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.

The Day of Failure and Before

Friday 10th

After a quiet day indoors, Irene and I went off for a walk down to the beach to watch the sunset. It was very warm and many people were out on the beaches enjoying food and other social activities. Zoe had gone off to her first Brownie camp with her mum.

St Heliers beach as the shadows
 began moving in.

Rangitoto and the first sunset colours.

Looking from Kohi beach as the
city lights were coming on.

Darkness at St Heliers

It was one of those rain or no-rain weekends and on Saturday we were indoors for the morning, but we drove out to Sylvia Park for a few bits from the 'Warehouse' and 'PAK'nSAVE'. Sally came home in the afternoon.

On Sunday Zoe was still away. Emily went to a party with Ian and Sally had a sleep while Irene and I were at church. We arrived at a reasonable time and the car park attendants ushered us in to their multi-storey car park.

It was the usual, lively service, followed by tea/coffee and bacon and egg pie, which I thought was delicious. The cafe even had an EFTPOS card reading machine.

Late in the afternoon Zoe returned and was pretty tired after the weekend.

On Monday the weather was again uncertain. We took the girls off to school and Kindergarten and, because it was cloudy, they did not have sun block. We did some  house work. Having done some cleaning the builders turned up with angle-grinders and soon there was much more dust than we had cleared. We then set off to our favourite seat at Glover Park which overlooks Rangitoto and Browns Island. After sitting to eat lunch the sketchpads were brought out. However, after an hour after an hour the heat became too intense and we went off down through the park to the cliff tops and down to the beach. Most sheltered benches were taken, but we found a reasonably covered one, and  finished the drawings before going back to the house.

Glover Park

Our bench. It had become quite rickety.

Walking along the board-walk to find shade.

Today - Tuesday we had the car and set off to find the 'Fairy Falls'. These are in the Waitakere mountains. According to the web site, the entrance to the falls track was on Mountain Road. And it was a mountain road; steep and windy and fortunately traffic free. There was a small, rough car park and an entrance. At this point, stiff bristles had been set in a piece of board walk and there were bottles of chemicals to spray our shoes, in order  to protect the kauri trees from a nasty fungal disease.


Immediately, the track was testing. It was narrow, with some gravelling and a steep drop to the left. At one place, where trees had fallen, a path way had been cut through the tree trunk. There were places where trampers had done track repairs and we found it necessary to throw pieces of foliage over to make a more walkable path. At one point, there was an open view of the city, but mostly the track was enclosed by dense bush.


We were encouraged when we came across a brand new, substantial bridge, but eventually, the track led to a fast flowing stream and the only crossing was either using uneven stones or wading through. That, for us, was the end of the walk.

View Across the Bush

Logs cut to create a pathway

Recently built bridge

Home-made track improvement

The end of our attempt to get to the falls

 Once at the car we had a drink and some fruit and decided to go on the Arataki Visitors Centre, where we had been on a previous visit. The top of Mountain Road turned on to the aptly named Scenic Drive. A little way along it we came to a better car park at a different entrance to Fairy Falls. Here the track was better laid, but it was still going to take one and a half hours. We thought that we had walked enough and made our our way on.

City view from Arataki

Looking down over Maori totem pole

The Arataki Visitors Centre is a beautiful building in  lovely grounds. It is a starting point for a number of tracks and has fabulous views of the Waitake Mountains. Unfortunately, the coffee machine was out of order. Having taken a few pictures, we moved on to Titirangi. This followed the same plan as we had followed some years before. Except, this time, we were going to get down to Titirangi beach and visit the town's art gallery.


We were a little early for coffee, so went past the town centre and onwards downhill. This did not lead us to the beach, but to a boat ramp. Having gone back to collect my camera, I found that Irene had already left the boat ramp and had gone around the headland on to the grit covered bay. The land of New Zealand could well be described as a land of bays and trees. This bay was small and no exception and there was little choice, but to cross it to the next headland. The clear water was tempting as a way to wash off the tramping track dirt, which we did.

Shoe cleaning

I waded out to try to get my bearings, as at this point we were on the Tasman side of Auckland and were looking towards the airport over Manukau Harbour, with none of the familiar islands of the Pacific side. I find it quite amazing that in Auckland the distance between an inlet from the Tasman and an inlet from the Pacific is about 1/3 of a mile, but there is no canal through.

Stripy pattern on rock

Headland beginning to flood

When I got back to my shoes, I found that they were close to drifting out into the sea. The tide had turned and we needed to take a higher line to the headland, just getting over before we would have had to wade again.

Panorama from the bay

Having still not got to coffee and Titirangi beach we set off. The beach was quite disappointing. There was little to see and no coffee. 

Titirangi beach

Finding the car park and the cafe that we had been in previously was easy and we had some nice chocolate cake and carrot cake before heading off to the gallery. Naturally, the gallery was closed and so back to base we travelled; pausing briefly for mum to take some photos of the large sailing boats off Devonport.