11 posts tagged “new zealand”
this weekend we celebrated our one-year anniversary. we still had an outstanding wedding present (outstanding indeed), a mystery weekend away, and decided to cash it in for a getaway in celebration of the past twelve months. (actually a week early, but who's counting? ... er, obviously, we are.)
our destination turned out to be a lovely bach on orua bay, at the northern tip of the awhitu peninsula. the bach was only accessible for two hours at low tide (by driving along the beach), so once we arrived on friday afternoon, we were in for the weekend. and it was blissful. we only saw other people from a distance, strolling on the beach. the manic rain-and-shine weather was perfect for reading, watching movies, beachwalking, and cuddling up on the old couch on the porch, sheltered by an overhanging roof and about 20m from the water's edge (depending on tide). tuis sang all day and kingfishers perched on the power lines, watching for their dinner in the waves lapping below. herons strutted and seagulls dropped unlucky seastars and shellfish on the rocks.
we discovered the long-beached hulk of a small sailboat, nearly snarled in the roots of an overhanging pohutukawa tree; under the roots was a cave fully tall enough to stand up in. we watched the sunrise on saturday morning, then went back to sleep until 11. we followed the decadent menu our friends had planned and provided for us, prowled the exposed seagrass beds and pools at low tide, napped, and lounged around in companionable sloth.
do we really have to wait one more whole year for the next one?
this is my favorite spot in the waitakere ranges. it's where we would have gotten married if the weather had permitted, but it is no less dear for the prohibitive mud of last october. its boulders, silky waterfalls, icy pools and hidden mossy grottoes need no real description, but i do wish i could capture the chorus of tuis, the whistle of woodpigeons in flight and the constant shush and trickle of the stream as the soundtrack to these images.
i spent most of last week freezing in wellington - i must truly have a flat learning curve, to have gone down there with neither scarf nor umbrella. both were sorely missed. i did manage to see the colossal squid display, finally, and was delighted to discover a current exhibition on monet and the other impressionists (which i missed in college, when it was on at its home, the boston museum of fine arts). i also discovered a sandwich that made me nearly as rapturous as the windfall of german food: reuben sandwich on a jalapeno cheese bagel. hot DAMN. i had to have two of those, plus two additional bagels, over the three days i was in town.
sadly, due to wind/rain/general meteorological misery, wellington itself afforded no decent photos. i did get some nice behind-the-scenes ones at the museum, but it's not the right day for those yet. ;) the flight back on friday, however, presented some very nice vistas indeed.
over the weekend, we went back to the poor knights islands for some stellar diving. i was last there about ten months ago (pics here and here) and was eager to return with the pebbles, hoping to take him through the amazing northern arch. as it turned out, conditions were wrong for that site but pretty much perfect for the two sites we did dive. the water was about 21 degrees C (i almost never finish a dive feeling anything but freezing; didn't even notice the temp on these two), the visibility about 20 meters.
our first dive was in the channel between the two largest islands, and we started on a wall that was essentially vertical down to the sandy bottom (around 20 meters). here i saw my first Tambja nudibranchs.
from the wall, we followed a horseshoe-shaped reef around to 'boom-boom cave,' which was an incredible experience. we had been warned about it in advance, luckily - a blow-hole-type cave but with no outlet for the air/surf, so that when the waves came pounding in, the trapped air under the ceiling (and within our bodies) was rapidly and forcefully compressed, with an accompanying boom. we felt the pressure change (about every ten seconds) through every bone in our bodies, reverberating inside our skulls and ribcages and making the small airspaces inside our ears vibrate (which eventually drove us out). the cave floor was about 10m deep, the walls maybe 7m apart and the depth of the cave was about 20m in total. it got dark fairly quickly but we made it about halfway in, and discovered some large blue moki, before our ears entreated us to return to a less violent spot.
our second dive was in a site we'd done on our very first trip to the poor knights, blue maomao arch. we anchored across labrid channel from the arch and snorkelled over to drop down at the arch mouth. entrance to the arch is gained (optionally) by swimming under a massive slanted boulder; you emerge into the deep sapphire twilight of a passage about 20m wide and 15m deep, with a few shafts of sunlight piercing the arch walls.
the walls of the arch are spattered with rainbow-colored epifauna.
and the feature for which the arch was named is a resident school of perhaps 50,000 blue maomao, who hang along the inland wall about halfway through.
over the next few days i'll post more pics!
a week ago,
i revisited the site of last year’s horse disaster.
i’ve been riding once between then and now,
but not for aut six months. all my old injuries have faded into small, weird (painless)
dents or lumps, and feeling has returned on the front of my shin (where i got a
particularly good kick), so it was time to risk another round. three other
friends were also keen, so the four of us drove down early on a stunning day.
we rode out around 10am, with one additional rider in the group, a beefy guy who had done some riding in his youth and just wanted to give it another go. the weather remained glorious throughout the three hours, although the tide was huge, so there was no beach-riding. we did take the horses up a few small creeks, which involved clinging fast as they scrambled up and down a few steep banks, and we did get a few canters in. i was on my friend bert again, a solid, dependable, slightly roan gelding with a tendency to zigzag broadly down any non-flat surface. bert had a bit of fun with a leap-into-gallop maneuver near the start of the first canter, but behaved admirably otherwise. the other extraneous bit of fun involved rounding up the cows that had wandered down to the beach and were gazing with complete bemusement at the salty swells. the next-day stiffness was partially conquered by a few successive baths, and a little checking around confirmed that while the others would also need a few days to loosen up, we were all keen to go again, and sooner rather than later.
weta are usually big, ugly bugs (even by my standards). they turn up in a variety of startling places (with a preference for darkness and moisture) including inside folded umbrellas, hoses, and barbecue covers. a friend of mine was terrorized by a particularly large specimen (on the order of 8cm long) sitting on her toothpaste tube - all day long. a different friend of mine swears that he passed out once on his own front lawn in a less-than-sober state, snored the night away and woke up with, yes, a weta in his mouth. my own personal best weta run-in also happened in the wee hours of the morning, when i rolled over in my sleep and was awakened by the feel of something scratchy against my leg. my semi-conscious, yet surprisingly accurate brain, observed 'hey, that feels like a weta leg.' and yes, lo and behold - a disembodied (thank goodness) weta leg, about 5cm long. we blame the cat.
but they start out cute. or cuter. cute-ish? ... ok, at least the babies don't have that massive head yet. this one was only about 1cm long.
after he left nz last march, i believe he checked this site frequently for photos of places he'd been and new places he was looking forward to going when he came back. i have a large backlog of things i've been meaning to post, from travels to local bugs, that i wish he'd seen; so i'll start cleaning up my act with a photo from nelson lakes regional park (one of the stops on the pebbles' and my honeymoon last november), and hope that roger can still enjoy it from somewhere in the ether. he spent four days hiking in this park last february and it was one of his favorite memories from his time here.
i wish, with all my heart, that 2009 had started some other way. but it didn't - one of my best friends has died.
roger (aka teuthologe here and on his older blog here), who has appeared here in the past as a mountain goat, playing gollum, and wearing a cicada), lost his life last week, hiking in some of his favorite mountains at home in germany. he was coming back to new zealand to begin his phd in march, and we were all immensely looking forward to his return.
seldom have i met so vivacious, warm, and intelligent a person, so immediately a kindred spirit, and so unlikely to have departed so young. he delighted in hiking, campfires, marine science (squid no less), swimming in shockingly cold water, lord of the rings and natural beauty wherever he found it; he danced with abandon, like a wild muppet; he baked his own bread and thought nothing of cycling 40km out to the waitakere ranges for a vigorous hike and then cycling back; he had a keen systematic eye and a sharp wit; he was a scout, a scientist, a mountain man, and a good person through and through.
on the day we learned of his death, the pebbles and i went out to roger’s beloved waitaks to say our goodbyes. we will always think of him there, and we will always miss him.
there really is a place called asbestos cottage. it’s in the cobb valley, in the kahurangi national park, near golden bay, and its interesting history includes a pair of rather unusual hermits. there’s even a book about them.
this quirky little hut, nestled up in the hills, is about ninety minutes’ walk from the nearest road, and we made it our goal for a sunday hike. upon arriving and parking the car, however, we weren’t sure whether we’d actually make it, or whether we would have to abort and carry out a rescue mission instead – an elderly woman arrived alone as we were getting ready to go, changed into hiking boots but kept her flowered muumuu, and wandered off into the bush. after some quiet consternation, we agreed to note her license plate number and the time we’d seen her, and check again when we returned.
the walk up took us along a surprisingly broad shady avenue,
thick with leaf-litter but well maintained; over small babbling streams and on
a steep, rooty detour; and ultimately across several narrow paths and ridges,
with lovely views back down the valley, but baking in the direct sun.
after about an hour we reached the frontier of asbestos country.
the mine itself was a curiosity, a kind of giant open weal
of greenish-grey crumbly, surprisingly soft rock (that we were careful not to
disturb much, for obvious reasons). rusted
and decaying tubs and hunks of machinery lay sparsely scattered around the
area, and we didn’t linger.
the cottage itself perches in a little grassy clearing about a half hour further on. its main room has been maintained in its nearly original configuration, while the back room has been converted to a four-bunk cubby where trampers can sleep. (we'd like to return overnight sometime.) the surrounding tall grass hides the remains of some garden plants gone to seed, a small brook trickles merrily within earshot, there are views back down the valley, and the air hums with lazy afternoon insect songs. it is a beautiful spot, and while forty years of complete seclusion seems a little extreme, we all agreed there would be worse spots for a hermitage.
