We crossed Cook Strait and we arrived in Wellington. In Wellington we visited Otari – Wilton’s Bush.

Tomorrow we’re heading north.

(click on the picture to enlarge)

View on the hills along the Pehiri road

We crossed many small and large rivers (the Hangaroa river was one of them) and the road went on for more then 32 km, before we reached Tauhunga, another 15 to reach Rere on the Wharekopae road. The first and the last 10 km were sealed, in between was dirt road. After all those years in NZ I am still impressed by the distances some people have to drive to reach their home (or to reach a sealed road or a village to buy bread and milk).

A gum tree along the road was full in flower, but the flowers are very small

So we took the Wharekopae Road to the right and after 10 minutes we saw the trees of Eastwoodhill. We almost never come from this side and we were surprised by the good look we had on the Millenial Wood. So Dick tried his super panorama photo’s again and see below what became of it.

After our lunch we went in the arboretum, ofcourse to the pinetum.

Michoacan pine, with his elegant long drooping needles

There are so many beautiful pinetrees here. The pinetum is on a steep hillside and october 2010 there has been a slip and part of the pinetum and the brown track came down. The track is now changed for normal visitors. But we knew the old way and tried the rubbed track. Dick told me to see it as an adventure, but it felt more like a goat climbing along the hill.

Pinus engelmannii on a cloudy day

The eleventh of the eleventh of 2011! Not exactly at 11:11, but a bit earlier….
It was raining at Gisborne Airport. But the skylarks were singing.

A short delay, and there it comes. The metal bird from the sky.
I was there, and I felt a bit like the people that lived in this area at the moment of the arrival of the first Pakeha (the white people). They saw a big ship on the horizon, like they had never seen before. They thought it was a moving island, or a very large bird.

And out of the big bird that lands on the platform people show up, like they never saw before. They thought it were Gods. Well. There was one Goddess on board the ship.

And she arrived. Without any luggage. That had got lost somewhere on her trip around the world, and would turn up 3 days later……
But apart from that, she was fine, my Queen, my beloved Wilma.
O, how happy I was to see her again. And how happy was she, to see me again.
I’ve been here in New Zealand for quite some time now, and I really missed my sweetheart.

So I was waiting for Wilma, and the people of Gisborne were waiting for that rain. They needed some rain for the plants and the trees, and to fill up their water tanks.

In the afternoon, when my lady had been sleeping a bit, we went to the presentation of the Masterplan of Eastwoodhill, for the next 100 years. That is a very interesting plan, and I’ll tell more about it shortly.

It is in the Oak Paddock. I think it should not have been taken out of its protection, by the way!

When the flowers have fallen of the seedpot changes to this:

And of course…. Karin knows the answer (see the comments below):
Lonicera involucrata var. ledebourii. We’ll inform you soon about the taxonomic ins and outs of this species.
In the catalogue I find: Lonicera involucrata (Richardson) Spreng. (cat. nr. 1991 294 #1565). It also gives the donor: Rosemoor! Quite interesting.
To be continued

The helicopter came to pick up Diane, to inspect some work they’re doing on a crop paddock and on removing scrub. I was invited to join the flight. So moments later I was flying above my breakfast.

We flew over Lake Kaikiore.

(click on the pictures to enlarge – click on the back-button of your browser afterwards)

And along the driveway.

In the distance we could see Tiniroto (the tavern).

Here we fly back over Lake Kaikiore again. You can see Lake Karangata in the distance on the left.

And then to Hangaroa River.

Back again to the Homestead.

And only minutes later the fast bird is gone again.

If you enlarge the pictures, you’ll find out that most of them are not really sharp. The heli is moving rapidly, and I didn’t ask to open the window! But they give a good impression of this short but very exciting adventure.

For more pictures:
see my Hackfalls-blog
and the blog of wv & db in nz (Dutch subtitles)

Well. It looks like they still have it, but they were not there. So I left a message. The first message I dropped today.
Actuallly they don’t live at the peninsula, but on the small area that connects the peninsula to the mainland. It took me a little bit more than an hour to get from Gisborne to Mahia.
I took my time to enjoy the beautiful views on the road between Nuhaka and Opoutama.

This is one of the places I really love in NZ. Coming from Nuhaka the road dives under the railroad overbridge, and then the ocean lies in front of me. A beautiful beach, and some real steep rocks. In the distance is Mahia peninsula.
(this panorama made with Hugin software. That’s a very good program, open source of course. Rrecently they released a new version. You need a powerful computer for it).

And this is the view in the opposite direction. Mahia builds the northern edge of Hawke Bay. So here we overlook Hawke Bay in southwestern direction.
(Hawke Bay is the name for the body of water. The region is called Hawke’s Bay (Region). See: TeAra Encyclopedia of NZ)

I then drove “home” to Tiniroto, via Wairoa. That took me one and an half hour. So I did my driving today.
I dropped some shoppings at Sam & Damian’s place. They live at Noble Campbell Road, Tiniroto. Beautiful spot. Sam will cook a meal for the workers tomorrow. Sam and Damian weren’t home either. So that’s were I left my second note today.

The other recent quake was yesterday, Tuesday October 25th, at 06:15am. Also magnitude 4.5.
I was still laying in bed. I just woke up, and thought that it was to early to rise. Then that shake. Only one time. Same as the one before. Something like 1/5 of a second or so. But unmistakable.
See the official report.
I guess also some 40km from Tiniroto.

It’s strange to feel the earth moving every now and then.

Most of the time, when the skies are clear, we see all of the mountain. Like yesterday. In the front is Lake Karangata. We look in south eastern direction, east of Kevin’s Bush.

Mind the goat that’s in the paddock.

A couple of days ago (on Saturday, the 22nd) the view was totally different.