Sunny Saturday and Sunday

We had a pleasant day with Klaus and Christiane, showing them the sights and delights of our part of town - started off with a swim at Sentinel Rd beach , then on to Westhaven by foot and then to Sitting Duck cafe at Westhaven for lunch - lovely sandwiches, ginger crunch and a latte, then walked toVictoria Park Market. Home for afternoon tea with the nice linen and china and then dinner. E was here too for the latter two.

They took us out to an Italian restaurant in Herne Bay on Saturday night. We shared a lovely seafood platter for starters then a pasta dish with spinach and fetta for me. Earlier in the day we went to an arts andcrafts market up at the Ponsonby Community Centre. There was a great a great array of crafts and bric-a brack. D bought me a lovely shiny biscuit tin with the Fresh-Up advertising on it. E bought herself a brown phone shaped like a handbag, seventies style. She reckons it will go. There was a great display of Crown Lynn china - small plates $5, dinner plates $10. the domestic crafts are very much alive and well among the younger generation - there were some lovely knitted purses and crocheted badges as well as afternoon teas with yummy home baking. Dieters nephew arrived back fromtheir sojourn in Orewa while we worked witha beautiful hazelnut cake for Dieter, a rolled up shortcake strudel time roll with a delicious nut filling, just like his mother and aunt used to make. My aunt made a different nutcake - with the ground hazelnuts folded into the plain cake mixture, replacing an equal amount of flour, also delicious.

Waitemata Weekend

This was a jam-packed weekend from go to whoa. Klaus and Christiane had arrived Thursday evening, spent Friday sightseeing and getting their rental car back to Mangere, and were ready to start their Waiheke experience on Saturday. We got an earlier boat over than usual so we could take in the Ostend Market before noon, buying tamarind chutney and chunky marmelade from our favourite stall to take home to Germany. Had a long and hot walk back to Surfdale, lunched on the deck, then took off for a swim at Little O. At last just as the season winds down, the water is lovely and warm. Home for a quick cup of coffee and peanut brownies before D and I returned to Auckland, as we had our Historic Places Trust cruise to Ponui Island on Sunday.

This necessitated another early start as the boat left from Half Moon Bay. It was great seeing some new scenery and the water features from a different angle. Browns Island, Waiheke, Motuihe , Rotoroa, Paketoa and Ponui were all islands we saw from a completely different angle to what we usually see. We landed at Ponui which is farmed by decendants of the Chaamberlin family and others. There are 11 adults on the island owned by 2 Chamberlins, 2 others and John Spencer, who owns a piece of Waiheke, and another island near Coromandel. Ponui has an early breed of donkey, the Ponui donkey, descended from the first donkeys imported to New Zealand, the Akaroa donkeys. There was an idyllic bay ideal for swimming , which one of our number took advantage of. I stretched out on the beach and enjoyed the sun and tranquillity.
It was interestimg to see Pakatoa with buildings we remember from our youth. There was a beach resort there with motels and place where functions were held. It was a place where people went for a weekend, or had their honeymoons. There was a pool, and a hydrofoil which got people there and back.

Books and Baking

We are expecting visitors from Hamburg later today so I have spent a little time poring over a new recipe book - Robyn Martin bakes: quick and easy favourite recipes, which has all the old Kiwi classics given a new twist either with a new ingredient or prepared in a more simple way ie in a pot! Suits me. I made a Louise cake slice but couldn't find my slice tin (at first) so made it in a large Christmas cake tin) which was not quite big enough. The middle soggy bits, I have consigned to the freezer to be used in a trifle one of these other days.

Then I made some peanut brownies from the Edmonds book and called it a day after that. I remember the olden days making 4 or 5 things one after the other to fill up the tines. This was in my teenage years when I did a lot of baking for the family. My mother concentrated on hearty and healthy meals , followed always by a milk pudding - semolina and fruit, banana custard made in a fluted yellow bowl, baked macaroni or vermicelli pudding with sultanas and cinnamon, bread and butter pudding, not to mention all the fruit sponges, apple pies and crumbles. Makes me tired thinking about them.

Jigsaw

This 1500 piece jigsaw occupied our dining room table and a lot of our time for a couple of months but it was lovely to see it finally finished and now back in its box ready for the trip to the op shop where it came from originally.

Rangitoto Island and the Baches

I hadn't been to Rangitoto for at least 15 years when I half- killed myself keeping up with the Vermont St kids on a school trip to the summit. We didn't look at the baches that time as they are off to the side round the coast. But now the Dept. of Conservation has preserved one as a little museum - all the traditional bach furniture - old wirewoves made up with candlewick bedspreads, dressers, kitchenalia, aprons, oven cloths and the like, Crown Lynn and floral cups and saucers, old tins, all as the bach was when it was vacated on the death of the owner. Many of them were pulled down as that was the policy then to return the whole island to being a reserve. There are still a few owned by descendants of the first owners and their proud owners , bachelor men, showed us around their 1930s abodes with great pride. We were on a guided walk taken by Susan Yoffe, who did her MA thesis on the Rangitoto bach community some years ago. She was very knowledgable and informative about the history of the island, from the Maori inhabitants to the prisoners who lived and worked on the island making paths and roads, stone walls and fireplaces in the 1930s. The beautiful hardy kidney fern is found only on the island I think. After the walk inthe company of other members of the NZ Historic Places Trust we had tea outside accompanied by scones, jam and cream eaten off a great array of bach china, of the Crown Lynn or floral variety. The summit will have to wait for another occasion, as we were not suitable shod for such an expedition, having had to rise very early to get the ferry at 9.15 am and were not adequately equipped (or as it turned out inclined).

Ngatea Water Gardens, Kaiaua and Hunua Falls on a Very Rainy Day

Last Friday was the monthly day trip for March which we had booked for and I became increasingly worried about going on, in the course of the gale the previous two evenings and days. But then , the Historical Society goes on its trips, rain or shine, and rain it was this time. I layered myself in all sorts of unglamourous and ancient rainwear from the bach to get myself half-dry to the pick-up point round the corner in Elizabeth Street where another couple of drowned rats were waiting at Judith's place for the bus - which necessitated another dash when it stopped at the corner a little while later. However once on the motorway in our nice velvety upholstered bus all was semi-forgotten and before we knew where we were we were at Drury for our first pitstop as they call these coffee and loo breaks. McCafe was the cafe of choice for D and me and we got a nice big bran, carrot and walnut muffin to cheer us up (Wouldn't cheer everybody up !)

On to Ngatea through rolling countryside, all very sodden and green with very little other traffic on the back roads, arriving at Ngatea round 11 in time for the aptly named water gardens. I gave my fellow travellers a good head start of about 10 minutes so I could gallop round in about 3 minutes and not be impeded as I charged around. Which worked fine for the first 2 minutes, when I was left regretting I had not gone back for one of those riduculously big umbrellas and I got WET. There was a beautiful lily pond , a selection of rustic looking seats with corny signs on them, quaint mini-edifices , some bedraggled looking ducks and - a nice dry spotlessly clean beer can museum with nice soothing music in it. The only trouble was, it was the farthest place from the next driest place, the exit! However spent a few minutes longer than I would normally have had, just to show D what happens when collecting gets out of hand (and me too). It was a sobering sight seeing all those empty beer cans especially my favourite (fyi) Lion Red. (I prefer it in a glass out of a bottle actually).

On to the township of Ngatea for lunch at cafes of our choice, as disappointingly for some, we were not able to have the planned fish and chips outside at the world-famous Kaiaua Fish and Chip Shop because of the rain and they didn't have enough room inside for a busload of us. Not to worry - we will all probably live longer with less cholesterol. It didn't worry me. I am philosophical these days about most things, as most of us were.

Then we motored on down to the coast at Miranda to look at the godwits before they wing their way back to Siberia. Not that there were too many birds around - we did see a flock nestled down beside a pond which just could have been godwits, and did see some favourites - seabirds like pied stilts and seagulls.

Spent some time at the excellent visitor centre at Miranda and looked at the displays on the various birds and had time afterwards to walk along the beach a bit and pick up a few shells as a souvenir.

Our last stop was at the Hunua Falls which I been to in my student days. Camp Adair was there and I remember sleeping in very small 2 bed cabins and not getting much sleep . Needless to say the Falls rivalled Niagara Falls (when I first typed it with its typo it looked just like Viagra with an N ) with all the rain and gales we had had, and it was a raging muddy sight with a great volume and noise, all its own. At this point words fail me. But the sun did come out again and by the time we got back to Orewa the tide was in and it was 23 degrees and great swimming weather.