Happy New Year!

 

30.7! I'm looking forward to that, 25 mm/h + is classed as torrential. Let's see what happens....

 

Actual weather

New year but same precision of weather forecasting.  I read my book on the outside under the porch with the rain coming down and a cat under my chair, later I took Jake for a jog and a lady going for walk admired him and asked how old he was (I have no idea how old he is), we got rained on a bit but that was quite nice. Back at the house I did some baking and enjoyed a very cheesy 80's film and some freshly baked banana bread. It's almost tradition to watch 'The World's Fastest Indian' around this time of the year, so I may put that on later.

 

Father time welcomes in the New Year. Little Nemo in Slumberland

Here's a nice extract from Little Nemo 1906 whereby Father Time visits Nemo at midnight and invites him to come along but he's in a hurry because he has to get round the whole world to bring in the new year, but first they stopped off at Father Time's home to see how the years are made. If Nemo touched a year he became the age he would be in that year, Father Time had to go to work for a bit and left Nemo at his house, Nemo touched the year 1999 and became very old and cried out for Father Time to save him, his cry was weak due to his old age but his mother heard him and he woke up from Slumberland!

 

And that is how the new year is made.

 



Another relaxed day

Last day of 2015! Well, still no hover boards or flying cars.
Today I did almost nothing, it was wonderful.

Highlights from today include:









 

A nice relaxed day reading, enjoying the sun, playing with the dogs and drinking cider and eating Boysenberry Kapiti ice cream which tasted just like Raspberry Ripple, I loved Raspberry Ripple.

In the evening after Jake and Shilo were back in their kennel, I brought the cats inside in case they got spooked by firework noises, at around 10pm there were some fireworks and the cats didn't stir at all, Molly was a bit twitchy but she's a Chihuahua so she's always twitchy. I was expecting some more at midnight but was feeling sleepy so I thought I'll just lay down on the carpet for a bit with the cats and wait for the midnight fireworks, well I fell asleep and woke up at 12.30! 

Happy New Year!  



Hobbiton, revisited

Yesterday was a disaster. I had booked a Hobbiton set tour booked for 12.15 so I got up early as it would take a couple of hours to drive down, I called the cats in but only one appeared and spent a while looking for the other one, I couldn't find her so I left food and water out and the garage door open in the hope she'd turn up later. Molly was being a pain and wouldn't go into the house because she knew I was leaving, I got her inside and put the alarm on. I thought Kylie had said it wouldn't pick up small pets, but as I was about to leave everything when off, I went in, it was deafening and turned it off and put Molly in the rumpus room who was yapping away like mad, still no sign of the cat but I couldn't hang about any longer.

It took longer than expected to get to Hobbiton, the route I was going to take from Morrinsville was not signed and the route instead led me to the highway and through Matamata which I had planned to avoid, I had 9 minutes to go when I arrived in Matamata which has a big sign saying 'Welcome to Hobbiton' but no signs to actual Hobbiton, the town was busy and all the roads go the wrong way. I eventually found Station Road which goes the back way to Hobbiton, no signs from this direction which was weird. Anyway I found it half an hour too late and it was heaving. With the animal and alarm fiasco and the drive down I hadn't had time for breakfast or lunch, I went into the ticketing office and said I totally missed my 12.15 tour and the lady said its ok I could go on the 1pm tour which was in 15 minutes, yay! I had just enough time to eat some muesli bars and slurp some water.

I visited the set 10 years ago when I first travelled round New Zealand, I got the bus from Tauranga to Matamata with a girl from the hostel called Emily, we only just made the bus and the tour picked us up from Matamata town. It was a minibus with probably about 12 people in it, I don't remember any tour guide or many other groups and we're free to look about on our own, the hobbit holes were just bare plywood holes as all the decorative features had been taken down as per the Lord of the Rings contract. The site was used again for the Hobbit films and it was all reinstated and instead of temporary plywood and polystyrene structures, it was remade with permanent materials. It was just a meadow flowered bank where the mill and Green Dragon pub are now.

This time we had to stay in our groups and be told things whilst we waited and wilted in the hot sun, agh! I wasn't really interested what Gandalf did here or what Sam or Bilbo did there - they ran about being influenced by some ring, they were short and stumpy and with hairy feet and liked round doors, the End. I was more interested in was the behind the scenes stuff, how stuff was made and the extreme tweeness of it all. Everyone also had to take a picture of themselves outside every single hobbit hole, I got to the front of the group and left them behind so I could look at things on my own.
It's extremely well made but a lot of it for the purpose of a film is way over the top - there's a tree on top of the hill that's an oak tree which has been cut down from one place and put on the hill because in the book there is a tree in that spot, of course all the leaves fell off so they wired a million silk leaves onto the tree, it was in the film for a matter of seconds. This tree was also recreated exactly the same but smaller for the Hobbit films because it would have been a younger tree. There's also a further row of hobbit holes behind the main set just in case the camera when up that far.



Amazing fake tree, an evergreen Oak!

The NZ Army also put in the road from the location to the main road for free and did a lot of initial earth moving to make the holes. Peter Jackson can afford to have a million painted leaves on 2 fake trees that appears for a few seconds and a row of hobbit holes no one ever saw but the tax payer had to foot the bill for 1.5km of road?
The best thing about the tour is the Green Dragon pub at which you get a nice cold ale, and you have all of 15 minutes to enjoy it.



The Green Dragon pub

If I ran the tours here there would be this option:
Set walk through with no commentary and then 1.5 hours at the Green Dragon. Boom hi 5. It would be like Speed Castling that Mum and I did in Jersey and that a lot of fun -look at the thing, move on! The Green Dragon is like an English country pub with round doors and fake old wood, - wood soaked in vinegar to dry it out and cause splits, then sand blasted and a circular saw blade is used to make shallow cracks and therefore make it look aged. I saw people eating food there so they maybe there is a pub only option, but I didn't see any mention of it on the site. Odd.



Movie magic aged wood

{Interlude, commotion in the back garden, one of the cats had got into the dog garden and sitting under the hedge, Jake was barking at her but like a true cat she just sat there and hissed, Shilo was running around exited and Molly was orbiting barking probably thinking that was helpful. I had to put the dogs in the kennel and open the gate so the cat could escape.}

The hobbit holes were made at different scales for different characters or view points. I loved all the finishing touches, the vegetable gardens, little ladders pots and trinkets about the place.

The gardeners do a good job keeping it looking nice.

One of the bigger holes, you can see inside it a bit. But it was all just exterior sets.



They even had real vegetables growing

After the tour I headed straight back to Auckland as I was going climbing at 6.30 at a climbing wall with a meetup group, I got back to the house and the cat was waiting outside the garage so that was a relief. I fed everyone and went to the climbing wall and waited half an hour in the spot we were meant to wait. People have to sign in when they arrive to I asked the staff if the people I was meant to meet had signed in, they hadn't arrived so after waiting half an hour I left, it's rude when people run a group and don't bother to let people know if they are going to be late or not come, I logged in on my phone whilst at the wall and left a message to say I had waited and left, someone else had also left a message but both of the organisers never bothered to show up, looks like they set up a group and then never bothered to check it or even follow their own instructions. Waste of peoples' time.
I thought I'll just take the dogs for a walk instead, I went to take Molly out but she kept running away and concluded she is just a silly little dog and doesn't understand what a lead means, so I took Jake out who slobbered all over me so first I went to wash my clothes - I can't put the collar on him when the other dogs are around so I had to call him into the rumpus room to isolate him and put the collar on. I took 3 poo bags this time just in case, Jake's a cool dog to take for a walk, I like to run with him and it makes anyone else who's walking a dog cross the road!

A busy weird day with lots of running around, I rewarded myself with a pizza and a film.

A perfect walk at Shakespear Regional Park

This walk was fantastic; varied, not to hilly, coastal and with lots of views. It didn't take all day and it formed a circular route so you didn't have to do walk the same ground twice. I found it at Shakespeare Regional Park whilst looking at Google maps for interesting places not too far north of Auckland, the park is at the end of a peninsular. There are 3 circular walking routes marked with different colour posts, all 3 walks can be combined together to make one big circular walk which covers the whole headland. It was a beautiful day, warm but with a breeze out of the trees so perfect for walking and that particular aspect I love - not many people.



Ten out of ten

The walk starts in the woods and emerges from the trees seen in the middle here

Then goes up this windows desktop path

Past a central lookout and down to the other side of the headland

Past the dairy cows and sheep

To the water and up the path seen here

Looking back to the cattle and sheep at the top right

Near the end of the loop before going back to a beach of the other side of the headland

I really enjoyed this walk, there were short sections through woods, the hills were gentle and the views were excellent, I could see Auckland city in the distance to the south. This wonderful walk make me think about the Great Walks of New Zealand and how they are I think overrated, more on that later. But this I think is one of the best day walks I've ever done. There was even an ice cream van at the beach near the end, you don't get that on a great walk I tell you.

A relaxed day

I didn't do much today, a bit of research and computer stuff. I let the cats out all day, they mostly ate grass, looked into the foliage and found various places to lay down. They are very affectionate animals and lovely to be around.

In the afternoon I went for short walk around to see if I could get another dog toy as the ones in Animates were all $8+, I found a non squeaky interesting ball in one of the dollar shops. I threw the toy into the garden as a distraction for Shilo and took Jake out for another walk, this time when he saw the collar it was a lot easier to put it on and he stood still. Up the hill Jake decided to do a massive poo in the middle of the path, luckily no one was around to see how big it was, I had a poo bag so picked as much up as would fit in the bag, I only had one bag with me and wished I had taken two, it was bin day on that road so I put it in some unfortunate persons bin and we ran away!

 

I'm Jake. I did a big poo.

East Auckland exploration

Let's see what all the fuss is about, why is Auckland so popular, Cuthbert and I went to find out. So certainly far West Auckland is not particularly nice from my last experience, just moving through it, it seemed to be soulless suburban centres with dollar shops and malls and large mediocre badly designed housing. On my escape to the airport from this area on the train, I could see lines of  rush hour traffic stuffing up the roads as far back as Henderson which is where I escaped from, I won't go into this now, but it involved too much effluent in the wrong place and 4 creatures that should be let out and then used as target practice, 1 was salvageable and for him I felt sorry, the owners seemed to be a dim and useless as their animals, and had effectively built their own prison of dog piss and cheap clutter.

But first and much more interestingly I have finally finished my book I was reading that I got out from the library 5 weeks ago! I read good books slowly because I like to make them last - I enjoy reading a bit and then thinking about it. The book was 'Walking Home. A Woman's Pilgrimage on the Appalachian Trail ' written by Kelly Winters, I don't think she's written any other books which is a shame because this one is brilliant. The Appalachian Trail or the AT is a 2000 mile trail up the east coast of the states finishing in Maine, it was a most enjoyable read.

After having some coffee and letting all the animals escape to terrorise the neighbourhood, I started my East coast investigation following the coast as much as possible. Heading north through Remuera to Mission Bay and then to St Heliers, they're nice bays, too popular for me but pleasant. The sort of places Nana would enjoy, sitting under a tree looking at the beach with an ice cream and later paddling her feet in the water. It reminded me of the walk I did from central Sydney to South Head passing through lots of similar bays whereby the beach has a fairly narrow band of sand, next to grass and benches with a public toilet facility in the centre and a parade of shops separated from the beach by the road. As I say its very nice but as there's more than 4 people there it's not my thing.


St Heliers

A pleasant walk around here:

Tahuna Torea Reserve

Tahuna Torea Reserve, a nice bit behind some houses

Point England Reserve

Of course I had to go to this place, it lead on from Tahuna Torea Reserve, through the walk pictured above. It was hot at Point England Reserve though without the shade of the trees so I came back across the field where I saw this sign:






Nice to see someone having fun with their job!

Eastern Suburbs

 After the walk I continued round the inlet to Buckland's beach area, which is the ferry point for Waiheke island, the far headland looked like a nice green area for lunch but it turned out to be a golf course, I didn't want to be hit in the head whilst eating my bananas so I headed back. The cats were in their cage which I really don't agree with and I wanted to let them out, the family seem worried the cats will escape so keep them confined, so as soon as I returned I let them roam about. I also needed some toys for the dogs and a proper collar so I could take the bigger dogs out for walks. I found an Animates and bought a collar, next to it was a sort of Moore Wilsons posho food market place, where I found some Dukkah, I thought it would stock proper cream too and then I could make a cream tea, but none found, that's a big strike against Auckland.

The collar I bought was big enough for Jake and Shilo but I needed to make some more holes in it for Shilo, I did this and tried it on her but she instantly slipped out of it so I put the collar on Jake who seemed very excited after seeing it I couldn't not take him for a walk. I'd never walked anything so big before and hoped he didn't run off as I wouldn't be able to stop him. He was too excited to sit still  and have the collar fitted so he laid down and dribbled, I had to shut Shilo outside to isolate Jake otherwise she would jump around in my face and the whole task becomes impossible. Collar now fitted I took Jake out around the block, and he was good. Apart from a few times when he wanted to stop and sniff things, he couldn't be moved at these times because of his size, but waiting to cross roads and seeing other dogs seemed to be OK. On returning I played with Shilo and made a fuss of her so she didn't feel left out and both dogs seemed very happy and flopped on the ground to rest.

I let the cats out because I don't believe in caging things, they mostly stayed in sight so I went indoors to do something for a moment and came back out and they were gone. Bother. I got some cat biscuits to rattle, dark one was in the back garden with the dogs, they were going after her and she was in the hedge, she managed to escape and didn't seemed bothered by the experience. The light one I couldn't see, the garden seemed pretty well sealed at the front and the dogs would have sniffed her out if she was at the back, so I figured she'd found an intriguing gap in the decking. Behind the water hose was such a gap, I rattled the biscuits in the hole and lo and behold one cob webbed cat appeared! I congratulated myself on my cat location skills, hopefully I won't have to use them too many times.

That's pretty cute

3 Dogs 2 Cats

I'm house sitting looking after these guys:


Jake and Shilo



Louie or Gucci experiencing the containing joy of my travel bag



Gucci or Louie



Molly

Louie and Gucci are probably Colour-point Longhairs/ Himilayans, the lighter of the two is quite vocal but the darker one is happy just to sit about anywhere, and is pretty chilled out. They are beautiful and have very sweet natures, I like cats like these, they enjoy company. They love to get in the way and if they can place themselves underneath my feet when I'm walking then that's primo.

Molly is a Chihuahua of course, buts she's not a silly little dog, she probably has the most brains out of the dogs and she generally follows me around like a shadow with the optimism that whatever I'm doing may result in some kibble somehow for her. Sometimes it does, for example cooking processes often yield some crumbs on the floor that she helpfully cleans up.  Except when I'm feeding everyone else, Molly races round getting the in way. Sometimes if she hears Jake or Shilo barking, which isn't often, she will start barking, and I'm not sure if she knows it's just the outside dogs but they chatter like this for a bit.
Molly and the cats get on well.

Jake is a Mastiff, he's massive and has a huge head. He's quite dim and likes to dribble and lean on people. I think Shilo is a Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Shilo is attentive and will look quizzically and quite cute, but sometimes she beats Jake up even though he's more than twice her size, he just seems to put up with it.

For Christmas day I had been invited to Lorraine's - Dolf's sister in law, to join them in Hamilton for Christmas. It's not too far to go in a day from Auckland, I took a box of Cherries for Lorraine I had bought from a farm shop on the way to Auckland and my swimming togs for a dip in the pool after lunch.

Apres Christmas lunch activity!

After a delicious Christmas dinner most of the party had a nap, or read a book. I read my book and had a swim. I couldn't stay too late as I had the animals to feed and they are used to eating between certain times, but a little bit late was ok. Kylie said they has Netflicks so after feeding time I thought I'd watch a film but the only films available on their accounts were namby pamby teen films which I wasn't interested in, but they did have some decent films in their household DVD collection amongst all the kiddy stuff.


Ellerslie Race Track

On Boxing Day I had a walk around the locality, which is just suburbia with some local parks which are mainly playing fields and not the sort of leafy tranquil parks I wanted to walk around, but there is a horse racing track nearby and there were some races on, so I walked over and watched some horses run around in circles and then went back to find where the dogs leads and toys were hidden. Again, these dogs don't seem to get regular walks, which is disappointing, I wanted to give the dogs some fun activities to do. I did find an old harness for Molly so I took her out at least. Some more films from the collection that evening, a relaxing day.

Well it's feeding time at the zoo again, so I'd better leave it there.

A nice stop in Hawkes Bay

The next day I didn't feel like doing any more walking.
In Nelson is the World of Wearable Arts and Classic Cars museum so I went there, it had been on my list of things to see for a while. On the way to Nelson I picked up another couple of hitch hikers from the Czech Republic who wanted to go to Nelson, they were buying a car. I dropped them of in the centre and then went to the nice grassy hill next to the Cathedral to have some lunch, I had a wonder round the Cathedral which had lots of Christmas trees inside from different community groups, some were quite inventive.
I was enjoying my lunch when a familiar pair of trousers came up the hill, they belonged to Lucy, one of the hitch hikers I had just dropped off. Lucy and Thomas had done what they needed to do and had to wait around a bit to meet someone about the car and had had the same idea about lunch by the Cathedral, it was a nice surprise to see them again, they came over and we had lunch on the lawns together.



Lucy and Thomas

'The Missing Piece'

After a pleasant start to the day I went to the WOW museum, it was amazing. The devil really is in the details - the costume ideas are brilliant, cleverly made and detailed to a high standard, even up close the quality of finish is superb. I inspected them with great interest. My entry  a few years back 'The Missing Piece' looked good from a distance, but up close it wasn't up to it, I didn't have long enough to make it. I think I need to start with a less ambitious section next time, like the 'bizarre bras' and experiment more with construction techniques.

http://www.wowcars.co.nz/



The ferry was at 2.15am, yawn, so I boggled about down the Queen Charlotte Sound for a while sorting out the luggage in the back and generally faffing around for as long as possible. Little Quail birds came out in pairs onto the road and pecked around, I had some muesli bars I didn't like because they had cheap chocolate on them so I broke them up and fed them to the Quails.

The sun was setting and I still had a number of hours till the ferry, so I parked up in a quiet spot about 10kms from Picton and slept in the car. I didn't get any sleep on the ferry because seating was either low back café seats or the cinema room with comfy seats, as least I could rest my head back in the cinema and it wasn't too crowded. They were showing Terminator Genesis, so I didn't mind too much. It's got Arnie in it so you can't go wrong there. In Wellington I went to the coast to sleep until the library was open to exchange some books before driving on to Hastings, where I was going to catch up with a friend. It made for a good break in the journey to Auckland and also a chance to see Cape Kidnappers, plus after 7 years I am most completely bored with the SH1 route.

I found a nice campsite near Cape Kidnappers on the coast, I backtracked into Hastings to catch up with Pablo who I hadn't seen for a few months since he left to start fruit picking up north, it was great to catch up. He still thinks his English needs improving, I think it's very good. Back at the camp site I had a very good sleep after scattered naps the previous night, it really felt like one long 48 hour day. Long slump....

In the morning I walked to Cape Kidnappers:

Just one photo makes it seem like a short walk, it was actually 14km there and back, but people have short attention spans these days so here is one photo.

Aqui ya!

These birds are not Gannets. I thought they were going to steal my hat.

Gannets

It smelt of guano which isn't surprising, I observed the Gannets for a bit and then I was aware I hadn't checked the tide times and most people had been walking in the other direction. Duh! I headed back, it was a nice walk, but I'm glad I didn't leave it any later as the tide was coming in. The sun was reducing the shade my tent had been in but there was still a bit left by the picnic bench, I decamped quickly and had a quick cold shower to cool myself after the hot walk then drove the short distance to Napier, where as it happened Dolf and Francesca were staying for a few days. I didn't have time to hang about much as I needed to drive on to Hamilton where I was going to stay with Lorraine for the night.
But I had time for a wonder around Napier, Francesca mentioned they had had lunch at the Masonic Lodge so I thought I'd do the same, it's right in the centre and most splendid. It has burnt down twice during it's history and is now apparently one of the best pubs in the world.

The most splendid Masonic Lodge

I had a poke about in the hotel upstairs, it was still splendid.

 

Across the road on the lawns, the sun dial read:

..Serene I stand
Amongst the flowers
To tell the passing
Of the hours...

I went onto the stony beach, it reminded me of Brighton and West Worthing where there are no buildings on the beach side of the road, and where the stones fade into grass. The architecture is also reminiscent of Sussex, partly because it's one of the few places in NZ with nice architecture, there's also two structures jutting into the sea that if you imagined just a bit, they could be the Palace Pier and West Pier, and behind them are the cliffs in one direction which could lead to Beachy Head and in the other the land arcs around to where the Isle of White would be. It was Brighton from another time, another place.

As I was leaving town, I saw a familiar sedan drive by with a familiar driver, it was Dolf and Francesca. I drove out of Napier stopping to pick up some cherries and stone fruits from farms on the way, on to Hamilton.