THE GREAT AUCKLAND FUNRUN : Sunday 18 March
Details and photos soon ...

HAKIRIMATA WALKWAY : Saturday 17 March
Mist covered the hills north of Ngaruawahia as we arrived, and it offered to be a damp day, yet 30 minutes into the trek, and reaching the original town water supply dam the sky cleared for a perfect view of Ngaruawahia below. Then onward through nikau, punga's and an incredible array of native trees gaining a foothold after the 19th century Kauri logging. It was a beautiful day ... as you see in the photos ...

NATIONAL PARK 'The Lawnmowing'
With the driveway near completion and parking for 4 cars around the house, it was time to tackle some of the neglected tasks, first being the lawn ... errrr ... or was that jungle!?
At 60cm high in places the task was certainly overdue, so while dropping off more construction materials the jungle mower was put into action, and performed admirably considering the punishment I put it through.

NATIONAL PARK : March 2007 The Driveway Begins ...

A 1.5m x 15.m hole has been left by the old fireplace (left photo) when the house was removed from Napier. Plastic covers this opening to keep some warmth in the house, and to temporarily weatherproof it, with off-cuts of the piles used as a door-step. This area is intended to be the front door location with a deck, and 4m wide stairway. Some serious rot in the south side weatherboards needs repair (right photo) ... most likely requiring replacement of the lower boards around much of the house.

Finally a driveway is starting to take shape, which will be wide enough for 2 cars and accommodate up to 8-10 in total. That's Mt. Ngaruahoe in the photo on the left (upper right corner, in the distance).

GOAT ISLAND - SWIMMING WITH THE FISHIES : Saturday 3 March
We headed off early from Hamilton, well okay early-ish, and raced on up to Matakana township (not to be confused with Matakana Island), and well I couldn't resist the 'Farmers Market', so spent a couple of hours there, a bite to eat, and then off to swim at Goat Island with the fishies, where there were surprisingly few, yet enough to enjoy swimming under the waves, through the kelp, back and forth to the island. A 75cm schnapper was quite happy to be followed a mere metre behind for a while, and attempted to capture it (on camera of course!), alas those photos from the rocks were not clear enough, so have included here a few from the rocks of Blue Maumau and a lesser Schnapper ... plus photos of the incredible interior lighting 'eel' at Matakana Theatre, and the Farmers Market.