Gregg has had another good year with the orchard harvesting. He has had a lot of help and now has about 15 tons of apples awaiting the press in the cider shed. He has frozen over a 100 gallons of apple juice from this past couple of weeks and given away several dozen more gallons to those who came to help pick. In a month he will begin pressing the apples for cider and then begins the fermentation process. He will go to friends homes who have other apples like granny smiths to pick and bring them back to add to the cider making process. We have picked some cider apples from trees in public areas.  |
| A small birds nest in the top of an apple tree in the orchard, appeared to morph from the lichen encrusted branches. |
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hungi (dinner cooked in the earth) by Tony Ropata, with Nils giving a hand and a visitor from Frankfurt learning how it all is done.
One of the evenings of late we went to the Ropata home where Tony was teaching a visitor from Frankfort Germany how to cook a large meal in the ground by traditional Maori methods. The visitor plans to use this hungi technique in a festival back in Frankfort this coming summer. |
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| The second weekend of apple pickers breaking for a late lunch. |
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| Briany, Neil (mostly hidden), Roger (Briany's partner), Lee (Neil's partner), Wyatt, and Gregg |
Gregg first introduced me to Briany in 1998 when we traveled to the south island and Christchurch and stayed at her home for a night before traveling on. We later met her again in Nelson near the north end of the south island before we returned to the north island. She is currently working on the America's Cup that will take place in San Francisco Bay where the entire competition will be seen from the surrounding shore areas. Briany has worked on many festivals, some with Carla, who she is long time friends with. It has been a pleasure to see her again, and reflect back on my first trip here 14 years ago. Carla's dad Maurice, now 90, and others have been joking that I can't wait until another 14 years go by before I return again.
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| Greville Lanigera, "Mt. Tamboritha", seen here at the Wellington Botanical Gardens |
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| Wonderfully organic patterns of growth |
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| The rare Saddleback, here seen at Zeelandia Nature preserve, note the red wattle alongside the beak. These birds are very inquisitive and stayed in a group of four or five most of the time I watched them in the bush. They scamper about poking with their beaks into lots of places looking for bugs. They are nearly in constant motion, so getting a clear and sharply focused photo proved to be very difficult. |
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| The even more rare takahe; this is one of only 250 in the world. The takahe is flightless and mostly a grass eater. Here seen at Zeelandia nature preserve just outside of Wellington. There are two takahe at Zeelandia and they both have radio telemetry attachments so they can be tracked and accounted for. This species came into a concentrated rescue program in 1970 when there were only 100 birds left ( but had been believed to have been extinct at the turn of the 20th century, until a small group were found in Fiordland ). They had been able to raise their numbers significantly but then stouts (weasel like predators that eat the eggs and young birds) invaded the areas and the numbers again dropped to less than 100. Here at Zeelandia they spent a few million dollars and put in nearly 9 kilometers of fencing to keep the predators out. This has proven successful and these birds are back to nesting without active threats from predators. |
I hope to cross once again onto Kapiti Island and enjoy the natural reserve there and the sanctuary for the native birds of New Zealand. I had scheduled to go early today but the boat canceled the crossing due to the sea conditions, so I have rescheduled and hope to go this weekend.
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| harbor side sculpture of the diver |
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| Another harbor side sculpture with an apple and eve theme, and koru style tattoo on the hip |
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| This is an adult female taratua. She is nearly a foot long and the latest in a very long line of taratua that stretches back longer than the dinosaurs. More than 200 million years ago they surfaced to sit and await their next meal just as they do today. Taratua live to be 100 years old. They do not have a skull like most reptiles but an open frame of bone around the head including a third eye on top of their head that senses light and alerts the taratua to approaching predators. The adult males are larger and have a lot more spikes down the center of their backs. They also have no individual teeth but three sets of boney projections from the jaw bones. Two rows on the lower and one row on the upper that fits between the two lower rows. Once they bight they take a long time to let go so keep a safe distance. Some people have suffered a bite where the jaw of the taratua went through the person's thumbnail before it let go. One more intriguing detail of the taratua is that its eggs take 18 months to hatch. |
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| Night view of Wellington harbor from the balcony of friends Richard and Kristen's home where they invited me to stay so that I could participate in the Vincent's Art Workshop life drawing class and not have to try and travel back late into the night to Otaki. We had a very good breakfast the next morning before I headed off to hike my way through the city and up to the botanical garden and Zeelandia through the wind and rain. Due to the poor weather I had a private tour through Zeelandia and the botanical garden essentially to myself most of the morning. |
