This is Mt. Wellington.

Wikipedia told me that Mt. Wellington is one of Auckland's 'youngest' volcanos. It erupted only 10,000 years ago.  

Allie drove us up it once, shortly after we had arrived in NZ. Today, I discovered that a change has been made. The road that encircles the cone is closed to most traffic. Lack of competition with vehicles made my climb much more enjoyable than it otherwise would have been I'm sure.  

The view from the top is great...Come on along.  

Mt. Wellington is in Panmure, home of Martha's Backyard. I've been meaning to climb it for some time.  I came down here today to stock up on Jif, Crisco, Bush's Baked Beans, and some other stuff and decided that today was the day to climb...  

Someone was raising sheep here at one time. This is where they were loaded into trucks. 

As I said, it's foot traffic only from here on. 

This sign gives a number to call if you wish to drive people with limited mobility to the top. An access code for the gate is given over the phone. 

I walked in through the gate. 

This is one steep hill. 

I'm on the rim of the crater now. The trail continues to my left and then crosses from left to right in the distance.  

This picture shows the caldera, surrounded on three sides by the crater rim. 

Downtown Auckland can be seen in the center distance. 

This is the reverse, sort of, of my header picture. I took the header picture from Mt. Hobson, which is on the right, sort of behind those tall white buildings.

The hill in the center is Mt. Eden and the lower, flat-topped cone on the left is Mt. St. John. 

The distances to these cones sort of ruins the perspective. They look as though they're in a line but that is deceiving.

Mt. Hobson and Mt. St. John are in the foreground and the much larger Mt. Eden, which is in the center of this picture, is quite a bit farther back.  

A closer look at Auckland

And what post is complete without a look at Rangitoto?

That's the train/bus station down there. The trains are below street level here. 

On my way back down.
If you look just above the center of this photo, you'll see another cone off in the distance.   

There it is on zoom. I think that's Mangere Mountain.

I'm just above the gate again.

At the Panmure Station with the train from Manukau just pulling in. 

I'll take this to Britomart and then transfer to the Western Line for my trip home.   

   -djf

On a quick shopping trip to New Lynn, I meet an old new friend.

Today, like most days, I had a little grocery shopping to do, but I felt just a tickle of wanderlust too, so I combined the necessary and the needful and went shopping in New Lynn. It's only about 15 minutes away on the train, but I hadn't shopped there for a while and it satisfied my need for travel.  

My pictures are mostly of the ordinary, as I walked to the train station and then shopped at New World. On my way back to the train however, I passed a man who was playing his mandolin near the mall.  

I gave him $5 and asked if I could film him as he played. He said that I could.  

I found that he turned 83 yesterday and has played his 90+ year old Russian mandolin all his life.  He was born in Dublin, but had lived since he was very young in Australia.  He came to New Zealand in retirement.  His name is Hank.  

Let me show you my shopping trip in sequence. Then, Hank will bring this post to a close with his very sweet, but slightly meloncholy tune.   

 In front of our house.  It's 8:40 a.m. and the sun has just cleared the rooftops. 

 The parking lot at the train station is full once again. The lot holds 170 cars. During the Covid shutdown, I counted an average of four per day.  

We are at the Sunnyvale Train Station. 
 Once there was a field here where Allie discovered the mother-load of blackberries. Then they tore up the blackberries and built these apartments. At least we still have a couple of jars of jam in our pantry.  

 A stylized sculpture of people carrying a canoe. 

Nearly back to the train station. 

Here is Hank. His dog, Lady Doo Dah, is 11.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBbbM-4nBtA

In this last shot, he is showing me the label inside that proves it's a Russian-made instrument. Unfortunately, the strings prevented the camera from focusing inside the sound box.  

-djf

The Ring

You Tube is full of videos about how to make Kvass (Kvas, Kwas, Kbac) from bread.  (Kvass of course is a Russian soft drink traditionally made from rye bread.) You can learn there how to make it from all sorts of bread. Even toasted white bread.  You can add more sugar or less, you can add raisins or beets, the possiblilties seem endless. Many people have put a lot of thought into it. (besides all the usual stuff, that is) 

(my original post on kvass..) https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=398866872025297364&useLegacyBlogger=true#editor/target=post;postID=3674790995324125677;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=3;src=postname

Ah, but then I decided to think outside the box.  It came to me just a moment ago.  Everybody seems to be making some sort of kvass out of bread.  I suggest we turn that around. Why don't we (Jeanne and I) make bread out of kvass?  What an idea!  That's brilliant! Throughout our lives we've often taken the path less traveled by, why not now?  

Jeanne immediately perceived the genius of my idea. It was the work of moments to start the experiment. Great minds think alike, is the saying, and that was proven once again when Jeanne and I discussed the bread she was starting. As you recall, I have just mentioned raisins as being an additive to the production of some kvass, and she just asked me what I thought of adding a few raisins to the bread? I had suggested making the bread just slightly sweeter than regular bread is, and she revealed that she had also thought of adding a little brown sugar and butter as a filling to the dough. Amazing.  I guess that's what living together since 1973 will do for you.  

With the production of this bread, we are closing the loop. The circle of bread/kvass/bread will be finally be made complete. 

We are forging the Ring of Kvass in blazing heat. This ring cannot be unmade. It can only be consumed by the fellowship....

One ring to feed them, 

One ring to tease them, 

One ring to bring them all, 

And with its sweetness, please them.

...Okay, okay. (deep breath)  I got carried away there for a moment. You've got to admit though that my idea is a good one. 

Here is the story of the ring in pictures. (I regret there are no orcs, elves, eagles, oliphaunts, wizards, or ents. This is a low-budget blog.)

 This is a brand I hadn't tried before. Kvass will replace the water in the dough.

 That dough already looks interesting.

The Fellowship of the Ring.  

Here is a look at a piece of our first ever ring of kvass.  It's quite dense. Jeanne also added some sunflower seeds to it which were a pleasant surprise. As you see, she frosted it liberally but the bread itself is sweet enough and would really only require the lightest of frostings.  It doesn't taste like rye bread, despite the color. 
This was definitely a success.  


-djf

Well, what do you know?

I'm taking a short break from my regular posts about life in New Zealand. Here is something I just learned....



United States...                   17,052
New Zealand...                     9,721 
Russia..                                3,831
Ukraine..                              1,875
Germany....                             954
China..                                    918
France...                                 496
Unknown Region...                 394
Brazil....                                  263
Portugal.                                250
Japan....                                     5
Vietnam..                                    5
Malasia..                                    4
Netherlands..                             4
United Arab Emerates..             2
Canada...                                   1            

What do you suppose this list describes?  

I'm happy to say that it has nothing at all to do with Covid-19.     

This is a listing by country of how many pageviews my blog has received. I looked not long ago at the Statistics portion of my blog and accessed the audience information. This is what I found. Actually, the total number of pageviews I've had is today close to 40,000.  

I'm very pleased.  I don't know why Russians like my blog so much more than Canadians do, but, oh well.  I started this blog to allow family and friends to keep track of us over here in New Zealand, so the pageviews by other people all over the world are a bonus. I suppose that most of those folks just happen upon my posts while they're researching some interest. Still, it's fun to know that my offerings have been seen by so many.   

Thanks to all of you, whoever you are, and wherever you live, for your interest.  

Y'all come back now, hear?  

-djf

                 

San Bernadino Drive

Here is a post that was photographed during our Covid shut down. 

This first shot was taken from Palomino Drive.  San Bernadino Drive is short. Short, but steep. If you are on SBD, you are walking up hill or down hill. The flat areas of the drive are defined by points, not by lines.  By the time I arrived at the other end of SBD on Sturges Road, I was beat and my lungs and legs were saying to me, "Don't do this to us again, please."  

Mathematically speaking, if the 'as the crow flies' distance from one end to the other of SBD is known as 'X', then the 'as the Doug walks' distance would have to be written as '2X + a bunch', due to the topography. The term 'bunch' is a complicated numerical variable dependent on the speed and age of the walker, taken together with the ambient termperature, wind velocity, angle of the sun, phase of the moon, and what the walker had for breakfast.  

By accompanying me on this hike, you get to effortlessly admire the view. Best of all, because I'm taking the photos, you do not have to witness my transformation from the suave, sophisticated, fit, man-about-town that I was as I turned on to SBD, into the sweating, drooling, and shaking wreck that I was when I reached Sturges Road.  

I once met a guy in a bar,
whose face was most ugly by far. 
He said, "I don't mind it, 
because I'm behind it, 
it's the folks out in front that I jar."

Okay, now, take several deep breaths, (not that it will help) and let's go. We get to start off on the downhill slope. 

The cars you see along the street are parked. It was uncanny during our Covid shutdown how quiet the streets were.  

...gasp, gasp, I made it to Sturges Road. Another mile to get home though. sigh.  

-djf

Herald Island

(A Pre-Covid adventure) 

Herald Island was once a true island in Waitemata Harbor. (The one that Auckland is on) In 1958, a causeway was built to it, giving easy access to its 100 acres. There are now 275 homes on the island, several domains (parks) and Christmas Beach.  

Our bus friend Anne told me the other day about her recent trip to the island for their yearly community garage sale.  Hearing about it reminded me of Norway, Michigan's similar event. I wish I could have taken part. Well, there is always next year.  

I figured that even if I had missed the big fun for the year, I could at least take the bus out there now and get the lay of the land, so to speak, for next year. By that time, maybe Jeanne's knees would allow her to come along.  

This post is my quick look at the island. Anne told me it is best seen at high tide and I understood exactly what she meant. At low tide, the place is surrounded by the exposed mangrove dotted mud flats. 

To get there, I took the 14t bus from Henderson, but could have also started with 14w or 120. They would all deliver me to the bus stop at Westgate where I needed to catch 114 out to the island.  

The island is a very quiet place. Only one bus per hour serves the area. The roads on it, rather than being black top, are tar with loose gravel embedded in it. Side walks line only one side of the streets.  It's the sort of place I discovered, that allowed me to cut across the roads pretty much whenever I pleased.  Every now and then though, a car would come whizzing down the street so I couldn't totally discount the traffic.   

This sign kind of spooked me.  I looked leopard seals up when I got home. A big male can be 9 feet long and weigh 700 lbs. 

A boat for the kids to play on in the playground. 

 The library is open. 

 In Auckland we have lighted bus stop signs that announce the scheduled arrival times. Here, it's back to the basics. 

(Remember than -wh- in Maori sounds like -f-) 

The lady who lives here had a unique idea for decorating the area next to their driveway. 

 To get to Herald Island, you drive through the small town of Whenuapai. I guess the island must be considered part of the town because of that name on the bus stop sign we saw.  
Whenuapai was a farming town of maybe a couple hundred population. I say was because it is about to explode into a town of a couple of thousand at least.  
I'm showing you here a shot of one of the housing projects that is almost complete. There are many more blocks of projects just like this one, but with slightly different architecture, in various stages of construction.  
I think that some of the local landowners sold parts or all of their farms and made a bundle. I wonder what the average resident thinks of this explosion though. Lots of other changes coming too because the little village market that used to satisfy the residents won't be able to handle 10 or 20 times the business.  

Whenuapai is also home to a small air force base. I think it must be used for training purposes. It does not appear to house personnel on it.  It's just this hanger and one runway.  This has co-existed with the community for many years. Sheep and horses graze along side its runway.

I liked Herald Island. I wonder what it will see as all the new residents move into their apartments during the next year?      -djf