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