Driftwood

You think this is driftwood

Until you see this

Doing What Kiwis Do

Well huge numbers of them knit.  I have no photos of people knitting whether they be Kiwis or from anywhere else.  However Meike's Mum is a knitter and has written A Sock Knitting Maniac on Meike's blog with plenty of pictures.  This is an unashamed plug for Meike's blog and her give-away in the post I've just mentioned.  The more people who pop over and visit and comment on her blog and enter her give-away the less my chances of winning but, hey, we all have to make sacrifices in this life.

When we were in Mahia last weekend we saw plenty of people doing other things that Kiwis do:

Beach Rocks

Along by Happy Jacks Boat Harbour on the Mahanga Beach there are a plethora of interesting rocks and boulders the like of which I haven't seen before.  A few examples:

These are an interesting optical spectacle in that they can look like embedded stones whereas they are in fact craters left by stones which have been eroded out.

No Entry

When I was staying at Mahanga recently we went for a drive on the Mahia Peninsula where, on what used to be a track around the shore we came across the following notice:

Mind you with this fellow staring at me I'm not sure that I'd have wanted to have gone any further anyway.

Beaches, Beautiful Beaches.

I seem to have spent a great deal of time on beaches over the last few weeks.  I love beaches.  I love beach walks with friends even more.  There have been a lot of those. I've already posted some of the experiences on the Mahia Peninsula and the surrounding area and last weekend I was in Northland near Whangarei and explored some other beaches.

But first a revisit:

Blacks Beach,  Hawkes Bay on way to Mahia Peninsula

Looking South from the same spot.  It looks rough but this was quite a calm day.

I was puzzl;ed by this Black-backed Gull on Mahanga Beach.  He always seemed to be there at the same spot every time I went there.

Wheel Shell / Kota with Hermit Crab from Mahanga Beach

Wheel Shell / Kota with Hermit Crab on Mahanga Beach

We shared Ruakaka Beach with lots of birds and shells and a few humans:

Two very friendly ladies out riding

Pat, can you show this to Briagha - those breakers were almost as tall as I am.

"Me.  In there?  You must be joking!"

And at Langs Beach at Waipu there was a lovely spot with the tide coming through:

Langs Beach, Waipu

Langs Beach, Waipu

 And that's all for now!

Jellyfish

I'm not a great fan of jellyfish and I am probably far from alone.  On the Mahanga Beach there were lots of tiny blue jellyfish.  I've not managed so far to identify them.  However the last photo is a singularly unpleasant little creature which packs a considerable punch.  As we had all been walking barefoot on the beach and there were a lot of these there was probably an element of luck involved in our pain-free enjoyment.

Blue Bottle Jellyfish or Portugese Man of War

A Weekend Sans Internet

Friday 25 March

We arrived in Mahanga (which is near Mahia) at lunchtime after a drive of several hours and a coffee stop at Wairoa.  The first thing I realised was that neither Telecom nor my Vodafone had a signal.  My only internet link is via my Telecom dongle so I realised that I was incommunicado until we returned to the big wide world on Monday.  Three days or 72 hours without access to my mobile/cell phones, emails, Blogworld, Facebook, Google, Wikipedia and all the other things I take so for granted!  Will I survive?  Well if you are reading this the answer is obviously in the affirmative. 

I am actually sitting in bed at 11pm on Friday writing this and wondering when I was last out of communication for three days.  I think that the answer may be many many years ago.  Even when I was in the outback of Australia in 1998 I think that I managed cellphone coverage often enough never to miss more than a day or so in what were then usually daily phone calls to my parents.

I had my first cellphone over 20 years ago when they were actually the size of a brick with a battery and main unit separate from the speaking part which was, like the ordinary telephones of the time, attached by a cord to the main unit.  I’ve never been without a cellphone since then and in fact although the numbers have been extended by the addition of suffixes as the total available numbers became inadequate I still have the same mobile/cellphone number as I had all those years ago.

At Mahanga: out of the front door and onto the beach - before the rain!

This beach is getting crowded - who's the chap coming to invade our space?

Saturday 26 March

We all got up late around 8am this morning.  It turned out to be a pretty miserable day.  It didn’t  start raining properly until lunchtime but once it started it persisted for the rest of the day:  not hard constant rain but the sort of constantly intermittent (if you’ll look past the grammatical non sequitur to the reality) sort of rain that drenches you before you’ve noticed it.  So apart from a drive to the village for the newspaper and a walk on the beach before the rain set in we didn’t do much outside today.  We spent the afternoon and evening doing crosswords, reading and playing games.  I’m not a great lover of games but I did rather enjoy Blokus and Monopoly Deal. 

Reggie Perrin - Don't do it!

I had hoped to get a really symphony in green but the sun never shone on the hillside of native bush.

Sunday 27 March

Got up very late this morning (about 0745) after a rather broken night with fairly torrential rain.  We had a very relaxed morning and then drove over to Mahia and dropped Colleen off to visit friends whilst Sandra took Jayne and I exploring the peninsula.

Mahia Beach.  There was a storm recently and this was the result.

Home and lunch was followed by an afternoon walking on the beach and exploring the area.  Another day of miserable weather although the rain stopped mid-morning.

Spray obscuring the 7 ks of beach between where I'm standing and the Mahia Peninsula

On a sunny day this looks like the Bahamas - I've seen the photos 'cos this land's for sale!

This evening we played more Blokus and Monopoly Deal.  By this time even Jayne had decided the latter was a Good Game and had become hooked.

So now at midnight (about 2 or 3 hours past everyone else’s usual bedtime we have all finished chatting and putting the world to rights and have retired to bed.  I don’t actually feel tired and am typing this listening to piano music on my iPod.

Into The Unknown

It's Thursday night and I'll soon be off to bed.  I'm off first thing up to the Mahia Peninsula on the East coast a couple of hours North of here.  The Tournament Girls and I are off to stay at the bach (pronounced batch) of one of our number, Sandra.  A bach is a country cottage.  Usually by the sea.  They range from the original fairly basic wooden cottages to some quite palatial ones these days which are not really baches but are still called that by their owners in wonderful understatement.  The 'bach' we stayed in a few weeks ago slept 19 and was certainly not basic. 

The weather forecast for tomorrow is reasonable but the rest of the weekend is supposed to be pretty miserable.  Ah well.  I've never been to the The Mahia peninsula but it is, by all accounts, an idyllic place.

It's pretty much in the middle of nowhere and I have absolutely no idea whether there will be cellphone signal to enable me to get the internet.  If not I'll be out of communication until Monday evening.

Whatever happens I'll hopefully have lots of material for blogging by the end of the weekend.

A Fire at Mahia: Update

Yesterday I mentioned the terrible fire at Mahia. Tonight it's 95% under control (whatever that means). Emergency services began fighting the flames in Opoutama in the Mahia Beach area late yesterday (Sunday) afternoon and it has taken all night and most of today to subdue. A long hot day became a flaming hot night as strong winds fanned fire across 140 hectares of grass and pine, forcing the evacuation of more than 170 locals. Locals described the fire as very frightening and just how frightening became obvious in the daylight. The twisted metal of the nine devastated dwellings are surrounded by a forest of black. Fifty farm houses and baches were evacuated as a precaution and 175 people took refuge at a nearby school. The cause of the fire is still being investigated and the cost of fighting it alone could reach as high as $500,000."We've got lots of expensive machinery involved, fire appliances people who have been dragged off leave on a Sunday. We've got helicopters which are not cheap to run so the bill adds up very, very quickly," says Malcolm Smith of the Department of Conservation. While the immediate danger of the fire has passed if you reach down and touch the ground or even a log you can feel the heat still coming out of it. That's why fire crews say they will be there for up to another three weeks ensuring there aren't anymore flare-ups. Long-time residents say there has not been a fire on this scale for years and its memory will last long after the smoke clears.

Compared with the fires of California and Eastern Australia this has been a mere pimple on the face of the countryside. But it's been very close to home and fairy traumatic. And there's nothing like things close to home to bring reality into one's life.

A Fire at Mahia

As you know I'm in Gisborne with Mike and Sandra at the moment. Yesterday it was 35 deg and this morning it's dull and 20 deg. That's New Zealand for you.

Yesterday when we were playing croquet the fire engines were out in force. We later discovered that there was a huge fire at Mahia to the South which is one of the most attractive holiday beach areas for kiwis and tourists. I'd driven past the area yesterday morning.

This morning it is still burning. Firefighters say the fire is threatening more properties as they battle to bring it under control. Three properties have been lost already, and some 50 farm houses and baches in the area have been evacuated. More than 170 people have taken refuge at a nearby school. The fire has involved up to 1,000 acres of land and there is now concern a change in the wind could force the fire back towards homes. Around 600 firefighters, as well as eight helicopters, are fighting the fire.