simple idea.  The idea is to make something – perhaps a simple structure, but include a place in that structure where the structure itself can be repeated.  So the ferns use the same shape as their leaves get smaller.  Steven Wolfram, Buchannan, and many others, have explored this and shown that much of what we see in nature is built on simplicity, not complexity.

And this extends to a more powerful idea – allow the basic shapes to modify the underlying structure as needed.  Whereas these ferns repeat the same shape, as do the bronchi in the lungs and the blood vessels of a mammal;  the arms, legs and spine are shaped differently for all species of mammals – and dinosaurs for that matter.  But the back legs are essentially the same as the front ones.  The pelvis is similar to the shoulder girdle – and, for that matter, one half of the body is pretty well identical to the other.  So, once nature has got the idea of how to make a foreleg, it can make a hindleg, and a leg on the opposite side too.  And once it can modify that basic shape, it can make pretty well any body it likes.

It has always staggered me that I can go to a museum and look at a creature’s skeleton living hundreds of millions of years ago, and recognise the same bones, in the same order, doing more or less the same job as the ones keeping me together.  It’s the incredible, staggering simplicity of that which adds to the beauty of the objects.  The same staggering simplicity that makes these ferns beautiful.

This fern has a striking silver underside.  It shows up against the green, and was used buy the Maori to show the way through the forest by bending back fronds as markers.

This fern grows smaller ferns from its branches, so that if the plant is cut or damaged the little ferns can start to grow when they touch the earth.

The dappled light in the understory changes all the time, giving glimpses of little paths and glades.  Ferns and mosses hang from every branch.

Occasional creeks support another world of wet moss, ferns and lichens.

The big trees are host to many plants and birds.  Looking up you can see the little gardens in the forks and branches.  Some of them have roots which snake down to the ground.

The rainforest is a conglomerate of communities living at different levels.  All interacting with a delicate symmetry.  The leaves at the top of the highest trees are small to reduce evaporation, while the roots are deep to supply the water needed for these great trees.  Under their shade, in the tranquil understory, the leaves of the plants are large to collect what light they can, and they are more delicate – shallow roots and slender stems.

Ended up at Pureora forest reserve.  Nice DOC campsite in the bush.  The weather wasn’t so good, so we went for a walk in the rain forest, which, after all, is designed to be seen in the rain.

This was the site of a major logging protest in the early ’70s.  NZ had logged most of its old growth forests by then, and this was one of the last stands of old trees.  Amid fierce opposition protesters drew attention to this, and finally won as the government changed its mind and stopped further logging.  Now the area is a beautiful forest, and happily the ranger station doesn’t try to hide the history of the protests on its display boards.  Takes me back to the days of the Franklin protests in Tasmania, and what a victory that was.  However the mood of the politicians is changing, and the present Tasmanian Liberal governments avowed aim to restore the logging industry may well see further destruction of what forests we have left.

I do however see beauty in this old machinery – the shape of the metal, the light and shadows reflect the moment; the wear and tear evokes hard work over many years – especially since this is machinery at the end of its life, bearing all its scars; and the intellectual satisfaction in seeing how the parts fitted together to do the job – comparing what they could do in those days with the evolved machinery of now, seeing ways they harnessed the strengths and circumvented the weaknesses of the long-forgotten technology.  All of this takes time to fully appreciate, which is why I like to spend ages just walking around these displays.  Just as in a museum, it takes a while to absorb them. People sometimes wonder why I like to spend time contemplating these old bits of junk.  Well, that’s why.

But let’s not forget that this is what these machines do:

Here’s one of the reasons the Mighty Waikato river ain’t so mighty anymore.

I’d have thought this was fairly obvious, by maybe not.

Tufa, or Tuff, is volcanic rock (it’s also the name for limestone concretions in water).  Having more than 50% tuff in a rock makes it ‘tuffaceous’ – lovely word that.

It all comes from the explosion of Taupo – or more accurately the hole that is now Lake Taupo, 1800 years ago.  Which was unimaginably huge.  The forests were burned to a cinder, and the ash cloud fell back onto the surrounding land, forming mounds of what is now extremely rich soil.  Hence all the grass and cows.

You can see the bubbles in the rock in the first photo, and the depth of the ash in the second.  And how it’s all mixed with stones, like concrete, in the third.

We were given bikes with the van, and used them this morning.  I forbore to take pictures of us since we looked a bit dorky having not been on bikes for a good while.  Riding a bike isn’t just like riding a bike – you do forget what it feels like.

So we cycled along the path with some trepidation because there were no sides to the pathway.  Other stronger types zoomed past us, one even asked if we needed help.  As if.

Said mighty river is a bit less mighty now it’s been dammed along its length.  However, still impressive.  Most of the amenities were provided by the electricity company.  Really good facitilities.

Nice view in the morning:

Came across this one – part of a gypsy travelling mob; we met the rest next day.

It looks good, better than the white plastic ones like we’re in. Handcrafted, and tidily fitted out inside.

The lady with the dog who seemed, as you may expect, in tune with the infinite, wished us a good journey.

These leaves falling from the old trees above, settled on the concrete when it was wet, and their patterns were preserved.

It was closed when I arrived  – too late to use anything but the basic facilities. Tradesmans entrance, as it were.

However Sally reported next day that you could sit down for as long as you liked for only 50c and it smelled nice.

And so on to Cambridge, via the tortuous freeways of Auckland – helped considerably by the bloke in the GPS.  Missed Hamilton.  Through some very fertile cattle country, then horse country.  Pretty well off area, but Cambridge didn’t seem at all pretentious – unlike some of the towns up north which were all money and show.

Here’s a way to spend a lot of money.

This massive yacht was being fitted out on the dockside. The mast alone was worth half a million.  All carbon fibre and diamond studded rivets.

Very impressive, but, as they say, too big for chooks, too small for cows.

Haven’t seen anything on this scale since the States.
This huge area was pretty well all boats.

About 12 pontoons in a large bay, surrounded by (depressingly similar) apartment blocks. Endless boats, many boatbuilders and boat shops.

Stretch’s cousin had their boat here – a 45ft Westerly, beautifully appointed. Allen is a top notch boatbuilder to some seriously expensive boats so you can imagine the quality of the fitout. Whew.

Their yacht is in the foreground of this picture.

The marina stretches back to the buildings in the distance one way, and much further in the other direction.  Gasp.

Now this we didn’t expect at all, and is one of the nice things about doodling along with no particular itinerary. We stopped to get a coffee and an unprepossing roadside place, main features being portraits of log trucks on the wall and a smell of cooking fat. And at the back what looked like the usual arts and crafts crap shop.

The coffee was delightful, the homemade meat pies crusty and tasty. while waiting for the food I wandered into the crappy art shop.

Which it turned out was full of some amazing sculptures, huge carvings of 50,000 year old swamp kauri and rimu, inset with resin and stones. At the back was the workshop, which the sculptor was happy for me to look at, then, at the back of that an extensive yard filled with massive trunks – and machinery waiting to turn the trees into sculpting blocks. The guy was an ex-businessman who gave up 16 years ago to carve wood, and seemed very happy doing it. Most of the work was valued at $20,000 and above, and most of it was monumental.  He didn’t want pictures, so I didn’t take any of his work.

He said he was coming to Tasmania next year sometime to pick up serpentine from a mine, might see us then.

Sink with water vs mouse.

LD50 (mouse) = 1

Went for a walk with Stretch and Anne, and left the camera on the rail in the carpark. Drove back an hour later after suitable panic to find it gone. Depression sets in, since I like that camera and use it all the time. Insurance forms, looking for camera bargains – not much change from $800 to replace. Prospect of traipsing round the Auckland stores tomorrow.

Rang parks to see if anyone found it – bugger all chance I’d say, so goodbye camera. Police rang a few minutes later – someone had found it, called in at the copshop to pick it up, rang the bloke, many thanks.

Nice to know there are honest people – and I wonder where else in the world this would happen, a busy carpark in a tourist area? So I thanked the bloke and said I’d give him $50 as reward, but how to get it to him? Don’t worry he said, leave it at the Subway cafe on the road, they know me, any of the staff. So we went there – the staff didn’t know him from a bar of soap, but took the $50 anyway. It got delivered when he next went in for a bite. How about that?

Camped in a big site, right next to the beach.  Started out with a lot of squeaky kids dressed as boy scouts, then became empty apart from 2 other scattered campers. Nice.

A certain twittering attended the scrying of these wee black blobs. Don’t get it myself, but clearly harmless fun.

This, which looks like another one of those art installations, is actually a military thing. Interestingly its an observation station for degaussing checks in the harbour. The ships in the war which had been degaussed had to steam between 4 buoys and take compass measurements. Navy dudes sat in here and watched them.

So from Whangerei on south, via Auckland to Taupo, Rotorua and the mountains.

We knew stretch and joanne were going to be in NZ and gave them our mobile.
By chance we were driving along the freeway when they rang from the harbour next door, so we hove to for a day. Walked and talked, saw the boat. Good time.

Found this little gem, not surprising given the number of yachties tooling around.

Sally looked at it with a somewhat jaundiced eye, and I had to admit that it was going to be hard to get a lot of the stuff into the luggage for the flight home.

Still, I did manage to pick up a handy bit of rope.

A few installations scattered about the foreshore. Here are a couple.

Some were nice enough but a bit wacko-the-diddle-o if you ask me

Very boaty place, Whangerei – as is most of the E coast of North Island.
Here’s a junk rigged boat.

I don’t know what this one is about – looks like a Wharram cat with folding masts

And finally here’s a concrete war canoe being launched through a heap of stones

This one rocks back to open the river to boats.

This one is for foot traffic

Our first impression of Whangerei was of a bit of a seedy run down place – certainly is in the city centre. However, there’s a lot more to it as we discovered when we went up the lookout. It’s a big deep river with a huge harbour and lots of industry. The boatbuilding industry is pretty strong, and yachties can get most things fixed here.

The cone mountains in the background are cinder cones from extinct volcanoes.

John is the son of one of Don Hildred’s wartime spitfire pilot comrades, Bill. They formed a lifelong friendship – as did most of the pilots – from the second world war. Both are now dead, but Katie and I visited Bill when we were here 10 years ago, and Sally and I visited John and Anne this time. They took a run-down farmhouse sitting on an empty hillside 35 years ago and restored it to what it is now, a lovely place with an attractive garden. Everything in the garden was oriented toward self-sufficiency, and for many years they have managed to live off the produce of their 2 acres. And excellent produce it is. We had tasty exotic fruits, fresh vegetables and juice, and lamb roast, all off the property.

Nice to see them again.

As well as leatherwork inside of the house was devoted to bookmaking. The process was recreated using the original 170 year old presses (which were second hand when bought in France).

The type is set in blocks, and fixed on the press. Some of the pages were pre-cast. The type was rolled with ink, then pressed onto the paper. The ink of the day took 2 days to dry, so the process was slow – several double pages being printed on large sheets.

Pompallier wanted the books to be easily avaliable, so the practice of issuing books with folded edges to be cut by the reader was not used. The pages were pre-cut with a special plane, sewed together, and glued to the end-leathers (with glue made from hooves and horns).

Finally the back was glued on and the book pressed to finish it.

All of which took a considerable amount of labour and time. All done apparently by 3 men over the years, one of whom was the head printer – actually a teacher who had a cousin who was a printer and got appointed to the NZ job in France on the strength of that. And the fact that nobody else wanted it.

I found the patina on these old machines, and the beauty of the wooden implements
 fascinating.

Since I have had a lot to do with leather crafts, particularly shoemaking, I was fascinated to see the leather making process still in operation at Pompallier. Now the leather is made by some retired engineers, but originally it was made into leather for the military – in fact the main income for the business was the military contract. After Pompallier left the house was bought and the leather business continued under a new owner. This was highly profitable until the seat of government shifted from the bay of Islands to Auckland. As politicians will, they killed off the business in the Bay and forced it to go to Auckland by imposing large docking fees and punitive taxes on goods brought in elsewhere.

The process of leathermaking in the traditional way is long and timeconsuming – I hadn’t realised just how long until I saw it done here.

First the leather is soaked in vats of urine (takes a long time to fill these, so they say)

Then the hair is scraped off, and the fat and meat from the underside. The oils in the skin are also removed.

The hide is then soaked in vegetable dye – here they usea acacia bark, presoaked for months in water, in increasing strengths of solution. It takes a long time – 3-6 months for a lamb hide, up to 2 years for cattle. The hide is turned and inspected every week. Finally it is hung out to dry.

The dry hides are then worked with tallow, made by rendering the fats of animals. This is a labour intensive process involving flattening the leather, rubbing blocks on the hide to soften the fibres. The hide is also worked over a blunt knife.

Finally the hide is ‘skived’ where a sharp knife thins the hide down by cutting off the soft underskin – the suede. The skiving process is highly skilled, because at this stage a wrong move with the knife will destroy a hide that has taken many months to prepare. The origin of the colloquial use for the word ‘skive’ as lazy (‘skiving off’) comes from here – the workers doing the hard work softening the hides saw the ‘skivers’ cutting suede, a physically easy process, and ‘skivers’ became a pejorative term.

When the military moved the leather business became marginal, and finally a landslide buried the soaking vats at the back of the property and the owner shut down the works, and died soon after.

About 15 years ago when the house was being renovated these vats were rediscovered.  The hides in them had been soaking in tannin and dye for 150 years, and yet was perfectly good when made into leather.

Apparently when this press came by ship they didn’t know there was no jetty to unload it. So they waited for a high tide, got a longboat ready with strong rowers and rowed ashore as fast as they could before it sank the boat.

I loved the craftsmanship of the machinery, the patina of age, and the way the light fell on its parts.

While Russell was largely tourist oriented, we did find one remarkable building at the end of the beach which kept us occupied for the afternoon with its fascinating history.  The building was the original house, the internal fittings had been reconstructed back to the mid 1800’s using where possible original equipment.

The story is that of the introduction of the Catholic religion into the Western Pacific.  At the time there was no Catholicism preached in the islands, and the establishment of a British colony in New Zealand was seen by the Catholics as a useful base for spreading the word – or at least their version of it.

By 1842 the Protestants and Methodists had established themselves on the mainland and were spreading the word – or their version of it – among the Maori. Who were pretty sophisticated, and understood the value of learning. Many of the kids went to school, did homework, and were learning to speak English.

Russell was a hotbed of vice. Into which Bishop Pompallier came from France, intending to establish the headquarters of the Catholic Mission for the whole of the Western Pacific.

Well, as we all know the French are nothing but trouble. And the Catholics teach vile popery in their misguided worshop of the Lord. So the Protestants and the Methodists got themselves into a right conniption-fit about the arrival of the good Bishop. They wrote a tract denouncing Catholicism and the Bishop as the Arrival of the Antichrist, which they published and distributed among their flock. The British administration also send an urgent letter back to parliament  in England notifying them of the invasion of the French, and opining that this was likely the thin end of the wedge, that soon they would all be eating baguettes and speaking French in NZ.  Accordingly the Brits decided forthwith to get on with making the treaty of Waitangi with the Maoris – something they had been dragging their feet about in true bureaucratic fashion.  After all who knows what Les Frogettes would do next.

So the treaty was signed, with the interference of Bishop P, who insisted on inserting a clause to the effect that all men were free to pursue their religion and customs in NZ (not something the Brits had thought of). Even today (the day before yesterday to be exact) they are arguing about what the treaty means. The Maoris have recently had a commission into the wording and decided that it was extremely unlikely they would have given away control of pretty well all of their lands to the Brits as part of the treaty. And they have a point, they were, after all, not crude savages at the time. The present government has not accepted that. They say why wouldn’t the Brits of yesteryear take over the whole thing – they did it everywhere else.  No surprises there.

Anyway, Pompallier established this house and set up a printing press of his own to distribute the Catholic word according to the Pope. He had the smarts to print it all in Maori language, thus making it accessible to potential customers. All the printing materials, ink, paper, thread etc came from Europe by ship. Plus the metal to make the lettering – which incidentally was a precious metal of military significance since it could be melted down to make musket shot. During the years this house was operating as a press they make 38,000 books, all free, all in Maori language. A pretty impressive achievement.

Not that it was all fun for the workers. Those in the house had to work all daylight hours, little rest, lots of prayer, simple uncomfortable garments. They weren’t happy with this, but since it was all for the glory of God, what could they do.

The house is build of rammed earth, and the original formers are preserved for display. The walls show the pegs used to support the formers as they were moved higher with each layer of earth.

After some years Pompallier was sent elsewhere, eventually returning to France where he died in a paupers grave. Before he left Russell he donated the printing presses to the Maoris – they were eventually given back to the Pompallier house in the ’60s by the Queen of the Maoris.  His bones were disinterred and buried in a proper grave.

Of rather greater interest than what’s on offer on the Russell seafront are these trees (Metrosideros excelsa).  Known as a chiefly tree, they were used for hammers and beaters, and as the knees in ships. They grow very slowly, have hard, dense strong  wood, and beautiful red orange flowers.  And, the Maoris say, if they bloom early it’s going to be a good summer.  And they have aerial roots, are able to survive drought, grow in precarious situations like cliffs.  It has also been introduced into SE Australia, South Africa, Spain, and California where it is in some places considered a weed because of the damage it does to drainpipes.

However it succumbs to possums, which eat the leaves.

Nice to see they’re looking after the blokes here. Last time I saw this was in Paris, albeit with much fancier 19th century wrought iron surrounds. Still, its a start.

We boarded the Happy Ferry and went across to Russel, once known as Kororareka, the ‘hellhole of the Pacific’, filled with pirates, deserters, prostitutes, gamblers and other n’er-do-wells.  Well today it’s filled with cafes, tourist shops, tour operators and other pickpockets.  Which is a bit of an improvement on the original, since the houses have been rebuilt in a more genteel fashion since the place was shelled and levelled by the British Navy in 1845 (and good riddance you may say).

Seeing little to interest us except Sally’s eponymous cafe,

we had a coffee and read the guide book.  Which came up trumps with a suggested visit to Bishop Pompallier’s house, at the end of the street.  Where we spent the rest of the afternoon in a most fascinating place.

I think this is pretty cool.

The Bay of Islands has a central place in NZ early history.  It is a superbly sheltered bay with many anchorages, and was where the treaty of Waitangi was signed.  It was the seat of government for a while.

Nowadays it is renowned for its tourist trade.  The unfortunate thing about tourists (and this, of course, excludes us), is that they generate an environment which obliterates the environment they have come to see.  So it is with Paihia – the bay itself is beautiful, but its beauty depends on a quiet, homogenous, natural visual environment.  Which is in direct contrast to the carefully crafted environment of the commercialised tourist trap.  Here every sign is designed to be eye catching, every billboard to offer something for sale.

The simple fact is that nature cannot compete with the visual environment in which it is sold.  Even the Grand Canyon, or Milford Sound is diminished – and less imposing places obliterated – by the commercial barrage attendant upon tourism.  To me, that often makes these places worthless to see, and pointless to visit.

And so it is with Paihia and the Bay – perhaps once a beautiful little seaside town with an exquisite beach and a lovely view across the Bay to impressive cliffs and intriguing anchorages, now it is a busy, restless, clamouring, visually noisy road filled with pretty well everything it originally was not.  Pity.

Way back in the day – early 1920’s, when the empire builders in SE Asia retired, some wanted to settle at KeriKeri. Apparently this wasn’t so easy because their wives had been used to several servants. They said if they weren’t going to have servants in NZ (and nobody wanted to be their servants) then they needed electricity to do the work instead. If they didn’t get that, then they weren’t going to move. Hmph.

So the blokes got together and had a power station built. They tapped into the KeriKeri river, diverted part of the flow through some iron pipes to a power house (about the size of your average garage), and installed an overhead Pelton wheel attached to a generator. And ran cables to the houses of the wives in question.

All 17 of them.

This is what it looked like in its heyday:

And this is what it looks like now:
Apparently it worked good and everyone was happy.

As it was:

Now:

KeriKeri, the nearest town, is a clean, prosperous little place. Unpretentious, neither super rich, super touristy, nor poor. Apparently becoming very popular with retirees. Including us – we reckon if we’d landed here instead of Tasmania 40 years ago we would probably have stayed.

It’s got a walk along the river up to Rainbow Falls, which took us 3 hours. Interesting forest sights.

Is a Mercedes diesel automatic/selectable. Ex-Britz motorhome bought by Kiwimotorhomes, a husband and wife outfit who only have 3 vans.

One of the disadvantages of hiring a flash vehicle from one of the big firms is that they charge you for everything – tables, chairs, bicycles etc etc. And they have have punitive insurance rates, punitive deposit – some of them take $5,000 or more off you to start with (effectively getting an interest free loan), and you have to return the van with everything full, they scrutinise it for dings etc etc. The result being you’re always worrying about the vehicle. And the service you get is hardly personal.

By contrast Nick, the owner, doesn’t take any money off – just swipes the bankcard for $1,500. Only cares if the fuel tank is full on return, gave us bikes, mobile phone, table, chairs, gas, water and doesn’t insist on having it cleaned. Nice guy – delivered it to our accommodation and will take it away at the end. And about $1,000 cheaper than the rest.

It’s not a new vehicle, but it works, everything is there, and clean, and we don’t have to worry about it – we can go on dirt roads if we like: just use your common sense was the instruction.

Nice.

Inside is a handy layout – a table/bed at the end, another table opposite the door gives us plenty of sitting space. You can walk right through to the cab. Kitchen in the middle. Toilet/shower/basin too. An upstairs bedroom was abandoned after too many elbows and arguments by day 3. Useful storage area though.

Despite the squally weather we’ve had a lot of sunshine, and, after all, this sort of climate is what we’re used to. A big advantage of coming now is that the campsites are largely empty and we can get the good spots.

is what’s written above the door of this seedy run-down movie theater. No longer a showplace, it sums up the impression we got of Kawakawa.

The drive from Te Ahai to Ahora Island on the Bay of Islands is interesting, passing through rolling hills and by attractive beaches – all much like Tasmania. The towns get a bit poorer north of Whangerei, which in itself is a working class town.

Nevertheless the Bay of Islands is another piece of remarkable NZ coastline with many bays and islands. We avoided the main centre of Russel and Pahai and went to a small island off a peninsula maintained by a group of volunteers. Very relaxed, friendly, right on the beach. Sally found it looking through the numerous guide books we have onboard.

The weather is starting to crack up, and we are now parked right at the end of the campsite next to the water with the wind and rain coming in squalls across the bay. Nice and cosy – gives us a good feeling to be inside in this weather.

Sally reads to local rag in the rain

I bought a large kite at Pauls fishing kites, and today there was enough wind to try it out. It flew well, but could do with a tail to stabilise it.

Also tried out a new camera – a Jaycar cheapie but still good enough. No timelapse unfortunately but 30fps video gives me the ability to extract snapshots.

Parked our van with a full on view of the surfing spot, and were entertained by a display of some pretty good performers.

The second day we were driving north and decided not to waste the day, so took a road to the coast and found this free campsite at Te Arai. Long beach, surfers and a couple of vans. Beautiful spot.

You don’t see these often.

I wonder what this guy is all about. He’s not being nice about it anyway.

Makes you think of government spooks, terrorists, hippie nuts, fundamental christians, vegetarians, aliens, survivalists or maybe just a grumpy old man.

Very tempting to drive (or perhaps walk would be better) down and see what all the fuss is about, but what with the tyre spikes, dogs, and maybe never getting out again we decided to give it a miss.

With our mind boggling we paused only to take a photo.

The area around Snells beach comprises spectacular scenery – as does most of NZ. The country round here has rolling hills, distant mountains and sheltered bays.

Like a lot of the country the population is deceiving – it looks rural, but there are quite large collections of houses in the valleys. Here we came across big box stores and large early age schools, and you can only get that where there are a lot of people to fill them.

Hereabouts a million dollars buys you a nice place with a view of the sea. Anything waterfront and you pay a whole lot more.

Warkworth, the local town, tries to retain its aura of yesteryear with slightly old looking cafes and shops, but a fair smattering of smart dress shops, the Beemers and Audis parked on the streets, and 5 real estate agents within 100m tells a different story. After all, in a flash car you can practically commute to Auckland from here.

So off we went north out of Auckland. With a lively conversation going on – between the GPS on the windscreen, Sally in the passenger seat, and the the roadsigns, I navigated the van through the city with an acceptable level of shouting.

After a couple of hours we decided to stop at a convenient site and sort ourselves out, and found Scandrett beyond Snells beach. An old farm built in 1885 right on the seashore. Beautiful place, kept by the council, spotlessly clean and with only one other van.

Nice place to start.

There was an exhibition called ‘light show’ with the usual art-wank installations that show (and I quote) “how light works have facilitated the transition from object to environment in expanding experiences of space and vision”.  Yeah, right.

To illustrate one such:

This, called ‘untitled’ (for goodness sake!) is made up of a lot of fluorescent tubes in a diamond pattern.  So what, you may say?  Well, folks, it ain’t just a load of tubes, it’s….

“While the cross-hatching and chevron motifs created from the lights may appear as Western minimalism, for Jones they refer to the traditional Aboriginal concerns of country and community – their designs being based upon the carved patterning of Koori (south-eastern Aboriginal) shields and the markings on possum-skin cloaks.”

… a load of baloney.

I just don’t get this sort of thing.  It seems to me that these artists have a singular lack of imagination and/or ability and try to hide behind pretentious words to infer that what they have done has some significance.  Some of the art in the gallery was good, clever and interesting.  But there was a lot of the ‘untitled’ genre.

Personally I prefer representational art of three hundred years ago:

The building was impressive – all marble and wood, nice lines

The floor was polished marble with fossil sections – lovely to walk on:

Trendy it may be – mainly restaurants and clothes shops.  But these caught my eye.

Ponsonby is the happening place to be in Auckland, and we’ve got a nice little place in the back of someones garden just off the main road.  Clean, well appointed and the same price, but far better than, a hotel room.  Very pleased with it, couldn’t be better for the first 2 days in the city before heading off.

We didn’t actually get to go round the Museum, largely because we were moderately pooped by the time it hove into view, and in any case it was half an hour before closing time.

Nevertheless, pausing for a bit of rest in the entry hall, we did marvel at the main structure, an apparently suspended inverted wooden bell and a remarkable staircase.

With interesting lighting from a rooftop skylight.

Generally I like the architecture of Auckland.  No shortage of ugly box architecture of course, but enough of this sort of creativity to make it an interesting city.

Here’s one of the ugly ones:

En route from the museum to the bus stop we came across this plant house – with non-tropical and hot-environment plants.  Delightful environment with lovingly tended plants.

Inside one of the greenhouses was a lilly pond

And hanging above the water was a pitcher plant, looking slightly sinister.

Tucked away in Onehunga is Paul’s fishing shop.  Which happens to sell kites for line fishing – you send up a kite which pulls your fishing line out to sea.  kite fishing has been part of NZ fishing techniques for a long time – an offshoot of kontiki fishing which is the same thing using a small raft.

These kites have become popular with kite photographers all over the world because of their quality and versatility.  I’ve got one of their kites (a Nighthawk, of which they sell about 1,000 a year), and was determined to visit the shop when in Auckland.  Rather like a Catholic going to the Vatican.

We had an interesting time there – Sally, a kitemaker extraordinaire for kites taken to Mawson’s Huts in Antarctica in 2009 for very successful kite photographs – talked with the lady who sews the kites and got a few tips.  One of which includes getting an industrial sewing machine for our various heavy duty sewing needs.

The kites are made to exact patterns – the care is needed because a few mm difference one side to the other can make a kite fly crooked.  The stitching needs to be careful and exact, and the spars need to be matched.

Very impressive and educational – I bought a large lightwind kite of which more later.

The central station and its surrounds in Auckland is called Britomart. Not, as you may reasonably suppose, an English supermarket, but a district. It was called after Fort Britomart, which was named after HMS Britomart, the navy ship that did the first survey of the harbour in 1841, way before they had supermarkets.  Actually it was the third HMAS Britomart – there were 7 in all, starting in 1805 and the last being a minesweeper sunk in 1944.

Of course that doesn’t explain why the Brits called a navy ship after a type of shop that was to be invented over 100 years later.  Actually they didn’t.  They named it after the Minoan goddess of Mountains and Hunting – Britomartis.  The Greeks followed the Minoans and associated Britomartis with a nymph (an oread to be exact).  The Cretans worshipped Britomartis as the ‘good virgin’.

Well not so good in the virgin department actually, since she had the demonic features of a Gorgon, held double edged axes and was surrounded by divine snakes (all of which goes a long way to explain why she’s still a virgin after 3,000 years) .  The dastardly Cretans just called her a good virgin to fool everyone into thinking she was a nice lady.  Just like a warship.

Obvious, yes?

Most of Britomart was underwater originally, and is reclaimed land, but now only the railway platforms are below sea level.

Which makes them really dark of course. However some clever use of reflected light has made the station platforms into a landscape of interesting contrasts. The ceiling has a few holes (the Romans would have called them Oculi) whereby the sun shines onto suspended reflective spheres. The walls have spotlights trained on the spheres. The result being a lot of direct and indirect lighting.

In addition to the roof lighting the bollards along the platforms, as well as most of the supporting pillars, are made of shiny steel, thus collecting and reflecting all incident light.

The result is diffused light, very pleasant, in what would otherwise be a dingy basement.

Add to this the trains being electric rather than diesel, and the carriages spotless, and you have an enjoyable train experience.

Which, in our case, included learning from a Maori cyclist that Sally was called ‘whaea’, which means ‘honoured Grandma’.  Sally liked the honoured bit.

Sal and I take a break and drive around North Island with no particular itinerary nor time constraints. Been a pretty busy year, and we could do with a break. Just arrived in Auckland, stayhing in a lovely AirBNB place in Ponsonby, looking forward to tomorrow.
Inflight entertainment – Virgin wifi on my iPad mini and Bose noise cancelling earbuds.  Way to go.

Decent breakfast after the pitiful Virgin offering. The packet at the top is my sushi lunch for the Air NZ flight. In the good old days they fed you on airplanes. Not any more.

Gandalfs own aeroplane. Gosh.

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Run by a kind and helpful older couple, met a 74 year old doing volunteer hut warden job for DOC, plus had a colourful life in PNG as a teacher.

Lovely place to stay.

A walk out to the peak of a small peninsula with access only at low tide.  Wonderful views of the Banks peninsula inlet at Akaroa. Sacred site for Maori paua shell gathering.

We’re on the last couple of days now, and decided to stop the night in Peel Forest, the last bit of the original forest on the Canterbury plains.  Stayed in a little DOC cabin in a mainly empty campsite.  OK but it rained and stopped planned walk.

These huge trees – podocarps – have all been cut down now, but were used for canoes for up to 100 paddlers.  Very big trees.

When we stopped on Mueller Saddle the weather was clear and bright.  However after a while a small cloud developed in the updraft from the top of Mt Cook.  At the same time the mountains on the left started to show cloud tails streaming off the tops.

This means weather is building, so over the next 2 hours I took a series of photos of the cloud formations appearing above the summit.  The shapes show up the turbulence at the summit in the moist air being blown in from an approaching front across the west coast, pushed up the mountain range into the cold air of the retreating high.  As you can see the clouds get thicker as time goes on.

A most unusual set of circumstances I’d say – a calm sunny day, a front approaching and the time to sit and watch the cloudscapes against a clear blue sky.  All these photos were taken in HDR which allows me to emphasise the beautiful shapes of the clouds.

But what struck me was the ethereal beauty of the forming clouds – they were gossamer thin, forming different shapes and patterns every few minutes.

By the time we got to the bottom the clouds around the top were thick, and that evening it started to rain as the cloud came down the mountains.

The valley floor is just runoff from the eroding mountains – rocks instead of water.