Hundertwasser loo

Friedrich Stowasser - aka Hundertwasser - spent much of the last 27 years of his life living in the sticks north of Auckland. His life here is immortalised in a public loo in Kawakawa, near his home. Among his many creations is a flag for NZ free of the Union Jack - yet to be adopted - which features a koru (unfurling fern frond). It is recreated in ceramic this loo on the side of the washstand (centre).

Amber

Kauri blood. When injured, the trees bleed this gum/ resin. A hundred years ago it was mined (from old forests) and harvested (from living trees) for use in lino and varnish until synthetic equivalents were developed.

Wall of death

Exhibit in the kauri museum.

Tane Mahuta

Lord of the Forest. Biggest Kauri in existence and over 5m in diameter. There are very few of these trees left. I can imagine what a temptation they were to early settlers with their huge trunks, which were free of any branches up to over half the overall height of the tree. But it's still a shame.

The Piano

This is a stunning beach west of Auckland at Karekare, where Jane Campion filmed the opening scenes of The Piano.

Dragon boats

We went to see the finals of the dragon boat races held nationwide over the Easter period. The coxes sit at the front of the canoes with a big drum - which they sadly didn't seem to use.

Gill

Met with my sister's godmother in Auckland and we spent some time together catching up on 15 year's news and sightseeing in Auckland.

Pohutukawa

Although the kauri are more famous, I associate this tree most closely with the kiwi landscape. Around the Coromandel and East Cape there are some huge ones. Some too big to carry their own weight! They have a distinctive exploding red flower that comes out at Christmas time.

Tui

Most beloved bird of the indigenous humans for their distinctive warbling. Often heard but harder to spot, I came across this couple in a grove of Pohutukawa trees while walking around the north of the Coromandel peninsula. Their Pakeha name is the Parson's bird.

Coromandel

The peninsula is surrounded by lots of small islands - most uninhabited and protected from kiwi predators.

The main culprits are stoats and weasels. Although feral cats, rats and possums are also exterminated from these islands to protect the indigenous fauna and flora.

Pinnacles

Moved north to the Coromandel peninsula and climbed up to the "Pinnacles" further up this valley.

The Coromandel - like the rest of New Zealand is the aftermath of a load of volcanic activity from a few million years ago. This outcrop of once molten rock was once quite literally the plug inside a volcano. The volcano has since eroded from around it.

Campsite

Another perfect campsite. The sea behind my back. A couple of OAP travellers in the background with their static homes sold and the proceeds invested in mobile homes. A popular way to retire in this country. And given the wealth of park-ups like this, who can blame them. Even if you are doing it in less style - like me - toilets and water are readily available free of charge.

Crater

Even in summer there are usually snow drifts around the summit. This summer they exist only in the crater. In the background you can see the surf on the beach where I spent the night licking my wounds. One grazed leg where I slipped on the snow. Two burnt armpits, where I omitted to apply sunscreen. The summer sun here is unremitting. Two aching legs. There is a middle section to the climb that is loose shale. For every two steps forward, you slide one back. Lung busting. I remember once looking for pumice with which to make a lightweight concrete coffee table. Now I know where to look.

Taranaki

So, today I meet the mountain.

According to Maori legend, he used to reside next to Tongariro, Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu (seen here in the centre of the North Island). However he was chased off by Tongariro when he fell in love with Tongariro's wife, Pihanga.

WOMAD

In New Plymouth for WOMAD festival. Lots of local bands as well as performers from Israel, Africa, India and South America. A cultural treat. These Maori dancers were a treat. You can see the Polynesian links to Hawaiian performances we are more familiar with.

Held in the lea of Mount Taranaki, "the mountain" (as it is commonly referred to) is considered a dormant volcano, usually shrouded in cloud - and rain. However this summer is the best in at least Grant's mother's 85 year old memory, and we are blessed with almost continuous views of it's full glory. It rises Fuji-like 2.5 km up from the surrounding plain. It hasn't erupted for 350 years, so your guess is as good as mine as to when a volcano becomes extinct rather than dormant.

Driftwood

This is what you usually find at the highwater line on a kiwi beach. It ultimately settles, becomes the foundation for some sand dunes, and forms part of the sea defences.

Bush

Much needed overnight rain, gave us swollen rivers. Grant and I went for a hairy 2 minute drift down this stream.

Grant

This is a great man, who I feel I should emulate as much as possible. Three kids by three women, he epitomises much of what is great about kiwi men. If any of you come across him in his travels, please treat him well!

Grant's farm

Heading for Opotiki on the Eastern edge of the Bay of Plenty. And it really is plentiful. My friend Grant planted his orchard of avocado trees about 12 years ago and is now sitting on a mine of rich, green gold. The harvest starts in August/ September, so he has let his house and we are living in this shack on the farm overlooking the orchard and sea.

Waikato

Every campsite is stunning. Here by the Waikato river, which is fed by Lake Taupo and in turn feeds the Huka Falls.

Tongariro Crossing

Woke up in the morning to this view of the volcano Ngauruhoe.

Then walked the Tongariro Crossing in about seven hours between several extinct volcano craters. Visible in the background is Ruapehu. Still active at times and there is a warning at the beginning of the track on how to avoid lava flows!

Lichen

Aliens

I remember reading about these amazing machines once a few years ago in the uk, but have only ever seen them here. Pretty surreal.

Working environment

When I was back in England last year desperately trying to visualise what it would be like to live and work in Wellington rather than London and England, I imagined working in these wooden houses on these hillsides, with these views and compared them with working in London flats overlooking the backside of Victorian tenements. And here I am, living the dream. God knows, it isn't for the money.

Product endorsement

I have had my tent for 18 years. I bought it 3rd hand from a vicar in Colorado Springs and it had RENTAL emblazoned all over it. Despite it's provenance, the manufacturers have been true to their warranty word and replaced 2-3 tent poles over the years and even made a couple of repairs to the fly. This winter I decided to send most of the tent back to them for an overhaul, but the fly was showing so much UV damage that they offered to sell me a new tent for half price since UV damage isn't covered by the warranty. So now, in the bat of an eyelid, I suddenly have a brand spanking new tent. Same model. New livery. Can withstand a hurricane up Mount Everest - which is pretty useless to me admittedly. I just like it because it is lightweight and spacious. If any of you want to invest in a quality product from a great company, go look at www.sierradesigns.com. Not cheap, but worth every cent.

Behind the tent, our lemon tree just never stops producing fruit.

Section

I have been looking at building plots to see what is available and how much they cost, and I found one in Roseneath - probably my favourite suburb in Wellington - which seems cheap compared to other "sections" on the market. Maybe because it is 100m off the road. But otherwise I can't explain it. It is high enough on the hillside to get a lot of sunlight - can be a problem in Welly - and low enough to feel close to the water. The fact that it is away from roads is a delight to me, although that may not be the case when trying to get building materials, furniture, firewood, shopping, etc. to a house! At the moment I am aware that it is covered in native bush, alive with bird song and has stupendous views up the bay.


In order to try and work out what I can fit on to the site, I have had to crawl up and down the hill, through the trees with camera and compass to try and work out the topography and boundaries. This is my guesstimate of what the section would look like naked.


And this is what I would like to build on it. Actually two houses. The bottom to sell. The top to house my furniture collection! To be continued.....

View

This is the view from my bedroom window. It is pretty much the same through all the seasons. All the indigenous trees are evergreen and the result is a landscape which never looks quite as dead in winter as a North European one. Here you can see mainly pohutukawa, which come from the north of the north island, but have been planted extensively here in Wellington, and Macrocarpa, which are a pine tree from California originally. However here they seem to grow to about three times the size they would reach in America. (If I ever build a house here I may use the timber from these trees as cladding. It weathers to a pleasant light grey colour.) In other places, notably the South Island, deciduous trees from Europe were planted by the original settlers wanting to recreate a home from home. There the sense of winter is much greater.

Also in view are the playing fields of Wellington College. Sport is pretty important here. Not surprising when you consider that a nation of 4 million people can regularly defeat the rest of the world in rugby. Although one should not forget that Polynesians (Maori and South Pacific Islanders) can be menmountains, and are a race with a bellicose history. The sports fields in the picture are often filled with kids playing rugby, football, hockey from dawn to dusk.
This may go some of the way to explaining why kids here seem pretty rounded and balanced people. Although teenagers display all the usual tribal trappings of youth, it seems to be largely without the associated angst and attitude that I associate with the age. This may be peculiar to Wellington. Gangs do exist and the NZ male teenage suicide rate is one of the highest in the world. But what I observe is an openess, confidence and lack of bullying and intimidation, that feels enlightened and refreshing. It possibly also results in a slightly less vibrant and eclectic culture than I have experienced in London, but there are plenty of local bands and artists out there to counter this view.
I just caught some kids nicking lemons off our lemon tree. Instead of scarpering, they came over and explained that they were making lemonade and could they have some lemons please? No fear. No shame. Just open. I figured there were enough to go around and why try and develop their sense of fear.
The other day a 13 year old said "Hi" to me as I was working on a friend's house. I'm so used to giggling, self-conscious, mini-skirt clad teenagers in England, I felt ashamed that I wasn't the one greeting her first.

Vege patch

This is my vegetable garden. From right to left we have rhubarb and mint, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, broad beans, assorted herbs and fennel, beetroot, cabbage and silverbeet (aka swiss chard). Beetroot and swiss chard both very common here. We have a new flattie moving in on the 7th July, who grew up on a market garden and is a keen gardener, so I am hoping my knowledge will increase exponentially.

Impermanence

I love this map of New Zealand. It shows clearly the dominant histories of this land mass. In it's current incarnation it hasn't had enough time to form a significant difference in the height of it's land mass above the height of the surrounding sea floor to show a shadow on the map. Whereas it has in a couple of earlier incarnations, which presumably lasted millions of years. The last was roughly similar in shape to the existing one, but a single land mass rather than two main islands. Before that it looks like the island was almost as big as India, with a huge river starting off the coast of Dunedin. I'm guessing that at this point in it's history it was attached to Australia and India as part of the supercontinent Pangaea.
You can also see the line where the Pacific and Astralian tectonic plates meet down the line of the Southern Alps in the South Island up through the middle of the North Island and into the South Pacific.
A taste of our insignificance in the grander scheme of things.

Forestry

Agriculture and forestry are New Zealand's two major businesses. Agriculture has been sustained for decades by large quantities of subsidised phosphates that have leached into most of the major lakes and water courses, threatening wildlife and further tarnishing the "Green" image. Forestry does provide the country - and world for that matter - with a huge carbon sink. ie it takes carbon atoms from CO2 emissions and locks them into wood tissue. It can unfortunately also be a blot on the landscape.

Heating

Where New Zealand falls down with it's "green" image is in urban areas. It is only green because of it's sparse population. Houses are under insulated and there are no central heating systems. Most houses have wood fired stoves as their primary source of heat. And oil filled electric radiators as their secondary. I sometimes wonder, insulation aside, whether the electric rads aren't actually greener than an oil/ gas fired central heating system given that they only heat the rooms that are occupied (rather than the whole house) and 65% of kiwi electricity comes from renewable resources.
This is our wood pile. We bought it a couple of months ago, when it looked like it was getting cold, then the weather changed it's mind and we're only just starting to get into it. And we are past mid-winter! Hooray. The sun still shines most days and it's warm enough to bake you in a sunroom, and make working outdoors comfortable. It rises at 7am and sets at 5pm. Hardly a winter at all. Until the wind moves around to the south!

Adolescent

More and more it strikes me that New Zealand is like a teenager. Through much of it's history it has been clinging like a needy child to the skirts of mother England or the USA in the fifties. Now it is beginning to rebel. Stick two fingers up at the US with it's no nuclear policies. And trying to find it's own identity. Like a teenage punk with it's mohican, New Zealand has branded itself with the fern leaf - either furled or open. They are everywhere. From corporate logos to manhole covers. In this sculpture exhibition by different artists, over half the exhibits portrayed the emblem.
To be honest, I love the adolescence although some of the self-consciousness and insecurity at an individual level can be painful to witness. There is a sense of idealism that is stifled in older civilisations by the weight of what has gone before. Whether it manifests itself in a progressive environmental policy, the aforementioned no nukes policy, or the recent adoption of proportional representation, it's a brave new world, but not as Huxley envisioned it.

Time Warp

In England lots of people who had travelled to New Zealand, described it to me as being like England twenty or thirty years ago. I used to feel quite protective of kiwis and would point to their environmental policies as a sign of how much more progressive they are. However, I have to admit that in many ways it is true. Products that have been withdrawn from sale in Europe decades ago, are still on sale here. I have never heard so much Dire Straits, Police, Kate Bush!? in my life since the eighties. There are good things about this too. Crime levels here are probably at the same level they were in England in the seventies. You can leave your front door unlocked and tools in your van, with little chance of having anything nicked.
This Chopper is mint. I was looking at it to see if it had been restored or was factory new. I never figured it out.

Van

Monday. I found this van in an auction locally. One careful owner from new. Full service history. Power steering. Alarm. Very clean and tidy. Wall to wall carpeting inside. Perfect for work and maybe a bit of travel sometime. So I bought it. Very scary minute or two. But I am now the proud owner and a whitevanman once again!

Sunday walks

Every weekend, I go for a walk. I try not to go more than ten minutes drive from where I live. And this is some of the scenery I get to enjoy.




Sunset

Party

We had a party to celebrate Sarah's (one of my flatmates' girlfriend) 35th birthday, Naomi's leaving for Berlin in a week, and a kind of housewarming for new flatmates like me. The theme was red. Here is Naomi strutting her stuff.

Donkey

I got down to Christchurch and found that the van I had bought with a pool of oil under the engine, a faulty indicator and a smoky engine. I decided to get out of the deal while I was still ahead. The seller was trying to convince me that the oil was from his neighbour'c car, when it obviously wasn't. I could have probably fixed the oil leak and resprayed it, but I didn't trust the engine. I don't think it was the original engine because one of the engine mounts was new, so the milage was anybody's guess. I should have guessed when the guy didn't call me during the auction as I requested, or take the photos I wanted to see. I assumed it was because he was foreign and didn't understand English that well, but it turns out to have been just a measure of my gullibility.

I had accepted an invitation to stay with an old friend of the family called Jenny, in Geraldine - about 2 hours drive down the road. I managed to catch a ride there in a minibus. New Zealand has this amazing network of minibuses and coaches that act rather like communal taxis. You can be picked up from your door and be delivered to any door at the destination.



Jenny kindly took me out for a trip into MacKenzie country the next day to see this beautiful scenery of big open plains covered in golden grasses and turquoise, glacial lakes with mountains as a backdrop. The water here passes through eight turbines in its journey down to the sea. Hydro electric schemes like this supply 65% of New Zealand's total electricity needs.