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For some reason I’ve not got the drive to write about the camping holiday over Xmas. Not sure why. It was great and fun and stuff. Perhaps it’s all a little too large to write about and I fear I’ll be here for hours. I also guess I’m reluctant to do a “we did this and we did that” post yet the getting into the small interesting observational details will be too much, for there were many. But I should get something down for tomorrow we’re off for four days in the land of boiling mud and hot springs and stuff.

Sandspit was where the camp site was. It’s a nice place, very family oriented but in a good way and very old-school, like they’d barely updated it in years. Our site was right by the sea with the water lapping about a metre from the tent at high tide but because we were in a sheltered bay where the water never got more than a few feet deep for a good mile the waves never rose even in high winds. We put up the tent. That was fun. I set up the tripod and Lucy and I snapped occasional shots, time-lapse style. Here’s the video.

cheezee music courtesy of Apple.

And here are photos taken on and around the site.

On one day we went to Kawau Island on the ferry. I took photos.

On Christmas eve the seven of us went for posh dinner at the Ascension Vinyard. It was lovely. I decided to pay. And then I saw the bill. But I still paid. They roast the food over wine-soaked oak chips. Yum!

Christmas day started with presents by the tent. I gave Isobel and Spike musical instruments with which to annoy their parents - a mouth organ, a drum-thing with two beads on strings, a weird spinning thing that makes an odd noise found at the Moseley Folk Festival and a penny whistle. Here’s me and Spike with the whistle (taken by mum).

By the end of the day everyone was really annoyed with the whistle. Result! I’m such a good Uncle!

Thanks to the traditional bucks fizz the rest of the day was pretty much spent asleep but we did manage a quick trip to the fantastically named Goat Island marine reserve. (As an aside, I’ve noticed the naming of places in New Zealand is either a cacophony of Maori or bluntly matter of fact English, such as Goat Island - the island where Goats were kept.) It being Christmas day there was no-one there and the wind had picked up big time making it wild and somewhat crazy. Low cloud over the hills added to the sense of otherworldliness.

More photos here.

And then on Boxing day we packed up the tent and made our way back to Auckland for food with Lucy and Jeff and then all the way back to Hamilton where I’ve been ever since, chilling out with such luxuries as chairs and kettles. Lots of other stuff happened and maybe when I go through the photos and tag them properly I’ll blog about bits of it. But for now, that was Xmas.

Oh yeah - the nicest thing about Xmas here is it doesn’t seem to matter. Sure, it happens. The shops go a bit crazy, the kids get presents and so on, but it’s all kinda incidental and a lot saner than in the UK. Maybe it’s the climate - when it’s all hot and stuff people don’t feel the need to make a big deal out of it - but this putting Christmas on the same sort of level as we put Easter is very refreshing.

Having a great time wish you were here missing you already t’ra a bit.

Okay, heatstroke fully recovered from so I’d better rattle through Thursday’s adventures since we’re off to the beach-side camping site for Xmas tomorrow. I’ll try and keep this brief.

Using Dubber’s blog as a rough guide plus some other tips here and there I decided on a three point journey starting at Victoria Street for the market (and, usefully, where the bus stops after the bridge), then walking up to Karangahape Road and Ponsonby Street followed by a jaunt over to the Auckland Domain for the Auckland Museum and War Memorial. Finally a stroll back across town to the city centre to catch the bus home. That should do it.

Stupidly I didn’t bring any food or drink with me, figuring I’d pick some up on the way, and because I’m the sort of person who forgets to eat while out I didn’t do this until 3pm. After a 10am start. Hence the heatstroke. I was warned, many times, but did I listen? No. I needed to see it for myself. I will not make that mistake again in a hurry.

So the photos really start on Karangahape Road, or as it’s locally known The K’Road. This, it seems, is skuzzy Auckland with the strip joints, sex shops and other low-life periphery. I half felt a little nervous and half felt completely at home and was very conscious of being a tourist. The paradox goes something like this. I don’t want to be a tourist taking photos of stuff that I’m not a part of, but I am a tourist and certainly not part of this area, but I like this sort of thing and want to take photos of it, yet I know that by being there as a tourist I’m part of a problem which will see this area eventually caught in the bloody maw of gentrification. What can you do? I think the trick is to stay away unless you intend to live there. Still, the architecture was some of the most interesting I’d seen so far.

The gentrification thang has, by all accounts, happened to Ponsonby, an area which is listed in all the guide books as being a bit arty and on the edge and therefore used to be. I could tell it was a bit off as I immediately felt at ease and able to pop into a cafe. But that’s probably a bit harsh. It was still a nice place with similarities to Moseley and Kings Heath in Birmingham. I can see why Dubber spends time there meeting old chums. I know I would if I were a native. So again with the tourist paradox. In order to really appreciate these sort of places you need to get under the skin of them and know the people. This is why I hate giving tourist tips for Birmingham.

But all told I’m glad I went, if only to see a different side to Auckland from the city centre and North Shore suburbs. Then it was off to the Domain, pausing briefly at the Symonds St Cemetery, always a magnet for the photographer and of interest because all the graves are from a certain period in the late 19th century. If I wasn’t on a mission I would have wandered deeper where the bush takes over the graves but settled for the tidy bit. Very nice, and the red moss was intriguing, like something out of War of the Worlds.

The Domain has all the hallmarks of colonial park (though I accept I’m seeing a lot of Auckland in terms of colonialism) - a huge sprawling park on a hill topped with a monumental piece of architecture reminiscent of the British Museum.

The Museum was described to me as “actually worth going to” as opposed to all the usual tourist traps and it was. Some great exhibits well curated with the modern kid-friendly stuff either nice and discrete or wonderfully over the top. The Maori stuff was, of course, spectacular and well done and the natural history areas were wonderful, drawing on the crazy variety of wildlife on the islands. Of special note was the Volcanoes room jam packed full of information from the origins of NZ itself (which lies on a subduction zone) to all the great volcanic explosions through the ages to a specially built “house” overlooking the bay where you can experience what it would be like if a volcano erupted outside your window. I could have spent hours in there.

Overall I was very impressed with the museum. It was fun but not in a tedious way and every section had a reference library and resource centre. And then, nicely integrated into the military history bits, was the war memorial ,not overpowering the building but lending it a sense of gravitas and reflection. I feel many cities could learn from Auckland’s museum.

Then, with the heatstroke starting to kick in I made my way down through the Domain towards the art galleries by Albert Park (yup, that Albert. Victoria really couldn’t let that one go) where I was pretty sure I could find a nice cafe. In the end I found a chain which was a bit of a disappointment but I wasn’t really with it by that stage. Somewhat refreshed I started to make my way back to Victoria Street to complete the circle but was distracted by the notion of Korean fried dumplings for the equivalent of 80p. These turned out to be just that - a dumpling fried on a hot plate and squished into the shape of a thick pancake, liberally soaked in olive oil. Fantastic!

And then, after a final look round the Victoria Street Market where I failed to buy anything I made my way home to suffer the pain of a stupid person who didn’t listen to sound advice.

All the photos are in this set and there’s a good blog post in a number of them. That, along with further reflections on the nature of Auckland, will have to wait ’til later. In the meanwhile I’m going to a place where the internet doth not reach for five days. Be good!

I appear to have burned my ears.

Oddly enough they don’t hurt at all.

I also came down with a nasty case of heatstroke or similar yesterday after walking around Auckland without drinking enough water (or, as evidenced above, wearing a big floppy hat). I couldn’t work out what was going on until I realised it was like having a bad hangover without the fun part beforehand. In other words, major dehydration in the brain department.

New Zealand tricks you this way. It might be hot but the wind keeps the ambient temperature down. Meanwhile the lack of ozone layer means the sun fries your ass.

Lesson learned!

Well, last night I slept through for about 10 hours and then crashed again at lunch for another two or three. Lucy says this is a delayed form of jet lag but I think it had something to do with my decision to walk up a volcano yesterday.

Rangitoto Island lies just off the coast from Auckland and is one of the more recent volcanoes in the region having sprouted a mere 6-800 years ago. Because of this it’s still covered in sharp lava though there’s a fair amount of vegitation growing in the thin layers of organic matter that have settled over the years, most notably a significant amount of New Zealand’s national (I think - they certainly like it here) plant, the Pohutukawa.

I took the camera and tripod and despite my best efforts could only reduce my photos down to 55 from an original 128. That’s a pretty good hit ratio by any standards but then, allowing for some metering issues with the black rock, it wasn’t hard.

Being rather lovely and so close to Auckland it’s a rather popular destination but the relative harshness (no shops or even drinking water) and need to get there by boat (the ferry cost NZ$20 return - about £8 - so fairly cheap) means it’s not that busy even if you do stick to the most popular track, as I did. The route straight up to the summit.

I chose to go up partly because when faced with a mountain the only thing to do is climb it but also because I’ve become aware how unfit I am after a year of blogging. The guide suggested it would take an hour. I did it in 40 minutes. And it was lovely up there in the clouds, even if the view wasn’t as clear as I’d have hoped. Still, I took my time coming down, diverted off to see the lava caves (which you can walk through!) and took in the scenery.

The weirdest thing about the island is, of course, the lava fields. At first they look like freshly tilled soil and, having heard about the efforts to restore the Pohutukawa trees, I assumed somebody had dug them over. But no! It’s actually piles sharp rock, formed when the lava cooled and the crust was broken up by the still flowing hot stuff underneath. The black rock also means the island is very warm and even on a relatively overcast day you can feel the heat radiating up.

I’d originally wanted to walk all the way over to the enticing sounding “shipwreck bay” but missing the first ferry and fearing missing the last meant I didn’t and spent some time wandering along the coast. Again, the contrast with the lava rock was striking, this time against the sea which hadn’t had time to break it down.

And then, just as the ferry was approaching, a storm suddenly hit. Minutes earlier I’d been lying on the deck sunning myself but now I was standing shivering on the pier as one side of my body was drenched. The weather is very changeable in New Zealand, doubly so on the islands.

Looking back over this week I’ve sort of been playing it safe, but that’s no bad thing I feel. While exhausting in places it’s been good to relax and get my bearings a bit. I’m going to spend a bit more time in Auckland tomorrow and then on Saturday we’re off camping for Xmas. After than I think I’ll take things up a notch or two.

(Oh, and having lugged the tripod around for two days with it bashing against my legs I relented and finally bought a Gorillapod. It’s lovely! Must stop buying camera stuff now…)

Spotted on a New Zealand island.

Confused? You won’t be.

Quoted by her, from this:

There is something about excessive, inefficient and pointless labour for the sake of art that is kind of beautiful. Maybe it is that labour in other contexts, like at our jobs, is usually equally as inefficient but there is a lie to it, the lie that it matters, which however meagerly keeps people going back to their jobs. But unloading a bag for nothing, for no result just makes its pointlessness explicit, so obviously useless, and in some strange way more satisfying. And, what is also beautiful is when you go into something with a goal and by the end the goal is destroyed and in place of the goal you are left with a situation.

I’ve often been uneasy about inefficient being used as a reason for change, particularly by politicians and managers. The inefficient route can often be the more interesting one, and an interesting has a habit of leading to innovation in thought and deed. It’s not a new idea - see also The Idler and Pat Kane’s 2004 Play Ethic.

Quite pleased with this one. It’s taken from a boat with the docks in front, not something you’d normally see in a touristy picture of the city, but somehow it works.

The Sky Tower is of particular interest to me as Birmingham is due to get something similar, not only in style but in purpose. This one also offers bungee jumping and a “sky walk” around the edge along with the usual restaurants and viewing areas. It does, however, also serve as a telecoms towers, something the Birmingham VTP won’t be doing.

No idea how successful it is financially but it certainly works aesthetically with the cityscape. In my opinion anyway.

I really must get caught up. I want to write about today but I can’t because I haven’t written about yesterday yet, so this is about yesterday. I’m taking tomorrow “off” to do some work (a vacation from the vacation, if you like) which should allow me to catch up. But for now it’s all about the bush, specifically the Harbourside Bush Trails in Chatswood where Sister, etc live.

Looking them up on t’internet I found very little, but then this isn’t a tourist thing. This bush is the equivalent of your local park, except it’s bush. Bush is one of those annoyingly vague terms that stop being annoying when you realise they mean “countryside” with a bit of forestry added for good measure. To have this pretty much on your suburban doorstep is rather special indeed, and on walking through this surprisingly wild environment on a Monday morning I saw not another soul.

My aim, however, was to hit the coast for photos, and that’s what I did.

22 photos in total were taken. While the Harbourside Bush isn’t the most dramatic part of NZ (although it does have its moments) if you should find yourself staying in this suburb do go for a wander.

I’ve not been getting as much reading done as I’d have hoped thanks to fresh air induced tiredness (the best kind of tiredness) and a prevalence of internet (something that won’t be a problem next week) but this passage from page 22 of Paul Morley’s Words and Music on his experience of listening to Tangerine Dream for the first time in the 70s really hit home.

I hear drone. The drone of existence. The drone of meaning, and of no meaning. Drone as repetition and monotony and a reminder of something that is either the sound inside the womb, the sound of your thoughts before words become your thoughts, the sound you expect after death, or all of that plus the sounds that seem to confirm not only that there is life on Mars, but that there is life on earth too. Within the drone, you can hear noises that, quite simply, seem to be coming from the darkness, strange whispers that you are quite possibly imagining, and an echo of the sound of highly evolved insects reading aloud from a script by Samuel Beckett. This, despite evidence to the contrary, can actually be quite comforting.

Over the last year I’ve been listening to a fair bit of “Drone” though it was always something of a novelty, or at least a dish best served live and never through the earphones. But on downloading a load of Sunn O))) tunes and throwing them on the iPod for a laugh, intending to later take them off when the humour waned, I found myself listening to one of their 10+ minute tracks while walking down Kings Heath high street and, like a blast of dark light, I suddenly got it. But until reading that passage of Morely’s I didn’t fully understand what I’d got.

Sunday saw me breaking free of the family ties and having a stroll around Auckland city centre for the afternoon. It’s a nice city with the usual chain stores mixed in with some more interesting shops and buildings. I’m quite taken with what I’m calling this “colonial” architecture - monumental-ish buildings about 100 years old with quite flat and subtle reliefs on them. There’s also a lot of art in Auckland, much of it of a Maori ilk.

I got the feeling Auckland centre was in the middle of a big cleanup as the money pours into this growing city but there’s still space for the interesting bit of humanity amongst the planning.

I then did a bad thing and bought a new lens, a Sigma 70-300mm zoom which is effectively 105-450mm on my Nikon. I figured if I was ever going to use that sort of zoom it was going to be in New Zealand and while it doesn’t have vibration reduction I did bring my tripod. It’s taking a bit of getting used to but I gave it a quick spin by the docks.

Havingagreattimewishyouwerehere.

This weekend sister Lucy and bro-in-law Jeff celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary with a trip to Waiheke Island for some kayaking and other things that can’t really be done with two toddlers in tow so we, being mum, step-dad Rupert and myself, came up to Auckland to look after Isobel and Spike.

Friday we went for a walk in the suburbs and generally chilled out.

They appear to be slipping into stereotypes - Iso loves the pink while Spike has a major Thomas addiction going on.

Saturday was a trip to the beach on the Tawharanui Peninsula. It was a nature reserve which here involved keeping the possums and rats out so the indigenous wildlife can thrive. This is achieved with a massive fence with an automatic gate surrounded by loads of traps, but it appears to work. Loads of birdlife.

We climbed a “mountain”

and I went into the sea and got my bollocks wet!

Next time I intend to go up to my neck…

More photos from Tawharanui.

A combination of sea air, good food and delayed jetlag meant I slept for rather a long time yesterday so I’m already behind with the blogging. So in an attempt to catch up here’s photos of Bridal Veil Falls as seen on Thursday.

Yesterday we took Iso and Spike to the beach. Photos to come!

Knowing I’d be doing more than I’d have time to write up I was tempted by Dubber’s postcard strategy of posting a photo with a short letter under it, but that doesn’t seem to be working either. Or maybe the jetlag is still with me. I dunno.

Suffice to say the first week has rocketed by. It was weird leaving Brum on Monday morning and, allowing for my being fucked on arrival, not really doing anything until Thursday, but a lovely time was spent with mother in Raglan walking on the beach and even going into the sea (!!). I took photos.

I liked Raglan. It was a perfect introduction to New Zealand. I could see my mother settling there and running a yoga cafe place for hippy surfers.

The sand is black, which is odd, and dense, which means the sea is very clear as it doesn’t stay suspended in the surf.

After that we went to Bridal Veil Falls which is a lovely waterfall. Photos will follow soon (upload speeds here are very slow…)

Today we went to Auckland to look after Isobel and Spike while sister Lucy and bro-in-law Jeff bugger off for their wedding anniversary weekend break without the kids. I’m going to be staying here for the next week and I think investigating Auckland will be the initial plan of action before heading out into the wilds. Maybe. I’m still a bit shell shocked by it all to be honest.

But it’s fantastic. Wish you were here. (Well, some of you.)