Category Archives: New Zealand

9. North-West Circuit 2

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Port William – Big Bungaree – Christmas Village, 17.4 km
Monday, February 11: Rain overnight; during the day a couple of very light showers; in the afternoon sun but a little colder.
GPS Track
Little Bungaree

Little Bungaree

Up at about 6:30 and the ladies were pretending to snooze. I set about breakfast and then the packing and am around 19 kg with the water. Farewelled by the wardens and made my way to Big Bungaree. The track was in surprisingly good condition, with the mud not so slippery and quite firm in most places. There were really only two places at the beginning and at the end of the track where the mud was treacherous. Continue reading →

8. North-West Circuit 1

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Oban – Port William, 12.6 km
Sunday, February 10: Cloudy, somewhat variable, still dry
GPS Track
Suspension Bridge at Maori Beach

Suspension Bridge at Maori Beach

Was up at 8:00 and had the full cooked breakfast, which made up for the lost breakfast at Matt’s from yesterday. Then there was work to be done in transcribing the diaries and scheduling the blog. That took up pretty much two hours and in the meantime I sent a regular OK message on the Spot Tracker, which showed up as such on the internet site. Sent the address around to a couple of friends (still wondering whether it would have been a good idea to send it to all the FB friends), had a cuppa with Tina and then did the rest of the packing. With the billy and the gas can on the outside of the pack (together with the raincoat and the dry change of clothes in a plastic bag) all the food fits on the middle level of the pack (i.e the bottom of the top section) with the vanity bag and the batteries on the top. The pack barely closes, but there you go. Continue reading →

7. Christchurch – Invercargill

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Tina & Tony M, Gladstone Tce, Invercargill, via airbnb
Saturday, February 9: Christchurch: A little chilly, fog, drizzle
Dunedin and Invercargill: Sunny and warm
Outside the Railway Station, Dunedin

Outside the Railway Station, Dunedin

Up at 6:00 to throw everything into the suitcase; Matt was up at half past and after loading L. still asleep into the children’s seat, we were off just after 7:00. I left the fire cans at Matt’s, who thinks he might improve on them by the next visit.

Fog was rolling into Hagley Park, and as there was not much traffic, everything was eerily quiet. We were in good time despite one false turn, and I had to wait around a bit before the bus decided to turn up. Continue reading →

6. Auckland – Christchurch

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Matt T., Manning Place, Christchurch, via airbnb
Friday, February 8: Auckland: Warm and fairly sunny
Christchurch: Pretty much the same, a bit cooler

I was up as the first one this morning and got through the bathroom before everyone else. While the others were having breakfast, I finished my packing, and when I saw I. coming down I went up and took my leave of Chinara, who was very much hugs this morning.

Then it was time for my breakfast, washing up and doing the final checks. Took a couple of photographs from the deck and one of the house but noticed that I had packed the wrong camera into the rucksack. Anyhow, soon after that I was on my way to the bus stop which I reached in very good time for the first bus that I had envisaged. Continue reading →

5. Auckland

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Chinara’s
Quite cloudy but still dry and warm

After breakfast this morning there were a couple of mission critical software issues that had to be dealt with urgently. Raw conversion of images in PPP seems to have a major glitch – the blue channel seems to have taken over. The current version uses ufraw, so the strategy was: 1) exchange ufraw for dcraw and test if it works; 2) should dcraw also fail, the attempt an option of using the jpegs for stacking, advanced tone mapping and thumbnailing; 3) try a reinstall of ufraw 0.18 or an older version; try to determine when the deterioration of ufraw set in. But that was the second problem. Continue reading →

4. Auckland

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Chinara’s
Wednesday, February 6: A little cold at first, but very sunny with clear skies
GPS Track
Happy Trampers. Auckland Guided Hikers’ Meetup, at Huia

Happy Trampers. Auckland Guided Hikers’ Meetup, at Huia

Up very early for the hike but Camila was up even earlier so she was through with breakfast almost before I started. Made my lunch and packed some bits of apple and a banana as my hiking provisions and was down at the intersection at 8:20. Mike turned up about ten minutes later and we were fairly quickly in Huia for the hike. Quite friendly bloke about my age, and meeting up with the other people showed that all ages were present. A brief round of introductions followed and then the tour leader Stephen had a couple of words to say about the hike. This was to be a bush bash, a wild hike through the undergrowth, with occasional getting lost. Continue reading →

3. Auckland

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Chinara’s
Tuesday, February 5: Sunny with a few clouds and very windy
GPS Track
Estuary, Le Roys Bush

Estuary, Le Roys Bush

Chinara had gotten into her mind to buy a Canon 450D for $100 and wanted to pick me up around lunchtime and see if the camera was performing OK so I had pretty much a free morning. Spotted a monarch braving the winds and got the camera running and succeeded in taking a few shots. As I was getting hungry I made avail of one of the apples. Continue reading →

2. Auckland

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Chinara’s
Monday, February 4: Raining, clearing briefly around lunchtime, but returning in the evening.
Monarch on Feijoa

Monarch on Feijoa

Slept a good eight hours until the cars were removed from the garages; then waited until the bathroom was free (and everyone out of the house) to make myself some breakfast (coffee, muesli, toast).

Then I decided I needed a couple of extra slides for tonight, so I got those done & practised the presentation once. Now the blog had to be updated, as there had been no publication last Friday. First that gap was filled, and then the blog for tomorrow was scheduled. Continue reading →

1. Sydney – Auckland

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Chinara S., Mahara Ave, Birkenhead, Auckland 0626, via airbnb.
Sunday, February 3: Sydney: overcast.

We were in Sydney on time, and I had had a bit of a sleep after the beef with fried rice, and The Words with Jeremy Irons and John Malkovitch, a couple of episodes of The Big Bang Theory.

After security and a random exam of me for explosive remains, there was an extra long wait for the further boarding pass to Auckland, which was with LAN on its way to Santiago de Chile. Had a bit of a surf on the internet and have managed to get most things ready for a quick pass through arrivals at AKL (otherwise I might have to wait an hour for the next bus connection). Continue reading →

Kiwi III, 2010

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Sunset at Sunset Beach, 2010 (bracket of 47 exposures)

Sunset at Sunset Beach, 2010 (bracket of 47 exposures)

On the success of Kiwi II, I decided that a trip in early spring (August – October) might be the next goal, at least to explore the North Island more fully. I wanted to go to White Island, Cape Reinga, and do the remaining NI Great Walks. Auckland never seems to be cold, and while it was a little wet… It also very much brought back the Augusts and Septembers of fallen-in-love. Continue reading →