The Western Heights

Oh, does it ever feel good to be back with Jeanne, Allie, Amiri and Arram. The boys both grew a good inch while I was gone. Now that I'm back, it's time to turn my sights back to describing life here. Let's start with...

Note the grapefruit on the tree.

Sturges Road runs the length of a high, 'spine' of rock that makes up part of the Western Heights. Our Harvest Drive might be considered one of the 'ribs' that curve down from it. To me, we could almost be living on the side of a drumlin from Gourley Township in Michigan. Our part of the 'Heights' is almost shaped like a drumlin after all; a couple of miles long, it is a high ridge of land that drops sharply off on either side. But NZ was formed in a very different way than Menominee County was, so my analogy doesn't really fit. 

What is true is that as you walk along Sturges, you can look down on either side and see the valleys that lie there. Valleys that today are more filled with homes than with the orchards and vineyards that are depicted on our sign. Some remain. We drive past a couple of them on Henderson Valley Road whenever we take the bus home.

Today's post will show you some pictures from some of the 'Heights' vantage points. In many of them you will see the distant Waitakeres (Why-tack'-er-ees) that prove that our Heights aren't really so high after all. The highest points in the Waitakere's are just under 2,000 feet, but they sure seem higher as you wend your way upward and then downward to the Tasman Sea beyond them. Maybe these photos will give you a little better understanding of what we see every day as we go about the business of living here. 

Here, I'm on my way into Henderson, (it's to the left) along the Great North Road. I'm already part way down the hill from Sturges Road. 

Many of the streets here drop off sharply from Sturges Road. We're fortunate not to have ice to contend with.

One occasionally sees teens rocketing down the slopes in a tucked position on their skateboards, cap on backwards and clothes flapping in the wind. 

Here is one of the vineyards

Many of these pictures show the dreary weather conditions prevalent in the winter here.  This is taken from in front of the Palomino Superette, whereJeanne and I are picking up milk, potatoes and a dessert for tonight. We're hoping to get home before the rain hits....we did get home dry.

This was actually taken in Glen Eden. This is on a little bit of zoom, but you can see that we are much closer to the Waitaks here.

A steep, curvy hill here. And only 45 kph, That's about 27 mph. Keep your foot near the brake on this one.          -djf