Tuesday, April 7: Auckland: Sunny & warm Kuala Lumpur: Showers & warm
Couldn’t sleep much past 7:30 but by around 8:00 all five human inhabitants were up and about and I had my vitamin tablet, the last muesli bars and some coffee for breakfast, sorted out the last rubbish and the last stuff to leave behind (which would have been: Salt, sugar, rice, margarine, milk & bread for food, and the bed roll and tent in equipment) and surprisingly by not much later than 9:00 the suitcase had everything else I wanted & needed to take back in it and could be closed without any major compression. Read more…
Monday, April 6: Somewhat cloudy, clearing, still very warm
Marie’s (airbnb, $28)
The sun rising earlier was very noticeable this morning, but I stayed in bed until after 8:00 and then had what remained of the tramping breakfast – two muesli bars – with a toasted ham sandwich & coffee and vitamin solution for breakfast. Beki was very chatty and I was in no hurry to go (well, only insofar as I didn’t want to wait until the traffic into Auckland started piling up) and was eventually ready to go after giving her a couple of tips (sliding door in my bedroom which is off its rails, the blockage of the bathroom sink, and sticking black cardboard to the translucent bedroom doors to make them more opaque to the light coming from both the sunrise and from visitors using the living room after she had gone to bed – or vice-versa). Read more…
The eclipse last night went off perfectly well, except for a bit of cloud in the run up. By the time the penumbral eclipse was well into happening the skies were clear and then, of course, as the light of the moon dimmed the stars became much brighter and there was a grand view of the Milky Way from the south side of the house which rivalled that on the Whanganui River Journey. I was occupied with my two cameras and a number of sequences were achieved. Set up the A470 to do a last hour of the moon reappearing and then shut down when the batteries ran out while I had a beer. Beki’s house alarm went off at some point and then became silent but she had been awoken by it, and got up and asked me to go to bed. Read more…
Saturday, April 4: Fine & warm with variable cloud
Beki’s (airbnb, $50)
The two Japanese guests had gotten up very early to catch the sun rise and there wasn’t much to do for breakfast, apart from also frying the sandwiches for lunch. Showed Nissi and Chisato some of my photos on facebook (startrailing the clouds, and lightning) and they immediately signed up as friends. As I speak no Japanese, their banter was just background, but every now and then they would discuss some English word or grammatical question (“disgusting” seemed to be quite a favourite, and “He’s mean, isn’t he?” was also high on the agenda) indicating that he was trying to show off his knowledge of the language. In any case 10:00 was approaching, so I threw all of my things together, then packed my stuff out of the fridge into the chilly bin. I went and found Ron to pay him for his efforts and we had a chat about walking in the Waitakere. Then I was headed in the direction of Opua. Read more…
Friday, April 3: Sunny to begin with, clouding over but still warm
Wainui
Keeping Aussies out, Russell, snapshot
I was first up and through with cooking my breakfast before Christine and Alexander needed all of the available space to get their stuff together (and then they forgot their food in the food bin and a can of coke on the fridge, and had to come back and pick it up). I went on to process yesterday’s pictures and secure them on the hard disk, and then there was clarification of the partial/full eclipse of the moon story, with timeanddate.com (which claimed yesterday that the eclipse would only be partial, and me wondering whether a full eclipse in the northern hemisphere might only appear partial if you were far south enough, or vice versa) now claiming that the eclipse will be full in Auckland as well, which solved that problem. Read more…
Thursday, April 2: Some cloud came over during the course of the night and there was rain in the early morning, clearing to a fine & sunny day
Tramping: Cape Brett – Rawhiti, 15.1 km
Wainui Lodge, 92D Te Wahapu Rd, Russell 0272, tel.: +64 9 403 8278, double as single, only two rooms, max. 5 guests (BBH, $50 + 3)
Cape Brett Cliffs, snapshot
I had photographed three fixed time sequences during the night: One of the rising moon, one of the moon @ full zoom (A470), and one of the Southern Cross (SX120) until the batteries gave out. The camera was retrieved due to increasing cloud, but the tripod had been tied to the picnic table with a new twist-and-tighten mechanism which I was unwilling to untie late at night.
The hut was still very warm, but there were no bugs so I slept on an open sleeping bag. It started getting light about 6:30 and by 7:15 the sun was rising. Now this would have been a good sunrise to shoot, but I was concentrating on getting out alive. Breakfast was quickly dealt with, the salt shaker seemed to work fine and everything was washed, dried (including the sox) and packed away by 8:30. Swept out the hut (a little bit of grass cuttings had found its way into the hut) and then I was ready to go. Read more…
Wednesday, April 1: Sunny with a few clouds on the horizon; quite warm
Tramping: Rawhiti – Cape Brett via Deep Water Cove, 16.3 km
Cape Brett Hut (DOC, $15, gas cookers, no heating; $30 track fee for private land)
Managed to struggle up at a quarter past seven and fry two eggs for breakfast, pack everything up into the backpack for the hike and then everything else into their bags and into the car and was ready to go by 8:30.
Cape Brett View to Go, snapshotShort drive to the ferry and was soon on the other side (car $11) and down the meandering road to Rawhiti. I had been considering walking via Whangamumu and that track entrance was 5.4 km down the road (a gravel road for the most part at that) but as we will see that wouldn’t have been such a good idea.
Found someone’s front yard to park the car in ($5) and swapped shoes for the hiking boots and was ready to tramp by 9:45. Views of the bay begged to be photographed but the batteries packed in immediately and once on the track the next bay beckoned likewise so I got out a box of batteries and kept them in an outside pocket just in case. Read more…
Tuesday, March 31: Sunny with a few clouds and a bit of a breeze on the bay
Kayaking: Paihia – Bay of Islands – Waitangi, 5.7 km
Centabay
In the night the keys had slipped off the towel rail and dropped onto the floor among the stuff packed there and it took a little while of thinking to work out where they had to be. Was awoken by the manager to get me to move the car and I moved it onto the street where a 120 minute slot was free. About the only business that had to be transacted was printing out the DOC ticket for the walk tomorrow and since the library had banished all wifi users to the park I tried a commercial operator in an “adult” shop. First computer had something wrong with the graphics card, but the second printed out the pdf just fine for $1.6. A couple of things had to be bought for the hike and I thought that – just for the two days – I would opt for bread and have sandwiches made up for both days’ lunches. Short inquiry at the i-site about safe parking – apparently possible at either a camping ground or the backpackers. Read more…
