The run-up to Christmas

Greetings from the land down under.
Four pictures from the last week of excitement here in the far north.
Stuart and I went to a demonstration in Taipa last week. Andreas was showing a small group how he has been making fuel grade ethanol from plant wastes. He had a couple of very tidy sheds that had Stuart and I drooling. The demo was interesting. As the price of petrol rises, we will potentially start to use bio-ethanol in all of our cars. As an aside, Country Calendar, was filming us watching Andreas. This is a much loved long established series of TV programmes that features people in NZ doing interesting things in the country. It was doubly interesting for Stuart the aspiring film-maker to watch a professional at work. The bloke did not stop for long, filming from all angles.

Patrick finished school on Friday. It was his prize-giving on Thursday and he had been asked to give a valedictory speech. He shared it with a girl (whose name I forget). Paddy got to sit on the stage with the principal and guests. His speech was clear and amusing. We were proud of him. Now he is on holiday.

Stuart and I went off to Moturoa Island this weekend for a couple of days of bird watching with the OSNZ. We were hosted by CJ and Carol and had a pleasant time,exploring the island and conducting various surveys of the birds. One of my high-lights was looking for petrel nests on a steep slope. The birds leave a single chick in its burrow for days at a time as they catch squid out at sea. they return in the middle of the night, regurgitate a load of food and then fly off again. Apparently the chicks fledge themselves and know what to do and where to go once thay have flown off the cliff. Talk about looking after yourself!

On the Sunday, we scaled a steep cliff called Alcatraz. The view out to the mouth of the Bay of Islands is quite fantastic. The people on the island had decided that they wanted to encourage gannets to nest on Alcatraz, so they placed several plastic replicas on a piece of bare cliff. They also played gannet calls over a pair of speakers. Amazingly the plan was working to some degree, as a single real bird had landed amongst the decoys and was preening itself, oblivious to our presence 10 feet away.

 

 

 

 

Tom and Jerry plus prize-winner

Senior prizegiving on wednesday night. I was on stage as usual for 4 hours of bum numbing entertainment. Eric was in the prize winners enclosure for the first time. He won the Chess Trophy by beating everyone else who entered at chess earlier on in the year. Also an academic prize for the most improved at economics. Well done! Eric.

The cat watches the mouse.

 

 

Wedding anniversary

A couple of weekends ago, Chantelle and I went over to Mangonui to celebrate our 17th wedding anniversary.
We checked into the Mongonui hotel. Old for these parts, comfortable with bar very handy, a double room at $100 a night and what a view! Drinks on the balcony watching the world go by and the birds feeding in the bay.
We trotted a few 100m down the road to our fave restaurant - the Thai Cafe, for a lovely dinner. The food is divine, the meals are cheekily named. The views are as good as from the hotel. My only criticism is that they pack 31 seats into a pretty small space.
Back to Hotel for Irish malt and to see the election results start to come in. National were obviously going to win again. Labour did poorly, New Zealand First made a surprise showing and the Greens did better than expected as well. Overall result = another 3 years of conservative government - good if you are in business epecially in roading. Not so good if you are a beneficiary or in the state sector.

We were awake at dawn and the weather was as calm as predicted. We were itching to get out in the kayak and made it just after 8am. Great conditions paddling out of the harbour and on towards Hihi. Graet views and good to explore, but the fishing was pretty uneventful. I got onto something big in the harbour that ran off a lot of line and then slipped the hook. And that was about it.

 

 

 

 

Stuart's birthday

It was Stuart's birthday on Monday. He got up at 0530 and went on aschool trip to look at tertiary institutes in Auckland. His coach broke down on the way home on Tuesday, so we had a birthday meal for him on Wednesday.

Eric made a very nice cake, "sponge" with cream and home grown strawberries on top. "Sponge" because he had forgotten the recipe and made it up. As the lady who sold me the cream said "Cream can hide a lot of mistakes".

Eric has been busy doing exams. Two last week and ywo more this week then he is through. Fingers crossed. These are his NCEA Level One externals. Most of the course is internally assessed.

We have been having some pretty spring weather. Or is it Summer now. It has certainly been pretty hot. Good sunsets too.

We went over to Mike and Rissy's last night for a bbq. I couldn't resist the shot of Chantelle keeping warm and looking like a granny. I will probably be told to remove it. It has to be better than the pictures of Zephyr being chased around the garden by Jimmy.

 

 

 

 

More fishing

Now some people have commented that a lot of the posts on here are about fishing.
Very true ... so here is another one!
We took Chantelle out on Saturday with Merv on his big boat - the Tiare - to go out to sea and to do some fishing.

Merv is a very accommodating skipper. He took us to the Moturoa Islands off the northern tip of the Karikari peninsular. We saw heaps of seabird and caught some cool fish. We sang happy birthday with a cake and candles just before it started to get rough. Then Stuart drove us part of the way home into a 25knot headwind. It was not the smoothest ride, but we all felt very safe. I certainly would not have liked to have been out in a kayak.

Chantelle caught a huge snapper on a handline, and we managed to capture the action on video so take a look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb2y7SgUfOk&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL&noredirect=1

birthday cake on board vid

Aurere Beach

Lovely day yesterday and the boys had been watching wall to wall dvds, so we took off for an evening fish at Aurere. Some of the omens were good: new moon, offshore wind, low swells, change of light. Others less so: falling tide, water as calm as a mill pond when we got there. But it was a good walk as usual and we even had the company of Stuart anmd Patrick for a change. Plus Amos for good luck.

I took my time on the walk in as I wanted to check the Awapoko River New Zealand Dotterels. There is a nationwide survey going on as we speak and I wa spriveleged to have bneen given a few beaches to check. The dotterel is shown in one of the pictures below. They are endemic to the North of New Zealand and numbers are down to 1500. They nest just above the tideline and so are at the mercy of 4WD cras, dogs plus the usual rampage of introduced predators. So their numbers are in decline on most beaches except for the most remote or those where they are given special protection. They get neither on the Awapoko as cars drive down it fairly regularly.

I watched the birds for a good hour and rekon that there were 3 pairs in the area. Not a bad number. Here's hoping that they successfully breed this year.

I took some pictures along the walk. The shot of the sun through the tress is a kiwi classic photo. The tree is the Pohutakawa or NZ Christmas Tree, so named because it has bright red flowers at Christmas time. They are the most amazing twisted gnarly trees that favour coastlines. There are some fantastic specimens growing on the walk along to Puketu Island.

When I finally caught up with the fisher folk, Chantelle had landed a medium sized kahawai. I had never seen the water so calm at Aurere. We came last week and the onshore swell was so high that I was worried for Eric's safety on the same rocks. The wind had dropped and we were all enjoying a lovely evening when someone spotted a school (?) of orcas or killer whales coming towards us. We had fantastic views of a small group of perhaps 6 whales including an adult with a calf. Unforgettable!

Chantelle has put some video footage on her FB page if you want to see what we saw.

 

 

 

 

camping

 

 

 

 

Just got back from a 2 day camping trip out at Diggers Valley. The theme this time was to escape "ediction" so all computers, mobiles, gameboys and other electronic devices were banned. Not as easy as it sounds to go without for 48 hours. Have you tried it?

Paddy secreted a gameboy in the car "just for the journey"! but Stuart ratted on him so it was ejected. We had (Ok I had) picked a couple of days where the forecast was good. It later turned out to be wrong and we were rained on most of the second day.

I have restricted the pictures to just 8 trying to get a variety and to illustrate the main attractions of our trip. We cooked over an open fire. Steak and baked pots for the first night and patsa and tomato sauce for night 2. The flat breads were pouplar and we had lots of cups of tea as well.

One of the boys' friends - Lance came along as well.

We did do some work in amongst all the fun. Clearing trees as Stephan cut them down with a chainsaw. I was impressed at the speed with which a skillfully operated and well maintained chainsaw could cut what would be a whole winter's supply of wood. It took 5 of us to move the brash and logs and we were not doing much standing around.

We had a go at trapping possums, using leghold traps set a metre up in a variety of trees. We checked these every morning at first light. They are not as humame as any other method of controlling possums. The possum gets a limb caught between 2 jaws and waits for you to come back to kill it. The main reason that they are used seems to be because the possum is alive until you come to kill it and so its fur can be removed with ease. It is more difficult to pluck a long dead possum. Plus the traps sell for $10 each which is a lot cheaper than most other control methods. We plan to use our traps elsewhere. Possums are a very serious pest over here. They kill native birds and strip native trees of their foliage killing them in the long run. New Zealand natives evolved in the absence of mammalian herbivores, so they do not have the defense mechananisms found in their ozzy or european cousins.

The flower is of the puriri, one of my favourite NZ native trees. It flowers pretty much all year round and is masive when fully grown.

Camping in the woods

 

 

 

 

Success with the longline!

No posts for a while ... spring has sprung and I have been busy in the garden. There is a narrow window when you have to go hard out to get the ground turned and planted before the hot weather arrives and it is too late! Eric has been helping me with the digging and that has made a difference this year.

We took some time off to go fishing again yesterday. We had been out on 2 previous weekends and caught nothing. Once long-lining off Puwheke beach with a southerly wind and once at Aurere. We rarely leave Aurere without at least a couple of fish, so this was unusual. Conditions were semi-favourable - low tide an hour before dusk. A few hours before a front came in. On the minus side the Moon was pretty much full and the water was very clear. We had a nice walk both ways and even saw a big seal on the rocks.

So yesterday we were not sure what to expect. The wind was supposed to be a SW which is good. A front due in and a week after full moon. We do not have a good record at Puwheke never having caught anything from the beach or off the rocks.
We went with Nicky and Phil and their 2 children. Phil had scored a kayak with a boat long line. Not seen one of those before. It had two floats that are weighted down with big lumps of scrap metal. Between them is strung a long line with the baited hooks. You drop in one float and then paddle some way off and chuck in the other float. The swell was a little bit rougher than I would have liked and the sky looked pretty ominous too. In fact the conditions looked pretty unimpressive for an evening on the beach. I paddled our longline out. It is a 1km length of very strong fishing line. You stick a plastic bag of sand on the end that you take out. Paddle like crazy to get through the surf and then pull the baited hooks out as far as you can. We had about 18 hooks on yesterday and were using alternate squid and bonito baits. I only took it about 250 m out as I was not too keen on the rough sea. Then you paddle back, try to surf in without tipping over and then warm up preferably in front of a nice beach fire.

Nicky and Phil were organised with a stove on which they cooked up some sausages and bacon. We had brough some pizza with us. The kids explored the beach and built holes to get out of the wind. We noticed our line was moving about quite a bit and wondered what was happening under the surface. As the sun started to go down we pulled it in. Everyone was helping out - one of the good things about long-lining compared to rod fishing. It is a communal activity. As the hooks start coming in the excitement and anticipation is palpable. Is there a fish on or will it have all been in vain?

As you can see from the pictures, it was not a waste of time. The big snapper weighed 4.5kg or 9lbs and was 62 cm long. The other one was about half the size. Perhaps we would not have caught anything if we had put the hooks out further?

There was nothing on the boat line, but it was calmer when we went out to retrieve it. What a great way to spend a Saturday evening. We filleted both fish and smoked the heads, fins and frames today. The only bit that was thrown away was the guts and that will make compost in the chicken coop.

 

 

 

 

Some things that we miss and some things that we don't miss about living in England

 

 

 

 

Dubai from the air

 

Spring

Friday 2nd September so by the calendar Spring is here.
I have felt it in the air for at least a week. That lovely warmth, combined with a subtle change in the light. Added to the sub-liminal sound of yellowhammers and chaffinches singing their territories. The willows are putting out exploratory leaves - nothing too daring yet in case there is a cold snap. The pines have left their yellow scum of pollen all over as a tide mark around puddles. The chooks have been laying for a couple of weeks - we are getting eggs off nearly all our 8 hens now on an almost daily basis.

I like spring! I like the manic energy it releases in all the animals and plants. i pick up on that and get manic myself. Today, a Friday, i was up and out at 0630, down in the garden working on the soil. I know from bitter experience that there is a narrow window in Spring that allows the soil to be worked. The soil has dried out enough to be worked with ease. Give it another month and that same soil will set hard like concrete if it has not been freed from its winter compaction.

Now is the time for getting the potato, kumara, bean and root beds redy for sowing and planting. At the same time the summer seeds need to be planted. I put in a whole raft of seeds last Sunday and put them under the polytunnel in the back garden. Tmato, aubergine, zucchini, lettuce, capsicum. It is light at 0615 and dark at 1830 so we must be close to the equinox. It was nice to be in the Uk summer a couple of weeks back when the nights did not start until 10pm and the daylight got going at 0500. The days were long but not particularly hot. I do like the fireceness of the summers here in Northland. It gets so hot in January that we retreat from the cancer-inducing sun for the middle part of the day.

It has been a long strange time since my last post. This would probably be the first Friday night that I have felt in any sort of mood for writing since before we had to go back to England for Dad's funeral.

Lots of things have happened in the mean-time that it is hard to know where to start. Being at the funeral with rellies I have not seen for ages who told me that they read this blog makes me feel a little nervous. Normally I write without thinking too much of the audience. Anyway .... hi there Uncle John and Aunty Barbarah. And Uncle Robert and Aunty Sheila. And all the others in the UK who read. I hope you find something here to interest you. Feel free to add a comment ... or to read without commenting. Blogging is like writing a diary that you deliberately leave lying around for anyone to read. How much does one say. How much does one guard what one is saying. How much to make up?

I shall attempt to go back to my default setting of not worrying too much about these things.

This post cannot really go by without making mention of Dad's passing. That has been the major event of the last few months ... year. Many people I have spoken to have said that losing one's father is a defining moment in life and taht you are not the same afterwards. I guess that is true for me. I don't have a living father any more. My turn is next is the thought uppermost in my mind. I am not a kid any more because I have my own kids and my Dad isn't around anymore. It might not be that long before the next generation thrusts itself into the world at the same time as I shuffle closer to the edge.

Eric and I went for a kayak and a afish last weekend. The forecast was perfect, with low winds for a week. No rain and good sunny weather. The only thing not with us was the tide which was inconvenient. we went to Houhora harbour and put in at Wageners not far from the entrance. We tried paddling out to sea against the incoming tide. Not easy and the anchor would not hold the yak against the force of the tide, so we drifted back to the island close to our launch site. We hooked up in the shelter of the island and cast into the current. Eric could see a shoal of trevally and John Dory underneath our boat. We threw in lots of burley to keep them there and tried to tempt them with a variety of baits. Th trevs were taking small squid baits but we could not tempt the JDs. Had a good fish brought a single one home and had a goodtime.

This week has been like christmas in terms of getting lots of prezzies. On Monday my new glasses were ready for collection and I am part way to having my sight back after a year of being blind in one eye. Also saw the eye specialist and he declared himself very pleased with what he could see with his machine. The car was ready as well that day after nearly a month of having its shocks replaced. There hangs another story! On Tuesday it wa school prezzies with the arrival of a package of seeds from kings seeds along with 20 catalogues. The first purchase of any significant amount of seeds I have made in this country since I got here. Lots of exciting new things to try with the hort classes. I also got hold of the timber to make some raised beds on Tuesday. ne of my Y12 sustainability groups are doing al the work on thsi. I just had to get the materials for them.

Might post some pics to lighten the text.

Michael Eric Bryan RIP

Michael Eric Bryan died at home on 31st July 2011 after a long battle with illness.
His funeral was held at St Peter’s Church, Newchurch, Rossendale in Lancashire on Monday 8th August. He was buried in a plot looking out towards the hills at Rawtenstall cemetery. His funeral was attended by family, by friends and by work mates.
The two pictures show Dad with his 6 children and with most of his grand children. It was taken at Christmas 2007, before his illness had taken hold.
It would be fair to say that Dad was unconventional. He “marched to the beat of a different drum” as Thoreau put it. Just because other people did something did not make it right. As kids we sometimes found this frustrating; none of our friends had to submit an in-depth report on the reasons why watching a TV programme would make us a better person. Or had to spend holidays doing projects. It seemed crazy at the time but we can see the logic of it now!
Not surprisingly, Dad carved out an unconventional career for himself. He was brought up in West Lancashire on a small-holding where money was tight. He went to the local Grammar and ended up reading Audiology at Salford University. He set up a business with his life-long friend Bill Tempest. Together they investigated noise related deafness. This often involved going to court to pursue compensation for workers who had lost their hearing through their work. Dad also got to go to some pretty cool places. Take-your-kid-to-work saw Dominic go and see Queen at Elland Road and both of us at a Rally in the middle of the night in Lancaster.
Dad held strong opinions that he liked to share with us all. He and Mum campaigned for social housing and they involved themselves with CAFOD. He was heavily involved with the Catholic Church and never ceased to question its practices. He and Mum joined the Marriage Encounter movement and spent many a weekend helping couples build their relationships.
He was an explorer, who loved his dogs: Tara and Wolfie. They were his constant companions and many a time we would visit with noisy grand-children to discover that dad had “just popped out with the dog” on some marathon tour of the hills around Lumb. He instilled in all of us a love of getting outdoors and walking. One of the saddest aspects of his illness was the cruel way that it robbed Dad of his mobility.
So, Dad we say farewell. You have influenced many people in your life and your impact will live on into the next generation. No doubt you will be rambling through the after-life with a dog at your side and pointing out the defects and potential improvements that could be made.

 

On the beach

Middle of winter so we went for a walk on the beach nearest to our house at Waipapakauri. It was a sunny day with astron onshore wind. Paddy is coming down with a cold so he was well wrapped up. Unusually for him he did not go in the water!

We like walking along the beach for you never know what is going to show up. This time we found several washed up logs covered in strange shell fish. Turns out they are goose barnacles. They have a long foot that atttaches to the log and a shelled part that the mouth parts come out of the filter the water. The whole colony on this log will probably die because they are right on the high water mark and the log was too big to carry down to the water. Sad really, must have been washed up by the storm.

The last pic shows Chantelle and I scrubbed up and in our finest for the Kaitaia college 2011 Cabaret. This is the social night of the year for our senior students. A NZ version of an American prom. The girls spend weeks choosing ball gowns and the boys make an effort too. They all look lovely and have a very civilised evening. The senior council of Year 13 students do all the organisation and turn the school hall into a very different space from what it is normally. This year they suspended satin fabric from the ceiling to completely cover it. Very glamorous.
There was a 3 course sit down meal with a pretty good band from Whangarei playing. Folllowed by a bit of a dance. Prom king and queen. photos in various studios. All very lovely. Chantelle and I went along to be an adult presence, but I saw nothing unpleasant all evening.
Most school cabarets pass like this. The trouble normally happens at the after-cab - a private ticket only party put on by a brave parent. Everyone - well most of the youngsters - get changed into something more relaxed and then go to the after-cab. The cab itself is strictly alcohol and drug-free. The after-cab operates by whatever rules the organisers decide on. An Auckland after cab resulted in the death of a pupil earlier this year. By all accounts our after-cab passed off without major incident.