The Garden of Eden

Saturday was a quiet day. I went with Ian and Emily to Sylvia Park mall. He bought some characters for the new game called 'Sky Landers - Spyro's Adventure' for the X-Box consul. He had bought the game home a few days earlier. Connected to the consul is a 'Portal of Power' on which you place a figure. Each figure has its own powers and appears in the game. Changing a character changes the character on the screen. To complete the game you need to purchase all the figures.


Meanwhile mum was out shopping with Sally and Zoe. The rest of the day was just chilling out.


In the evening Sally and Ian took us out to a Vietnamese restaurant in the city. The restaurant  was called the Cafe Hanoi. http://britomart.org/cafe-hanoi It was very busy, but we had a table booked.You purchase a collection of small dishes and share them. The snapper was a whole fish complete with fins and eye-balls. The food was not too spicy and the nettle leaves were very tasty. My pudding was uncooked meringue.


On Sunday it was Zoe's City Nippers lesson on St Heliers beach. During this time we watched Emily while Ian and Sally did a one hour walk in preparation for the 'Round the Bay' day.

Ian and Sally watching Zoe

Irene and Emily

Walking on Water

Zoe in the Sea

The Rangitoto Swim

Crowds watching the swimmers arriving
from Rangitoto

On the other end of the beach crowds were watching the swimmers arrive from Rangitoto. The fastest took 55 mins while the slowest to two and a half hours.


In the afternoon Ian took Irene and me off to a garden called Eden Garden. We have been before. It is a large hilly area, in a former quarry at the base of Mount Eden. http://www.edengarden.co.nz/ It is run by a group of volunteers. Emily enjoyed running up and down the maze of paths and steps and playing 'Princess'. It has its own cafe where we met up at the end.

Waterfall

Emily playing Princess

Bird Watching

A fantail bird refused to leave us. Wherever we were it kept appearing.


In the evening Sally took Irene, Zoe and me out for a meal in Mission Bay. There are around 10 restaurants in this little seaside holiday town. We went to Portofino Italian Restaurant. Zoe had spaghetti, Irene and Sally had normal pizzas and I had a folder pizza which was like a large pasty and full of ham and cheese.

In Portofino Italian Restaurant

Fun in Movenpick

Movenpick

On the way to the restaurant a young lady was busking and Zoe got money to give to her. We heard an African drum group as we went across to Movenpick to enjoy a Swiss ice cream. Movenpick has a commanding position and is used as a landmark.

The group were just finishing off as we got there.

Zoe Posing in a Tree

Finally Zoe climbed trees as we went back to the car.

Wet on the Way

Tuesday 21st
This is a special day for Irene and me. We celebrate our engagement on this day every year.


For the first time ever we started the day with pancakes and after a morning of pottering about the house we set off for the Spit. Going up the street we came to the coffee shop and enjoyed chai lattes, using vouchers generously supplied by Ian.


Near the spit we sat for lunch and then moved around for a view to draw. The first splashes of rain came and stopped as suddenly.


At tea time, during the talk time, Irene let it slip that we had pancakes for breakfast. This meant more pancakes.


Wednesday 22nd
This was a day of rain. We made it down to the bus stop in St Heliers and the rain really began and made it a soggy, windy walk from Britomart to the Maritime Museum. At the entrance a guide was waiting and at 1 o'clock the tour began. Initially it was just two of us, but a little later it became five, and later still it was only the Canadian lady that stayed the course.


After two hours, no lunch and no toilet break the tour ended. Our guide had been an 82 year old Kiwi. It was fascinating to hear his reminiscences and learn more about the exhibits than we would have done without him.

Mock up of berths used by the first settlers to NZ

Americas Cup Winner

NZ Icon - 1950's shop and cafe

From the museum we made a wet and windy walk back passed the Ferry Building to Britomart.

Ferry Building

Glass dome of Britomart

Thursday 23rd

This really was a day in. A monsoon would be a good description.

Later in the afternoon we thought that we would venture up the hill for coffee. It was only drizzle on the way up, but torrential on the way down. Fortunately we still only had very light clothing and there was little to get wet and this dried quickly in the heat.

Benny enjoying watching Zoe in the bath

Friday 24th
With the weather looking good and a car available we thought that we would set off north and have an opportunity to cross the Harbour Bridge.


Irene and me set off with Sally to her office and set straight off from there. As her office was just off the slip road on to the motorway north it was easy to reach a destination without a SATNav. The destination we reached was Warkworth. It is quite a pretty township one hour north of Auckland.


After coffee we went to the information centre. Irene's reaction to the 'Glass Bottomed Boat Trip' was "I'd love to do that."


Without further ado, we were on our way to 'Goat Island'. It is a beautifully scenic journey to a beautiful place. From the shore many islands were visible. The water is clear in this 'marine reserve' and many people were enjoying diving, snorkelling, just looking into the sea or, like we did,sailing around the island in the glass bottomed boat.

Goat Island

Diving and Snorkelling

Ready to board the glass bottomed boat

Under the sea

Into a cave

Shark's Mouth Cave

On the rocks

Sand canyon

We returned through Warkworth in the hope of coffee at the Kauri walk.

Large Kauri Tree

Kauri look-out

Protecting the Kauri (Sorry about blur)

Finding no coffee we made our way back down 'Route 1'. Road works had successfully made the Manuka Honey stop too difficult to get to. Passing through the motorway toll section and tunnel we came to another township called Silverdale. I can't help thinking that this must have been like the early days of the West. The old wooden buildings in the centre are being swallowed up by the new buildings of a boom town.

An example of Silverdale wall art

Old style shops

Mum chose her chai, but I had a 'Hokey Pokey' ice-cream. It was a 'Tip Top' and a hokey pokey is an ice-cream with honey comb mixed in.

The motorway beyond here was city style with the cut and thrust of people returning home in the Friday night rush at 3.30, but we were back to Sally's office in good time to pop down to the chippy in St Heliers for, what is becoming our regular Friday night, snapper and chips. Of course, at least one us, went in for fish cake.

A Long, Busy Monday

The day started early. Sally needed to be in work early. Their new office space needed a vacuum before the first meeting of the staff there. I left with her at 7.00 am so that we could have the car for the day.


Our first port of call was Muriwai. http://www.arc.govt.nz/parks/our-parks/parks-in-the-region/muriwai/ Muriwai is on the west coast which faces Australia across the Tasman Sea. The surf is especially good here. The beach is vast. It looks like it goes on forever.

Muriwai Beach

Surfing at Muriwai

The major attractions are the gannet colonies. One is on a pinnacle island and some are just on the cliff tops. There is an almost overpowering smell of fowl dropping and the noise is almost the same.

Gannets

Here, as in our next port of call, I am amazed at how many people have grabbed the most difficult sites to build houses; some near cliff edges and some on mountain slopes.


Our next visit was to Piha. It is around 6 miles between Muriwai and Piha, but it takes a whole hour to drive. The drive takes you back up the mountain, along the State Highway and back down the mountain and the mountain roads are steep and windy and sometimes windy.


Again, we were looking for a waterfall. I vaguely remembered driving to falls south of Piha. So, we turned left off the main road, down Karekare Road. This was a helter skelter route. For most of the way it could accommodate two cars -  just. At the bottom we came to the car park and there was the Maori statue that I remembered from last time. We crossed the bridge that separated Karekare Road from Lone Kauri Road and on the left were the falls. This was a good opportunity to try out my double density filter. The object of this kind of photography is to have sharpness from every distance, without freezing the water movement. The shutter has to open for a long time with the camera on a tripod and remote control used to prevent vibrations. Even with the times two filter it was often too bright.

Falls at Karekare

When we got to the bottom of the falls a noisy family were enjoying a dip in the cool mountain water. The figure in one of the photographs gives an idea of the size.


We drove back up the windy way and continued down to Piha. From the lookout I got good shots showing Lion Rock and the across the bay to the other headland. 

Lion Rock and Piha Beach

We could not resist a walk across the beach and then, of course, into the sea. This is also a surfing area and I discovered that you can suddenly get a big wave. There are plenty of warnings about this and there have been drownings in this area.

Freak Wave

The walk back across the sand was hot. I suspect that the black, volcanic sand gets hot and stays hot. We were completely dry, with black ankles by the time that we got to the car.


Our next stop was refreshments at 'Wendy's' and on to the motorway to pick up Sally from work.


After a quick tea we were off to sequence dancing.


The group were called 'The Lancashire Society Inc' and they had been in existence for 75 years. The group met in quite a large hall belonging to the Catholic Church. Like most churches here they have a one way system through a large car park. When we went in a couple from Melton Mowbray were teaching. This couple spend 6 months with one daughter in the UK and six months with the other daughter in NZ.


After the teaching session we were called to our feet to sing 'God Save the Queen' (not the Haka) and then with equal reverence we sang (still on our feet) 'She's a Lassy from Lancashire'.


Although they did not do many dances which we knew, we were encouraged to do our own dance in the middle. So, when they did 'Dirty Rumba' we did 'Rumba One'. We took time to get used to this idea. It was also accepted that people would dance without a partner. We took some time getting used to this, but it worked.


The other differences were that they only did one of each dance. However, they paired two dances together. They announced the dances, but they also had a board showing the next few dances. Also, all the chairs had pads, provided by the society.


Supper time was at nine o'clock.There were sandwiches, savouries and cakes served with tea or coffee. They do this for each dance, which is fortnightly. There are no tables. You simply turn a chair round to make one. Supper is over quickly as this is followed by 'Monte Carlo' and the raffle and the door prize draw happens at the end.


Before 'Monte Carlo' we were privileged to be at their AGM. A table was set up at the front and we quickly bought our chairs around it. At the table was the leader, who was the chairman (Albert Meades) and the secretary, who said nothing. Albert's wife, Virginia, heckled from the back. It is she who answers the phone when you ring.


The meeting started by standing for one minutes silence in honour of the those who had belonged to the group and died.


The minutes of the last meeting and the financial report were taken as read and passed with a raising of hands. Albert then read the chairman's report. The main business was the election of officers which stayed as the previous year. But there was a concern about the shortage of committee members and a non-member was elected.


Their real concern was financial. They are currently losing $500 (£250) a year and have $6000 in the bank. That is, they can go on for 12 years at the current rate. They discussed raising the entrance fee from $5 (£2.50) but the motion was defeated. They discussed stopping the raffle, but members bring prizes for which they buy a raffle token (a plastic disc with a number on, which is re-used) to win back the prizes that they have bought in. They discussed stopping the door prize, which is the entrance ticket on which you write your name to win a prize. This would have saved $350. This, too, failed to be approved.


There was also discussion about changing the night, because Albert was having trouble persuading the priest to not have the floor washed on Monday, just before the dance. This was not resolved.


The programme re-started with 'Monte Carlo'. A large wooden box with the suit of a card painted on each of the four sides was put in the middle. The dancers waltzed around it and when the music stopped Albert asked one of the couples to draw a card. If you had stopped facing that suit then you were out. This went on until three couples were left. At this point each couple drew a card. The lowest card was out. We went away with a packet of savoury biscuits and a packet of sweet ones.


After another couple of dances the evening ended and we made our good byes.

Driving home at 10 o'clock in Auckland is amazing. For the first part of it we had to switch to main beam as street lighting is poor. Even the main roads were not that busy. However, a short journey can take a while. All roads curve back on themselves. There are no cut throughs and all junctions are set so that, when you arrive at them, the traffic stops for pedestrians in each of four directions and then for traffic from the left, then the right and then oncoming, even if you are the only one at the junction.

MOTAT and Fairy Weekend

On Saturday we took Zoe to MOTAT (Museum of Transport and Technology) http://www.motat.org.nz/  We took Zoe there on 1st February 2009 and it has become a favourite place.


The mirror maze is a favourite as were the other mirrors.

Where is Zoe?

Long Tall Zoe

Engine Detail

Little had changed since our first visit. The main interactive area is to do with light, lasers and such like.

At lunch time we sat at an area near stilts and a large draughts board. Somehow we managed to play a game of chess with them.

Chess?

The sun became too hot and we concluded with a game of hide and sink which took us back through the mirror maze and eventually on to the tram back to the car.


The journey back was slow and the beach at Mission looked like Southend beach on a good British holiday.


We had noticed a Coca Cola event on the green at St Heliers, but although we got free Colas we were a bit too tired to stay.

Pop Event at St Heliers

The evening meal was a tasty Thai take-away followed by raspberry sorbet. The main course was washed down by delicious Montieth's Single Source Lager Beer. http://singlesource.co.nz/ I collected it from the local liquor store. I was invited into the cold, beer store to find it.


On Sunday morning Zoe had her City Nippers activity on the beach.

Emily played fairy sand castles with Nanny.

Sand Throne

Zoe and Ian went off to a social event put on by his employer. The remaining three of us set off in search of fairy things. First we went to Wendy's (a burger place) for lunch because it was near the pool shop where Sally had to go to have their pool water analysed.


The Fairy Shop was in Ponsonby which is a city suburb. We purchased our fairy present for Zoe's birthday and then a kind fairy (shop assistant in fairy dress) offered me glass of water while I waited for Emily to try on a dress ready for her 5th birthday party in May.

Back home the pool water was clean again and Emily enjoyed a few minutes in the water alone while I sat and read my book. The pool temperature was only 25 degs which is too cold for me.