More scenery, beaches and television news programmes !

I hadn't posted for a few days so I thought I'd remedy that. This week has been a non stop round of appointments, phone calls and voice mails as I've been trying to sort out work matters and house rentals. Still I've also taken time out to enjoy the sunshine and see some more of the Auckland sights.

Last weekend we had the start of a glorious stretch of weather, the wind and rain of my first week had gradually given way to sunshine, blue, almost cloudless skies and temperatures well into the 20's. In short a tremendous British Summers day but in an early Kiwi Spring. According to all the observers (of which there appears to be one at every turn) the weather will stay like this, largely until April or May of next year.



I went to Milford Beach which is on the North Shore on Sunday. It wasn't my intention to go to the beach but I had seen a house in the area and went to see the agent to arrange a viewing. The office was closed as it turns out that the owner was out doing viewings with potential clients. She advised that she'd be back in a couple of hours. As it was such a nice day and the waters of the Harbour were glistening in the sunlight, I decided that there were worse places to wait than the vista before me and so headed off to kill some time. Milford beach was busier than any other New Zealand beach I had come across but as this was a Sunday afternoon and one of the first really nice weekends for several weeks, it was maybe not a surprise. It was a typical beach scene, more reminiscent of the beach holidays from an Enid Blyton novel, you know the sort where children are playing with footballs & Frisbees, dogs paddling and swimming in the shallows, rock pools with inquisitive barefoot boys with their jeans rolled up to their knees, looking into them for crabs or other crawly things. The beach was wide and sandy for the most part, in the distance it was possible to make out the black jagged lava of a long distant volcanic eruption. On the horizon were the numerous small islands that surround Auckland, on the water a host of tiny craft trailing white water behind them as they busied themselves to unknown destinations.



Surrounding the beach were numerous properties, most of them freshly whitewashed for the Summer and gleaming a newness that at times seemed almost unreal, such as this pretty cottage in the photo. This was certainly the way to spend a Sunday afternoon in late September.
The house I eventually went to see was rather disappointing as many of them subsequently seemed to be. Houses, certainly in this part of NZ, are of a generally flimsy construction. Most of the older properties are of the "clapboard" variety you've seen a million times on American films. These houses can easily look old and tired if the painting has been put off too long. The bleaching of the sun, the cracking of the paint, the grime from a winters rain all take their toll. Add to that the lack of insulation, the omission of double glazing and the glaring miss of not installing central heating can all make the properties here cold, damp and a bit musty smelling. Modern houses are a little more robust in their construction, adopting what is termed here "brick and tile". These also seldom have central heating or double glazing but are better protected from the cold nights and the winters. It has to be said at this point that Auckland doesn't ever really get cold as such, but even on a baking hot day like today, as soon as the sun has set the temperature can plummet quite sharply. New Zealand can have some rather extremes of temperature. The lady doing the weather on one of the channels last night commented that in Dunedin (South East of South Island) they had an overnight temperature of -1 and a daytime high of 23 degrees ! In fact the weather bulletin here is a very drawn out affair, regardless of which channel you watch. They insist on giving you a 5 day forecast for each of the main towns and cities across the country. This also follows a full analysis of the weather that each town and city had experienced that day.



This strikes me as rather odd as for example, how interested is someone in lets say, New Plymouth as to the weather experienced today in Invercargill ? And before someone says, that someone in Invercargill would be interested in that, I'll ask "wouldn't they already know what the weather was like earlier today ?" Surely a look out of the window every so often is all that would be required to ascertain the climate. I for one, wouldn't wait until the evening bulletin to hear that today I could have sat outside of my office at lunchtime and enjoyed fresh North Westerlies with a high of 22 ! Suffice to say the weather bulletin seems to take at least 10 minutes during which time you busy yourself with something else until they get to your bit, only to discover that you've missed your bit as you weren't paying attention. You'll have to make do with looking out of the window instead tomorrow. They say the British are obsessed with the weather but the Kiwis have a weather bulletin that's longer than some advertised programs and they even have a weather channel that broadcasts forecasts continually on satellite.

Whilst I'm talking about the weather, although I've long since forgotten how I got onto this subject, I think that the news bulletins should be given due mention. Now in a half hour National news bulletin you'll get around 5 minutes of news, mostly NZ related but you do get the occasional International story. After that you get around 15 minutes of sports news featuring every single sport you can possibly think of. If there is a kiwi playing somewhere and doing well at it, that's a bonus and you're guaranteed that it will be covered in microscopic detail. If a kiwi boy wins an egg and spoon race at the school sports day then expect to see if on the National news complete with footage, expert analyse to rival that of Alan "shocking defending" Hansen and Mark "Lawro" Lawrenson, interviews with all concerned and then some personal glowing quip by the sports anchor to finish. Amazing ! After the extended sports news (extended even further due to little Kevin in Otago winning the under 7's sack race for the 3rd consecutive year) you then have your 10 minutes of weather. At the end of the half hour National News you know that the Australian Prime Minster met the leader of Fiji and discussed something but you didn't catch, what, you know the lifetime achievements of both a kiwi unicyclist in Peru, and a juggler who used to live in Christchurch but now lives in Borneo, the weather that someone else had today but you didn't and that's about it! Informed ??? Er, no, not really.

There is a half hour sports program that immediately follows the news and overly long sports and weather. It's presented by two guys who sit behind their desk and discuss the sporting achievements of the last 24 hours. This is basically a repeat of the 10 minute sports news you saw moments earlier in the main news programme but it fills airtime and includes items you didn't see in the main sports news such as Little Kevin in Otago's (remember him?) younger sister who seems quite good at skipping and may be a bit of a under 7 star herself in the future if she flunks her school lessons and keeps practicing! This programme is very watchable for the two smug & sarcastic presenters who bask, no.....revel in the sporting misfortune of others. If they can find a clip of someone injuring themselves rather badly then they'll show it in normal speed, slow motion, super slow mo and reverse angle. They'll get out the "Andy Gray Sky Sports" graphics package and draw arrows all over the screen for you, move draughts around a little green felt board showing you the passage of play that led to the injury. It's amazing stuff. Last nights show featured a woman judge getting speared in the leg by a javelin during a practice round at some athletics event. I kid you not, they actually showed this at 7pm, complete with the woman's tears and clearly obvious distress. Our boys were loving it. This was quickly followed by a fight between two racing drivers who had clearly taken each other off the track and culminated in one of the drivers physically kicking in the windscreen of the other car to get at the driver. Our hosts were beside themselves, they couldn't have grinned any wider if they'd stuck coat hangers in their mouths !

The previous night they were obviously delighted to have found footage of an American Female racing driver who had crashed her motorcar at tremendous speed, in a quite astonishing manner. The fact that she miraculously had survived such an impact was a story in itself but our hero's took the view that women shouldn't be driving racing cars and dismissed it as an accident waiting to happen. Thereafter followed quips and comments about women drivers in general. The only thing that would have pleased them more as far as I could see, was if she had burned alive right in front of the camera crew for the guys to analyse and replay numerous times !

They're on now as I'm writing this and one of the guys has just said that anybody cycling down Auckland water front wearing Lycra should be run over ! I'm not sure that's the sort of advice that you'd hear on the BBC.

Where was I ?? Oh yes, Well after a great Sunday on the beach I had numerous appointments this week but managed to find a couple of hours to visit "One Tree Hill". Now One Tree Hill is actually "No Tree Hill" as some Maori Activists chopped the solitary Monterey Pine tree down in 2001. The pics below show the park in all it's finery.



The hill is a Volcanic cone, as you've no doubt come to expect and sits 213 metres atop Cornwall Park which is Auckland's largest park. I have to say its absolutely beautiful. The weather was glorious and many of the trees were out in impossibly pink blossom. The sort of pink that Barbara Cartland always promoted. The gardens are extremely well kept with numerous little tracks and lanes leading off into various corners of the park.



All tracks ultimately seem to lead up to the volcanic peak that is One Tree Hill. As you'd expect the park was full of joggers, cyclists, ramblers, lovers, dog walkers, school children on field trips and pram pushing mothers. Unexpectedly, there's also a large herd of cattle that seem to spend their day munching the vegetation, oblivious to the city sprawl that surrounds them. There were picnics visible in every direction. It was truly the best park I've ever visited and certainly one that you'd want on your doorstep for those lazy days when you feel you should be doing something but not sure, what.



Due to other appointments, I didn't have time to reach the summit and as usual, the camera battery died before I'd quite finished but a delightful place nonetheless as the above pictures show and amazingly is only 5 minutes from the Central Business District.

The following day and still beaming with the delights of One Tree Hill, I thought I'd compare that to Mount Eden, another of Auckland's centre piece attractions and probably the most complete looking Volcano on the Auckland mainland.



The view from the top is immense due largely to it being the second highest peak in Auckland, (only One Tree Hill is higher) affording views both of the Pacific Ocean and the CBD to the East and the Tasman Sea to the West. The Volcano itself has a staggering crater which falls steeply away from the cone of the volcano. The cone itself is thick with vegetation on all sides and, like One Tree Hill, also has a herd of cattle. The above photo shows the volcano's crater. The photo below, shows a more expansive view of the Mount Eden area around the cone.



There had been a thick fog that morning and even though it had largely cleared, a few fingers of fog still lingered in some of the more Westerly locations. Viewed from above this gave the city suburbs an eerie look. I walked around the summit and cone for maybe an hour before heading off for further appointments in the city.

That was a rather long post so my apologies for boring you all senseless. I've a few things to sort out over the next few days so I don't know when I'll post again or from where ! In the meantime, I'm going to go out now and try and find some Lycra wearing cyclists to run over.. We're allowed to apparently, they said so on the telly earlier !

John