Auckland and surrounds

Early morning Auckland. The sun just coming up on a sleepy city. The view we had from this condo was great. We could see the bridge going to the suburbs, the marina, everything!
On the warm days, we even sat out on the balcony to eat lunch.


















Now we're cooking. The day gets going.















The development in this port area has given a great vitality to the downtown core. There were a lot of swish shops and restaurants.










The parks had some pretty spectacular specimens of old trees. The lichen growing on the tree is supposed to mean the air is very clean.















I see an influence for architecture here, don't you?
















University of Auckland grounds. Very English in style with a few Kiwi twists here and there, mainly the exotic plants.













This is a perfect contrast of summer and winter and trees that are not native to New Zealand doing their winter thing.












The architecture in New Zealand is quite beautiful A lot of it is in woods, because of the ample supplies available during colonization. Hence no more Kauri trees, practically.





















A great example of stencil grafitti. I loved it!

























Karangahape road. This is supposed to be the "cool" area. Lots of fun coffe houses and eateries, alternative and second hand shops mixing with upscale designer shops. Even though it rained on and off, it was warm and "cool".












More of the Street!
An example of post Victorian row housing shops. I was reading a book about an author born in Auckland and living on this road during the depression and second world war.














A city Marai and school for the Maori community. It was located in a beautiful area just a short walk from Karangahape Rd. School was just coming out.








Coming up a street, we passed this behind the scenes of shops on the "K" road and saw that things had not changed much, except for the satellite dishes, of course.















I went back to the train station to take pictures of the interior. It had the most stainless steel I had ever seen in any architectural application.















These were the light openings for the train station. From outside, they looked like tits!


























We took ferries to get to areas of the city that were away from the downtown. This day, we were going to a park to see some Kauri trees.
















A view of the ferry terminal, from a ferry.










A view of Auckland as we pull further out into the harbour.
The portlands from the bay. We walked past it one day and watched with fascination as they moved containers at speed with these great forklifts specially for containers. Kind of scary when you think of the size of those things.










The bridge we are about to pass under. The temperature was very temperate, the only consideration being that the rain could come down at any time, so, be prepared.
We took a ferry to Birkenhead, where we could then walk to a conservation area that boasted some Kauri trees. I really wanted to see these trees.










The walk up from the ferry took us through the "parking lot" a very lovely light with the passing rain.



















This park was a great scrambling climb, skidding down and tramping all around. There was mud and dry and swamp. It was hot work and fun!

























This is just a small portion of a Kauri tree. The top is another 80 feet up! This is apparently a very young tree.


























There were Tuis everywhere. Inquisitive and curious, they followed us around the park.




















This was such a magic place.

















Lacework beyond belief! This was a small park in a suburb.





















Wonderful colour in the plants, even in winter!

















A great view as we come over the bridge back into Auckland. We had had a great day and a great excursion!

Wellington, train ride, Auckland

WELLINGTON

Click on any image to get the large size of it. It's a good way to catch the detail.

I had about four days in Wellington before taking the train to a week in Auckland. The weather was cool and gray, raining on and off, so I enjoyed visiting both inside and outside sights. The sculpture is a lazer cut metal ball that is hung in the air. The is a cone in the same style in Christchurch, obviously by the same artist.













There are a lot of civic sculptures in and around Wellington. It makes for a very picturesque city. There are also bicycles everywhere. Look right, then left and develop the ears of a bat to hear them behind you!













The bollards are leading to a great information/travel place. The whole country is organized with these sites so you can make travel arrangements, tours, etc. You can book your next hostel from there and pay for it too. All is computerized and efficient. I loved it!










The marina is right in the core downtown, also right beside the Te Papa museum. The whole dockside was renewed in the last 15 years or so. From a rough and ready portlands to a very swish place for people, condos and restaurants.














This is the stadium for cricket, also right in the downtown core. I has a vaguely religious feel to it and was clean beyond all words!
















The whole city is built on the sides of hills. Homes are perched (seemingly precarious) on whatever piece of ground they can get. Staircases are all over and getting in and out on them is sometimes the only access to houses.
Here, the contrast of the home on the right to the one on the left is quite startling, for the paint job. Apparently, because of the sea air, paint needs to be refreshed about every 3 to 4 years!











I did a lot of hiking with my sister and we visited a lot of hilltops and saw some great views of the city and it's surroundings.































This is a great view of the city, the harbour and the vegetation that make up this place. The air always has a fresh scrubbed feeling and you can breathe deeply. The wooded areas have that wet moss smell when it rains and the sounds are very shrouded and mysterious.








This really shows the precarious building that goes on in a place that has small quakes going on all the time. I wonder what kind of ties they put in to hold these places on?












This is what I mean about getting to a house with difficult access! The parking platform built way above the house and the staircase to go down. Can you imagine moving day let alone groceries? Or the climb up the hill, with the groceries to get to this place?











The charm of the gardens in Wellington is amazing. Not only are the cottages adorable, the soil is great for the green thumb and the temperate climate does all it can to help. Lots of rain in summer and winter makes everything VERY green.










A great view of Wellington homes and the beautiful grasses being the decoration on this cake.














Amazing aloe has a chance to grow to stupendous sizes. There are tons of varieties and colours to look at.This photo is only one of about 300 pictures I took of flora while on this trip.











Nina and I walked everyday. Even the morning after I arrived. I felt great and the exercise go rid of the kinks from the air trip there. We are on a tootle toward the botanical gardens. They are an amazing visit all on their own!






This is a small park we walked through that had a wonderful spooky feel to it. The city has an enormous amount of preserved and protected green space in it.
















More civic sculpture. I forgot to write the name down of this character and his dog. Of course you already know I took a picture because of the dog. Again, you see all the stairs in the background as this short street has access to the next street by stairs (or sometimes escalator) to the next street.















This is part of the train ride from Wellington to Auckland. We left the station at 7am and all the pictures of the train itself are not quite in focus, thus not on show. The journey was twelve hours long and passed through some spectacular countryside. We saw the clouds that surrounded Mt. Taranaki and gorges with incredible white cliffs, waterfalls and a country side full of all kinds of animals and birds. Train windows can both help and hinder. One of the few pictures of me in the whole trip.




This is the beginning of some nice weather we had for the whole trip. We only got a little rain on the rest of the three weeks in NZ and I was grateful for that. As a matter of fact, I never used my built in backpack rain cover!











I was constantly stunned by the wonderful light during the trip. It is very hard to describe. This picture is still in the morning!














The light coming in and out of the clouds, cutting across the sides of hills. All so gorgeous.















The sheep are everywhere! They carve lines of paths in the hills that make them look like terracing.










These scenes make me think of the old British paintings. The shapes of the trees, the colours. No wonder the new comers to this country loved it so much. Yes, it was a challenge to conquer the landscape, but they had it in them to reproduce their far away homes. And they did. Just visit Christchurch NZ to see a caricature of England.








This picture caught my eye on one of the slow to stop parts of the train journey. It is now a 2' x 5' painting in an impressionistic style. It was the combination of the sky and the dark light on the ground that got me.
















Small town NZ. This was a stop where you could get out and stretch your legs. They had meat pies and drinks in a little tea room, a local dog standing around hoping for handouts and a lot of local people seeing of friends.








We finally arrived in Auckland after eight o'clock and were whisked to a friend's condo in the marina area of the city. We were tired but happy to be there.

Getting there - pictures

As I am learning to download these pictures which, of course, have come up in the reverse order of what I would like, please start at the bottom and you will see the process of getting there.
Toronto terminal has a lot of interesting features and I especially enjoyed this curve!
The flight over the southwest of the United states was spectacular! The weather was very clear and I saw a lot of desert (not sure which) and mountains. The deserts were traced with the lines of water tracks from rains over time.
Los Angeles was the same as the last
time, but at least I didn't have to
change terminals and the wait was
much shorter for my next flight on
to Auckland.

We landed in Auckland at the crack of before dawn, then took off for Wellington just as the sun was beginning to rise. Watching that from above the clouds was magical.

And then I was there!

Home again, home again!

I'm back!
The trip home was actually great! An amazing statement, considering this is my second time coming home from New Zealand and going through groundhog day (2- 8th's of August), not sleeping well on the plane etc. This time, however, the timing of the flights, the amount of changes of plane and the knowledge that it would be long, made for a much better experience. I was in transit for only 23 hours, had shorter layovers all filled with busy making things like getting through US security and no scares like wrong gates or running late.
I now begin the task of sorting through my 1600 photos to winnow it down to something manageable. A lot of the photos are really notes and sketches for ideas, but I want to distill the trip-py ones so I can post them as a little travel album. I think that will be fun to go back through them and tell little stories that go with them.

Last days

Well, for all the time that this trip took to arrive, it sure seems to be over pretty darned fast.

Today is my second last one and I am resting. My foot is bothering me a little (overuse) and I have a marathon voyage home coming up tomorrow.

I leave at 4pm for Auckland, one hour, then wait till 7:30pm for my flight to Los Angeles.
From Los Angeles to Toronto after that and I will arrive on the same day I left! (datelines you know, I'm going back in time) I will arrive in Toronto at around 11:30pm or so Toronto time. I think I will be a llittle tired!

I have an exhibition to prepare for that will be in October. That's at the local library near home. The framing is all I need to do after I scope the space I have to fill.

I hope to start filtering pictures (1800 of them) and putting a few of the best into the blog for you to see. That and working up some of the paintings I have in mind will fill my time for the next BIG while.

When next I speak to you, I will be back in North America.

Back in beautiful New Zealand

Well, we are back in NZ. The flight over was quick and uneventful, other than I watched the new Star Trek movie which was lots of fun and full of excitement.
I am doing the last of my touring around this city. I took in the Wellington Zoo, which I last saw two years ago. It has changed a great deal and is a wonderful place to visit for a good portion of the day. The weather was perfect!
Today, I got myself a day pass for the buses and headed for the west coast of the city, Porirua. Today was very rainy and blustery and I stood on the edge of the bay with my pants whipping at my legs, watching the gulls just float in the air neither going forward nor back. There were black swans riding it out in the water.
I found a lovely museum there with an exhibit of Tapa (paperbark cloth) from Fiji. I was very lucky in that I was able to purchase a piece that had been made by Fijian artists during a visit and demonstration about three weeks ago.
I transfered the second digital card of pictures to a flash drive. I now have 1600 pictures to sort out. What I would like to do with them when I get home, is publish a few at a time with a story that goes with them. There were a lot of incidents that I will only remember if I see the picture.
I've also wracked up a great number of books read during this trip. When you go to a hostel, you are too tired to do anything other than read or watch TV. Most of the time, the TV was tuned to the Simpsons, or for a short while in Australia, Masterchef (which I enjoyed watching), so what else do you do but read.
The interesting thing is how, in places like that, there are books you can pick up, read and take with you only to drop off at a different place once you've finished. In Rotorua, I picked up a book by a Saskatchewan writer! How bizarre is that? I picked one up the other day by another Canadian writer. I've read Louis L'Amour, Rohinton Mistrie, MacCaul's No.1 Ladies detective agency (2 actually) Ruth Park, a NZ native, with a novel and another, her autobiography found at a flea market about two days after I finished the novel. Another novel by another Australian writer and a couple of mysteries, one stinky and one good.
I'm flying back to Canada on the 8th of August, just two days shy of my 61st birthday. No big whoop, even 60 was no big deal. Just glad I had the opportunity to do this trip while I could.
Maybe now I will be ready to get a dog and have the adventures only they can bring to one's life.
What do you think?