Waiheke Island scrapbook.

I discovered these looking toward Auckland. I do not know their background.

Feeling young experience.

On Sunday afternoon I headed out telling my wife I planned to walk for two-hours.  I was retracing a familiar track, but also exploring it’s higher routes. It finished up out at the end of a peninsula where I had been before. Across the paddock I saw some interesting things and great scenery, so I had to explore.  While there I found yet another track and decided to explore that.  It went along a coastline where I had never been. After a while I saw a sign that gave two options to get back to the village. Of course I took the longest most interesting looking one. I walked and walked and there seemed to be no more definitive signs and the track got “wilder”. I began to worry about getting back before dark and wondered where I was?  I came across a group of young adults going in the opposite direction. They asked me where the track led, and I asked them, “Does this go to a road?”  “Yes” they replied, but they were foreign so I was not confident they had understood my question… I walked on. … and on… faster and faster. I wound my way back and forth, up and down through some picturesque bush and eventually out onto a road! But which way leads back to the village? Do I go left or to the right? I was just working how to establish that when I saw a track heading into the bush across the road, and a sign saying it led to a beach near where we are staying.  I rushed into the bush, pleased to know where I was going, but now more fearful that I might get stuck in there when nightfall came.  I did not know how long the track was. The track reached its full height at a trig point that we can see from the house and, once there I knew I could find my way to a road, and back home.  I arrived just as darkness settled in after walking solidly and quickly for three hours. The thing is I was on a high! I loved the challenges, (e.g. sliding down a bank on my backside) the scenery, the uncertainty, the need for speed and having to push myself physically, (breaking into a run at various points) the isolation and my own company.  I felt young, “on the edge” and adventurous.  My wife had begun to wonder if I had got lost, but I had enjoyed a really great three hours - I loved every minute of it. A simple thing like a walk can bring so much pleasure. I did wish, though, that I had brought a map with me!

I love the old twisted trees on Waiheke.

Wrinkly.. but happy.

One of the shops we have frequented here is a secondhand shop associated with the refuse station. It is called “The New Hope shop” and run by a number of Churches with the profits going into good causes in the community.  Church volunteers staff the shop and we had chatted with the lady behind the counter on a previous visit.  We went to buy a pair of trousers I could do carpentry in without worrying about damaging them. When paying for our purchase, ($4) my wife explained to the lady that they were “for my husband”. “Have you got a good one?” the lady asked, “Husband, I mean?” “Oh yes,” my wife replied. From a nearby isle I commented that she had to say that because I was listening.  “How long have you been married.” she asked. “45 years” my wife replied.  “We have a few years on you, we are 54 years. – It is a long time but its good,” she said with a grin, “They get wrinkly (husbands) but hey, I don’t wear my glasses to bed! Its OK.”   

Love carpentry…

I know I have said this before, but I do enjoy building. I am assisting my son to build a workshop/laundry underneath their house.  It is a great feel constructing something useful and slowly developing a new room. I love the physicality, the problem solving and the looking at things completed and being able to say, “That’s good!”  Perhaps I should have been a carpenter!

 

A murky looking Auckland CBD across the sea from a distance.

The distance - you can just make out the buildings.

Our project continues-we are extending our original plan.