Backwards and forwards

We’ve been popping back and forth from the island as we put our house at Waiwera on the market now that the recession is coming to an end. Whether the housing market has recovered, well who knows. It’s just time for us to move on so that we can continue enjoying island life without having to maintain two home bases. Waiwera is looking fabulous, and if you’re in the market, or perhaps just feeling nosey, you can check it out here.

It's as still as a millpond out there...

Summer on the island has been fantastic. Apart from a few stormy days, the weather has been hot and gorgeous. The fruit trees have all been doing their thing, and I was determined to not let the fruit go to waste this year (last year we went to Rarotonga and the birds got the lot!). So we’ve been picking plums, apples, peaches, apricots, bananas, grapes, and shortly figs. Then I’ve been trolling through the Edmonds cookbook trying to work out what to do next. The trusty wood fired stove has been put to use, and jars of apricot chutney, plum sauce, plum syrup, stewed apple, and bottled plums have been conjured up, so now the pantry is overflowing. When we’re next on the island I’ll have a crack at bottling the peaches which are ripening on trays in the cool downstairs (otherwise the birds would have eaten them all while we were away).

The kitchen is progressing slowly. Most of the gibstopping has been done, and this resulted in a thick layer of gib dust permeating through most of the house. Now the walls have been painted, and the dust cleared away, and most of the new kitchen cabinets have been assembled. The huge Viking eye-level 90cm oven and warming drawer has been put in place and just needs to be piped and wired in now. I love having a large oven (this is the third we have had now), but I always like eye level ovens. You can imagine how delighted I was when I found an extra wide eye level oven that runs on gas (we use gas on the island given there is no mains power). Yes, the Julia Child in me will be set free when the thing is finally operational.

My new oven - can't wait till the kitchen is finished!

It has been beautiful sailing across between the mainland and the island lately. Every trip has encountered either whales, or dolphins, or both; and the captain slows the boat so that all the tourists (and us locals) can have a gander at these amazing creatures as they strut their stuff.

Dolphins escorting us off the island

A busy start to the new year

Summer is always busy on the island. It’s tourist season, and the population swells from about 800 to just under 15,000.

We arrived back on the island on Boxing Day to an orchard full of well-endowered fruit trees.

Four varieties of plums for the picking

Plums, apricots, peaches and apples everywhere. I lit the wood fired stove and whipped up batches of Spicy Apricot Chutney and Tangy Plum Sauce. No, I haven’t to been to see Julie and Julia yet.

The orchard

Flipper and his mates came to visit, which is unusual, as they normally hide away when the mass of tourists come to visit the island.

Swimming with dolphins

It seems that Flipper is becoming more gregarious as he and his mates delighted us all with jumps and flips. A new trick they have learned is to walk backwards out of the water on their tails. I think they must have been visiting Seaworld in Australia recently.

Oh he's just showing off now...

We decided to have a quiet new year. Just a few of the locals up to the orchard for a dance party. We ran power leads up from the house and lit the trees in coloured lights. Pete, the local wharfinger, also doubles as a DJ, and he dragged his new party speakers along and set them up. Then we fired up the party lights, drank far too much, managed to solve all the world’s problems, and retired to bed at 4am.

We like those party lights

The boys in matching party frocks

Good friends Jim and Michelle then popped over from the mainland for some R&R. This actually stands for repairs & renovation, which is what they both did instead of rest & relaxation. In just three days the kitchen was gib-stopped, sanded, and cleaned up (oh how that gib dust does get everywhere). Then the pond in the orchard was cleared of debris, the hole in the liner mended, new pipes laid, and the dam repaired.

The overgrown pond before...

...and after repairs and clearing.

It should slowly fill over winter, then we’ll add pond lilies and ducks and goldfish. Peter has been clearing the overgrown vegetation and is opening up the walking tracks around the pond.

Michelle and Peter hard at work clearing the pond

It wasn’t all hard work though. We did give them some time off occasionally.

Michelle, stop slacking and get back to work!!

At Medlands Beach with Jim and Michelle

Holiday season on the Barrier

I think this picture says it all…

Happy New Year everyone!

Tryphena Harbour, Great Barrier Island, January 2010

Pre-Christmas tour of the North

Hello possums, it’s been a while since we last updated you all with our goings-ons. We’ve been busy little urchins, travelling and holidaying and eating and partying and occasionally renovating.

We came back to the mainland ahead of Christmas and decided to fill the time waiting for Santa’s arrival by touring the coastline north of Whangarei Heads in our motorhome. I’ve never visited this part of the country before, so was quite looking forward to it. It was certainly the best time of year to do this – great weather and empty beaches. Everyone else, it seems, was still caught up in the frenetic week that precedes Christmas, so all the popular Christmas holiday places were deserted. It was time for us to check things out ahead of the arrival of the masses.

Taiharuru Bay

First we went to Taiharuru. Peter’s parents built a house on the beachfront there about forty years ago, and it was still there. He spent his early years travelling to Taiharuru with the family most weekends, and this visit was a trip down memory lane for him. The house was much larger now, and surrounded by a lot more large and expensive looking baches, some bordering on being beachfront mansions. It is certainly a reflection on how coastal property has developed over the past few decades. The beachfront bach is now more expensive than the family home. And with that, a slice of kiwiana slides into the history books – the traditional kiwi bach made of recycled materials and being a store shed of nothing that matches and everything kitch, now being replaced by vast creations of silver and glass. The trusty red tractor on the front lawn has been replaced by the merc or beemer when the owners occasionally visit, that’s when they’re not trying to work themselves out of the recession given that their net worth has just taken a hammering. It’s a great time to be buying coastal property if anyone has cash at the moment. A year ago, the timing was even better of course.

Home is out there somewhere

We spent the night camped on a little beach next to Taiharuru. From here we could see home in the distance – a faint glimpse of the island out past the Hen and Chicken Islands and the Mokohinau’s. We pulled out the trusty mini gas BBQ and cooked up some yummy steaks, chargrilled capsicum and onion, garlic bread and other delights, and slowly watched the sun set and Great Barrier fade from our view, replaced only by the flicker of the various navigation lights that were dotted like twinkling stars around the islands ahead of us. I felt strangely homesick – a sign of how much I am enjoying our island life I guess.

Barbie's BBQ

The next day we went to Pataua South. The map showed that this linked to Pataua North, but failed to indicate that this link was only a footbridge. This meant that I lost the argument with Peter who had insisted from his memory as a 10-year-old that no road bridge linked the north and the south. Time for a better map I think! So we walked across the bridge to Pataua North, as the trip by road was a 100km round trip. As it turns out, we drove there the very next day anyway after we took a wrong turn heading for Ngunguru!

Pataua footbridge - I think I could squeeze the Motorhome across this

We also popped down to the Whangarei Heads and walked part of the track to Bream Head. I actually only wanted to walk up to the WW2 gun emplacements perched on the hill. It was a pleasant track that crossed DOC farmland, with the track staunchly guarded by a herd of very tame bulls. Twice we had to leave the track and go ‘cross-country’ when the bulls stood their ground across the track. Perhaps they were wanting us to pay a toll? No bull!

Thou shall not pass!

Gun emplacements at Whangarei Heads

The gun emplacements on the Whangarei Heads are surprisingly well preserved. The concrete control bunker still has the original painted mural above the viewing window that shows the landscape and bearings for aiming the guns. And it didn’t stink of urine, and still had a working door and intact glass windows. The bulls clearly did a good job of guarding the site from vandals.

Cave paintings from WW2

After touring the heads, we headed off for Tutukaka, only to be distracted by the aforementioned wrong turn and long, windy drive along gravel roads to Pataua North. At the beach we had only just visited on foot a day earlier, we were almost adopted by a black Labrador that took a fancy to our motorhome and wanted to leap into the cab with me.

Next it was off to Tutukaka. Another wrong turn had us back in Whangarei and sightseeing at the Whangarei Falls. Then it was back on track for the merry jaunt up the coast past Tutukaka, Matapouri and Up to Whananaki.

Tutukaka Harbour

Tutukaka is a lovely spot. A flash marina now lies at the end of harbour, serviced by several delightful restaurants and cafes. Driving up and down the steep hills of the harbour reveals quaint little bays and cliffs peppered by more expensive beach houses and cliff-top mansions. We drove into an exclusive subdivision and camped the night on a vacant cliff-top section – our classic way of freedom camping in style. We’d like to thank all you Property Developers out there for providing us with a stunning array of so many quality free campsites for our travels around the country. Yes, of course we’re potential buyers. And yes, we’re just trying before we buy.

Next day we went to Matapouri. What a gem of a place this is. A spectacular horseshoe shaped bay that looks out towards the Poor Knights Islands. I could live there, if there weren’t any neighbours. But majestic beachfront property generally means neighbours, so nothing beats the Barrier as yet.

Beautiful Matapouri

Then it was a long trip to Whananaki South. Again, like Pataua, a footbridge joins the north with the south. This footbridge however, is the longest in the Southern Hemisphere, so it was a nice little stroll across the water to see how the other side lived. We made sure to read the map correctly this time so that we wouldn’t end up returning to the north accidentally by road.

Longest footbridge in the Southern Hemisphere

And you meet the strangest things when you travel along the back roads.

One lane bridge - Give way to Cows

After Whananaki, we headed inland and came to Hikurangi. I’ve never visited the place before – just driven past it lots as you head north on SH1 from Whangarei. Sadly Hikurangi is a shadow of it’s former self. Many of the shops have closed and boarded up, with a handful of second-hand goods shops remaining to fill the void. Fortunately we love trolling through second-hand shops, so Hikurangi was almost heaven-like to us travelling hoarders. But in Hikurangi we’d met out match – a second-hand shop owner that was the worst hoarder we’d ever met. He had three of everything, sprawled out across a vast collection of rooms, and he wouldn’t part with anything. If he sensed something was about to sell, he’d put the price up. And nothing was marked with prices, clearly so that he could invent a price just above what you would be prepared to pay when you enquired. He obviously didn’t want to make money, instead choosing to sit among his things and have passing travelers admire them. One of the locals came in to buy something. She seemed to have left her hearing aids at home that day, and had a loud lengthy discussion with the owner about wanting to buy a mahogany box he had on display so that she could use it house her CD collection in her car. But she only had $5 in her purse. Clearly there was going to be no sale. He offered her a plastic tub that he had at home for $5, but no, she wanted the mahogany box. He couldn’t part with such a fine article for $5, he said (he actually couldn’t part with anything!). A passer-by asked if they were married, and she said she hated men. We left before the mahogany box ended up being used as a weapon, as it seemed that the discussion was getting louder and louder (and funnier). Hikurangi is obviously a fun place to go if you need some entertainment while shopping.

Next stop was the Whangarei Town Basin where they have a quaint little chocolate and icecream shop that sells Lemon Cheesecake Icecream. What a delicious concoction! It even had crushed biscuit base through it. Yummy.

We exited Whangarei pretty promptly as Christmas was now very close, and the traffic was horrendous any time you came within a few kilometres of a shopping mall. It is amazing to watch how people go mad ahead of Christmas. I’m so glad I accidentally left my wallet on the island as it was the perfect excuse to buy the family nothing this year and thus avoid the Christmas crush. Just call me Scrooge…

Our tour continued, this time south of Whangarei. We stopped off at Marsden Point, looked at the new marina, had a hamburger in Ruakaka, and considered spending the night at Uretiti Beach. Unfortunately Christmas was now very close, and the campsite was packed, so given our aversion to people and camp fees, we drove on.

Bream Bay

We turned off at Waihi and drove down the coast through Waipu Cove, Langs Beach, and down to the Mangawhai Heads. Again, we’ve never been down this way before. Absolutely amazing views across Bream Bay from the plenty of high class sections for sale (i.e. free campsites).

Our tour concluded when we emerged back onto SH1 south of Wellsford. The weary travelers then headed back to Waiwera, confident that the beaches north of Auckland had plenty to offer the impending holidaymakers who would arrive exhausted from their Christmas shopping sprees. We just hope all those lovely sections don’t sell – otherwise we’ll have no free campsites to stay on next time we visit!

Don’t leave home without it

Your wallet that is…

Here we are on the mainland, but I’ve left my wallet with all my bank cards and ID at home on the island. This is quite an interesting experience – one that makes you feel quite ‘naked’, particularly if you want to be able to buy anything or prove that you are actually you.

So I popped into the local bank branch to try and get a replacement ATM card. But to do this, you need ID. Drivers licence – back on the island. Other bank cards or credit cards – on the island. Birth certificate – on the island. Passport – on the island. Sorry they said, no replacement card can be issued.

Well this was going to be a cheap Christmas for me. Perhaps I could make the family presents out of old newspapers instead. Party hats anyone?

I then went off to the Police Station to get a replacement drivers licence so I would have some ID for the bank. They sent me to the AA office, which had just closed. Then I looked up how to get a licence on the Internet. But I’d need ID before they could issue me a licence. I only wanted the licence so I could have ID to get the ATM card. Bugger – a catch 22 situation!

So then I popped into the Business Banking Centre in Albany. Here they were a lot more helpful. “Power bill instead”?, they asked. “No”, I replied, “we generate our own power on the island, so there are no power bills”. Still, they believed my story and were all prepared to give me a new card. But the batch of temporary ATM cards they had in stock all had a fault with them and couldn’t be loaded with PIN numbers. So I would have to go to another branch. “But they won’t believe me if I don’t have ID” I cried. So they wrote me a lovely letter which introduced me as a ‘priority customer’ (I must frame this and hang it somewhere, or perhaps get it printed on a T shirt for my next visit to a mainland bank branch), and then they sent me on my way.

I managed to find a phone bill on my email, and armed with this and my letter of introduction, I headed back to the local branch to see if this time I could get a card. They queue was out the door when I arrived. Christmas rush. So I waited in line, and finally arrived at a teller, and then told her my story and gave her my letter. She muttered something about wishing she had just gone on her tea break. But despite her sudden desire to be anywhere else but dealing with my problem, she persevered and delivered me a shiny new temporary ATM card. Yay, I could now go shopping! I restrained myself from leaping across the counter and kissing the teller firmly on the lips. She looked relieved.

I then went off to the $2 shop to buy me a little bag to hold the gleaming ATM card and my cellphone. But one should never put a magnetised cellphone next to their ATM or credit cards should they. So what do you think happened next?

Birthdays, boats, and booze hags

It’s been a busy few weeks, hence why I’ve been a bit slack at updating this blog.

Firstly, we headed back to the mainland for Mummy’s 60th birthday. This gave us the opportunity to organise a hire truck to bring yet more ’stuff’ across to the island. We spent a good couple of weeks sorting through all the mess at Waiwera. Peter had been chopping up his vintage Volkswagen collection, and the six wrecks that lined the driveway at Waiwera had now been turned into two working rust-free wrecks, and many large piles of spare parts. The scrap metal yard had some earlier in the year with their trucks to take away the VWs that couldn’t be resuscitated, leaving Peter with his two prized ragtop ovals, each with different coloured bonnets and doors and sides given that there had been a mass VW organ and bodypart transplantation process happening in the driveway for the previous few months. So, yes I have buckled, and Peter is allowed to bring his VWs to the island, but only if they are in working condition. The collection has now been downsized from 14 specimens to a meazley 6 vehicles. Now we just have to build a large shed over here on the island in order to house the migrating collection.

On top of sorting out vehicles, we also had to sort out the years of rubbish we’d been hoarding down in the chalets and the shipping container at Waiwera. It took a truck and trailer load to the Hospice Shop, two trailer loads to the scrap metal yard, and three trailer loads to the dump before we could see some light. Then much of the remaining hoarded ‘precious items’ were then packed into the truck and three cars that we were taking across to the island on this voyage. Record collections, my new kitchen, VW models, boat models, outdoor furniture, our new worm farm, building materials, clothes – it was all packed in so that every square inch of space was filled. My worry was that we’d hit a judder bar driving along the road and the truck would split open, given it was so tightly packed!

Despite having moved about 10 full truck and trailer loads to the island over the past two years, the house at Waiwera remains fully furnished, as is the house on the island, so I’m not quite sure what we will do with everything when we finally sell Waiwera.

Peter's precious mismatched VWs on the ferry

The convoy of trucks, cars and VW bits made it safely to the island on the car ferry, and we were greeted by fantastic weather. Despite regular rainfalls at Waiwera, the island had been very dry and the locals were starting to worry if they were going to have enough water for summer. The summer weather had certainly arrived – scorching hot days and lovely calm seas. We walked up to the orchard, and the plum tree was in fruit, and fortunately the birds hadn’t noticed, so we’ve been enjoying beautifully sweet plums for the past week. The pohutukawa are starting to flower, and the peach and apricot trees are bursting with fruit that is about to ripen in the next week or so.

Our friend Andrew, the booze hag from Wellington (he is so going to slap me for saying that), came and joined us last week for a gorgefest on the island. Again there was beautiful weather, lots of BBQs, a spontaneous liquid fuelled jaunt to the local Irish pub, a trip up north to Port FitzRoy to get a hamburger, and lots of laying about doing very little. Then, as Andrew went to leave, the island retaliated, and the weather packed in, and all flights off the island were cancelled. So in a flurry of activity that resembled a bad Hudson and Halls episode (a TV cooking show from the 1980’s), the wood fired stove was fired up, and the kitchen turned into a food factory that produced lemon cheese cake, focaccia bread, delicious chocolate brownie, home-made brandy snaps (Andrew did quite well at these) and a gorgeous beef stroganoff. The next day Andrew managed to get a flight off the island, and I gave my liver and stomach the day off.

Let's see, is it Hudson, or Hall?

Delicious chocolate brownie (Jo Seager's recipe)

Andrew's brandy snaps

The cremated brandy snaps I forgot were still cooking in the oven

Peter’s sister Anne is currently over visiting us from Darwin, Australia. She was trying to fly in when Andrew was trying to fly out, so she got to see a lot more of Auckland Airport than she bargained for. To make matters worse, her flight to the island was delayed yesterday by two hours because some ‘goon’ had opened the emergency door on the plane as they hopped in, so they had to wait for a technician to come from the North Shore to reset the door.

Peter and his sister Anne from Darwin

Peter and his sister are off at the natural hot pools at Kaitoke today. Again the weather is beautiful. A large pod of dolphins came into the bay yesterday to show off their swimming and jumping skills. And my new vegetable garden seems to be flourishing despite the fact I don’t know what I am doing and I always forget to water it. Peter however, avidly checks it for caterpillars and snails and everything else that wants to eat the fruits of our labour before we get to eat them ourselves.

My vegetable garden (on the left). Well, one needs to start small, and build up slowly

Anne flies off tomorrow, then we might get stuck into finishing the kitchen ahead of Christmas. Lovely fresh flat-pack boxes of kitchen cabinets lay stacked up in the corner awaiting my attention. This will be the third kitchen I have put together in recent years, so it doesn’t feel daunting this time. Let’s hope all the correct bits are here – coz  I can’t just pop down to Placemakers for the rest of the bits, unlike on the mainland, if anything is missing. Maybe I’ll just substitute a VW spare part if something does seem to be missing – we certainly have enough of those lying around here at the moment!

Mummy’s 60th birthday

We’re back on the mainland for Mum’s 60th birthday. It was on Friday 13th (yes, black Friday, but apparently a lucky day if it falls on your birthday).

And what a lucky day it was. Mummy had a great time catching up with friends and family. Daddy did a beautiful musical tribute to Mummy. And we all ate and drank ourselves silly (well, I did!) at a delightful little venue in Hobsonville called The Brigham.

 

The birthday girl

The last dance at the end of the night

 

Living on an island

I love living on an island – and particularly this island.

Peter flew back to the mainland today to sort out some landscaping contracts. I decided to stay here for a few more days before joining him. It’s my mum’s 60th birthday this Friday, so I need to be on the mainland for that of course, and we also have to pick up the rest of our new kitchen.

But I’m really enjoying living out here. I wake up every morning and look across the harbour and Colville channel to the Coromandel Peninsula which is about 20 kilometres away. Every morning the view is different. There is this fantastic feeling of space between us and the mainland. On a clear day we can see Rangitoto, although it doesn’t have it’s iconic shape when viewed from this side. With the curvature of the earth, we only see the top of it. And if we look really hard at night, we can catch a glimpse of the lights on the top of the Sky Tower, the largest building in the Southern Hemisphere (for you non-kiwi readers). So as much as everyone thinks we’re on an island in the middle of nowhere, we can still see the city (or at least one set of lights on top of the city’s tallest building!)

The big city is behind the little rock in the middle

The picture above shows Channel Island – a rocky outpost marking the beginning of the Colville Channel that separates the Coromandel Peninsula and the mainland from us here on the island. Each day the tides of the Hauraki Gulf ebb and flow through the narrow 19 kilometre gap making the channel a treacherous place to be on a rough day. But then a few hours later, the sea can calm right down and be as still as a millpond. Every day is different, and the view is always spectacular. I can stare at it for hours, surrounded by the birdsong and natural beauty of this place we now live in.

I was mildly worried that after such a busy career and home life that I’d easily be a candidate for ‘island fever’ – that condition where you simply have to get off the island or you’ll go stir crazy. But that hasn’t come yet. I didn’t go to the mainland with Peter last month, and I’d be quite happy staying here this month, but parties and kitchens beckon me. Still it’s quite nice to know that the novelty of island living hasn’t worn off.

Am I going mad? Becoming a recluse? Or simply smoking too much of the local leaf? None of the above. The locals are very social, and we have made lots of new friends (and the old ones still seem to be speaking to us). And I saw my first real cannabis leaf the other day – I didn’t even know what it was until it was pointed out to me – that’s how disinterested in the stuff that I am (P.S. it wasn’t on our property in case you are wondering).

No, I simply feel a lot more relaxed, and see the world through a different set of eyes. It’s nice to be able to just take life slowly for once. We haven’t stopped completely, and we still get things done. We built a fence and gates last week, and planted a vegetable garden. But I now appreciate my surroundings a lot more – watching the tide change on the beach, or the dolphins playing in the waves, or the blessed Kereru eating all the leaves off my peach trees.

I don’t get bored here. There’s plenty to do around the place, and plenty of people to catch up with when you need company. And then there’s my new addiction to Internet daytime TV. Luckily it seems I’m not the only one addicted to my favourite soap… (this is funny)

Labour weekend

What a fantastic labour weekend we have just had. Summer is certainly on it’s way.

Despite that we are still right in the middle of renovations, we decided to invite good friends Wendy, Andrew and Brian along for the long weekend. This forced us to clear a space in the lounge and dining room, and make the chalets habitable for our impending guests. Nothing like a deadline to get some progress on our project. Sadly American daytime TV would have to wait for a while.

A typical scene over the weekend (eating)

The lushes from the mainland arrived, and we began our gastronomical experience. We ate our way around the island, starting with the Labour Weekend Market Day at Claris where we scored lovely locally baked doughnuts and lamingtons. Then it was off to the Wild Rose Cafe for gourmet burgers, then to the Angsana Thai Restaurant for a fantastic Thai meal. Given that our kitchen was still in a state of disrepair, much of the cooking was diverted to the BBQ or other venues.

More eating

On Sunday, we made up a picnic hamper of club sandwiches, lamingtons, and other delectables, and headed with our beach umbrellas and blankets to Awana Beach on the other side of the island.

Beautiful Awana Beach

More eating, some napping, a beach to ourselves, and an attempt at swimming by some of the party made for a wonderful afternoon.

Life's a beach

But the guests weren’t getting off lightly. There was a cunning plan buried into their invitation to the island. Sitting out in the garage was our 300kg sandstone kitchen bench, and this needed lifting into the kitchen and onto the newly installed cabinetry. So with stomachs filled, a lifting plan was devised, and the bench was inched out of the garage using stools and loaded onto the quad bike and trailer. Then it was inched across the garden, and carefully lifted up the steps and into the kitchen. Half an hour of careful lifting, and the beast was in place. There is now some light at the end of the tunnel for our renovations.

Stop smiling and start lifting!

Yay, we finally have a kitchen bench again

Labour Day (Monday) came, and the guests were now in a state of induced unconsciousness, a result of the beach blobbing, heavy lifting, and the sherry trifle I’d made the day before. The Barrier forces you to relax. The sea was as calm as a millpond, so we decided to launch the boat and go fishing.

Wendy had never been fishing before. Each time the fish bit at the bait, she’d let out a shriek, scaring all the big snapper away. Sadly we only caught small fish, which all had to be thrown back. Then as we came ashore, others who had been out fishing just around the point delighted in telling us of the huge fish they’d been catching. So with no fresh fish for lunch, we had homemade BBQ pizzas instead.

No Wendy, we can't eat that!

Luke and Noah

I’m now addicted to American daytime soap TV – well, one show in particular – ‘As the World Turns’ and it’s story about Luke and Noah. I must have been hiding under a rock for the past couple of years (or on an island), to have missed the TV soap sensation that took place exactly on my birthday two years ago. It was the first ever gay kiss on American daytime TV, and it took the serial from the bottom of the ratings to third place under ‘Young and the Restless’ and ‘The Bold and the Beautiful.

Luke is a young gay man who has recently ‘come out’, and Noah is in a relationship with a woman named Maddie, however Noah and Luke develop feelings for each other and tension forms between the pair over a number of episodes. Luke doesn’t want to pursue Noah because Maddie (Noah’s girlfriend) is his friend too, and he doesn’t want to risk being rejected by Noah (a previous friend Kevin rejected Luke after he made advances on him). Noah wants to please his father and live a straight life with Maddie. The tension builds and spills over in the following scene, which is now one of the most viewed scenes in YouTube’s history. (I suspect that there would have been a significant increase in the number of 911 calls from rest homes across America reporting cardiac collapses and shortness-of-breath after this segment went to air!)

Gosh, when I saw this, it reminded me of when I was on an international exchange with the Ship for World Youth. I was actually at a conference in Tokyo, and the delegates had to dress in special clothing for a dinner ceremony. Mr Brazil came to help me sort my tie, and a scene like above took place, but without the kiss. The tension continued to build over the week, until a scene like above did occur. Sadly things did not progress – Mr Brazil had ‘Noah’ issues, and my Brazilian episode ended in pain (heartache, not a raw red hairless rash down below), which is probably a good thing otherwise I wouldn’t have met Peter, and this website would probably be called ‘my brazillian’ instead of ‘my island’.

I was up till 3am last night watching re-runs of ‘As the World Turns’ on YouTube. Tragic I know – but I was just amazed at the honesty and length the show goes to to outline the issues facing Noah and Luke, and basically gay couples all over the world. Finding love in the gay world is difficult – a smaller population, and huge issues around people hiding or dealing with their sexuality. And despite there being supposed mainstream acceptance, this was the first gay couple on daytime TV, and this was only back in 2007.

If you’re thinking of watching ‘As the World Turns’ be prepared that it is also trashy. Luke and Noah’s issues and chemistry obviously get the audience tuning in, but then soap TV mentality takes over, with Noah’s dad being a homophobic retired Army Colonel who tries to kill Luke on a fishing trip for leading his son astray (oh, dad also killed Noah’s birth mother a way back too). Luke is pushed down a bank, sustains a spinal injury, and is put in a wheelchair. However, many episodes later (up till 3am remember), the bond between Luke and Noah becomes so great that Luke is motivated to walk again, all because of Noah’s support. It was hard to know whether to grab the chunder bucket or the sniffle tissues at times.

Fortunately me and Peter have created our own soap opera on our little island on the Hauraki Gulf. Luke and Noah are simply a reminder of the difficult journey getting here, and the importance of relationships in one’s life. So go hug the significant other in your life if you have one. Life is short, so make the most of every day you have with your someone special. Even better, move to an island and start watching daytime soap operas in your spare time, and then you’ll start wondering where the day went!

The sun has got his hat on

This used to be one of my favourite songs as a kid: “The sun has got his hat on, hip hip hip hip hooray!”. My Uncle Dud used it play it on the record player he built himself. It took up one whole wall of his workshop, and had lots of valves as large as light bulbs that had to warm up before the copper needle the size of a pencil lead could pull the music off the old 78’s he had stashed in his shack. Us kids thought Uncle Dud’s gizmos were great. MOTAT would probably be interested in the contraption too if it still was in existence.

Today the sun certainly had his hat on. After what seems like weeks of rain and wind, it has been lovely to be greeted by two days of clear blue skies.

We’ve been up finishing the flashing on the roof of the two new chalets. Soon I’ll be able to start sorting out the insides of them.

Don't jump!

Yesterday we spent the day putting our solar water heating system back together. Soon Mr Sun, resplendent in his millinery, can sizzle up our water so that once again we have a cylinder full of the hot stuff. Because I’ve pulled out everything else sensible that worked, we are only able to heat water using gas at the moment. Not as green and eco-friendly as we are wanting to be.

Solar hot water system almost back together again

The Wharf 2 Wharf event was a tremendous success. We had 100 entries, which is big by Great Barrier standards, and everyone seemed to have lots of fun (which I still find confusing, as how can running, cycling, or walking 42 kilometres be fun). Our house became the Great Barrier Island Ambulance Station for the week, as I had an ambulance shipped over from the mainland for the event. Fortunately there were only a few minor injuries, and these were well concealed by thick layers of mud. The recent weeks of rain had turned the off-road sections of the course into a mud bath.

Spot the VW hidden in this picture

It was great to have been a part of this event, as it was fantastic way to network with the locals.

Our dear friend Stess providing race support in her racy supports

Yesterday the Spirit of New Zealand sailed into the harbour, as did a pod of 22 dolphins. It certainly feels like summer is on the way.

Ahoy Captain Cook, we've already been discovered!

Right in the thick of things

I’ve been helping out on the organising committee of the local Wharf 2 Wharf event. It is taking place this Saturday, and is a 42km run, walk, or cycle from the top end of the island to the bottom.

I thought I’d get involved to get to know some of the locals, help build local networks, and show an interest in my new community. Unfortunately my big mouth got me lumbered with lots to do. I started off just being the St John rep, then became the Safety rep, then one of the key organising committee members, then the glamorous person who gets to paint all the safety road signage in his spare time. You see we’re fundraising for one of the local schools, so we’re doing everything on a very strict budget (oh, and I had to write the budget too).

So 25 pages of the Safety Plan and Traffic Management Plan later, I’d planned for every contingency, and Auckland City Council were presented with a comprehensive plan in exchange for an event permit. The locals were horrified that council was insisting upon a permit this year – here on the Barrier, everyone believes we’re exempt from that sort of thing. The fact a herd of mainland Police and Vehicle Inspectors have just finished assessing and ticketing people for no WOF and registration has also caused some consternation over here. So when I suggested a comprehensive traffic management plan for this event, I was reduced to painting my own signs and making use of the handful of road cones the island possesses. But I managed to wear the committee down and they allowed me to go to the $2 shop on the mainland to buy some hi-viz vests. Yes, we splashed out.

My call to action came the other day when the Race Director suddenly had to leave the island for a funeral, and asked if I would run the Marshals briefing. Now, those St John readers amongst you will know that I relish in delivering a good briefing. Powerpoint displays, video footage, and lots of arm waving usually (one year I used a megaphone at the Big Day Out, but some sod removed the batteries ahead of the afternoon shift briefing, and the next year the megaphone went ‘missing’ just before the event, so I guessed I shouldn’t use a megaphone for this event).

Armed with copies of Safety Plans and maps (a small forest was cleared on the island to provide the paper needed for all the guff I gave the poor Marshals), the briefing was delivered to the packed lunchroom at the Claris Police Station, and those still awake at the end of it said I did quite well. My ‘opportunity to shine’ had come and passed just like that. The chocolate bikkies put out by the local constabulary were consumed with great haste by the locals (I think that was their highlight of the briefing), and then they all departed, leaving our poor cops with nothing to eat for morning tea for the rest of the week.

Tomorrow I have an ambulance being shipped over for the event (weather and seas permitting). Then on Friday I drive round putting up road signs, and on Saturday it’s a 5am start to save lives and dish out plasters. Our event of only 100 competitors is a far cry from the 10,000 runners who go to the Auckland Marathon, or the 80,000 who go to Round the Bays. But you have to start somewhere…

Tiling behind the wood stove

We have done some work on the house in between organising a race. The tiles could finally go on the wall now that we’ve finished all the demolition work. I kept wanting to tile so that I could get the stove working, but realised that I’d crack all the newly-laid tiles if I kept swinging the sledge hammer about the place.

Almost finished

We’ve finally got the stove back in place, and for the first time in several months, I got the wood stove going and cooked up a storm. Oven baked pork and potatoes, creamy rice pudding, and chocolate butterscotch slice all emerged from it’s cast iron belly. I’d missed having an oven, and was sick of having to cook everything on a single gas ring.

Stanley, the Irish-made wood fired stove, back in action

Another glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel: despite there being no walls in the pantry/Butler’s kitchen, I still managed to jam the dishwasher in it’s new spot and get it going. No more boiling up water on the gas ring to get the dishes done each day.

With this sudden cold snap, it’s great to have Stanley (the oven) back in action. Now we just need some fine weather so I can put the solar water heating system back together on it’s new perch.

Drama everywhere

It seems to be a week of disasters – whether it be the state of our kitchen renovation, planes falling from the sky, or tsunami alerts. And I have man ‘flu (well, a sore throat) so am feeling less interested in renovating at the moment.

Oops, please fasten your seatbelts

Yesterday one of the local planes failed to take off properly and crashed in the swamp at the end of the runway. That got the local bush telegraph working overtime.

Today we had the tsunami warning following the earthquake in Samoa. Again the bush telegraph had everyone moved to high ground. Luckily, our house is about 30 metres above sea level, so we just sat in the lounge eating breakfast, listening to the radio, and watching for the wave. Local boats had been moved off their moorings and were waiting in the middle of the harbour, which generated some interest for us to look at from our perch above the sea. And I sent texts to the world inciting widespread panic and general traffic chaos as I suggested all my dear friends and family should seek refuge at the top of the Sky Tower.

So the tsunami warning has passed, and it is raining, and I sit here reassured that the hole in the side of the house has been filled and the elements are being kept at bay. Which is good, because the last thing I want to be doing with my man ‘flu is mopping up water or nailing up tarpaulins.

And yes, it is still safe to fly to the island.

Demolition derby

Apologies loyal readers for the absence of regular updates. Life has been rather hectic since we got back to the island. So much for taking things quietly…

The kitchen renovation is turning out to be more complicated than we first imagined. I’ve also been tied up as part of the organising committee for the Great Barrier Island Wharf 2 Wharf event. And I’ve been pushing to set up an ambulance over here as we have no formal ambulance service on the island.

Renovations, as mentioned, are taking up a lot of our time. We’ve become very good at the demolition aspect of renovations. I initially only wanted to do some small changes, but over time the trusty sledge hammer has been put to good use removing walls and plasterboard, and the project has grown bigger each day.

This was a bathroom...

Oops, naughty sledge hammer!

During the last renovation at Waiwera, I vowed that we’d never try to live in the same space that we were renovating. So when we moved to the Barrier, I was delighted to see that there was a separate sleepout that we could move to when we renovated. Unfortunately we started renovating the sleepout, then we had to fill it with everything we needed to renovate the house, so the sleepout became a storage area. So now we’re back to the same situation we had at Waiwera: camping in our own house!

I’ve seconded the BBQ table and dragged it into the kitchen to act as a kitchen bench. Unfortunately it also acts as a work bench. Dinner is cooked on a single gas burner as I pulled out both the gas stove, and the wood fired stove. Hot water for the dishes is also heated on this single gas ring as I pulled out the hot water cylinder. See how I said we were getting really good at demolition!

Look, a designer kitchen

So now that we’ve made a complete mess and devalued our piece of paradise significantly, I thought we should have a go at putting things back together again. So we built our first wall. A non-structural internal wall for my walk-in pantry – nothing too complicated, and nothing needing a building consent or registered master builder. Having demolished numerous walls over the years, I now have a fair idea of how they’re constructed. So we set to it, and after day one we had the framing in place; and by day two it was ‘gibbed’; and on day three, much to our delight, it was still standing. There is hope for us yet.

Up goes the framing...

...and on goes the gib

Then we thought we’d graduate to pulling out a window. Again no building consent is required if you don’t modify the existing lintel and framing. The window needed to go to make room for the gi-normous eye level gas wall oven that I scored off TradeMe. And we need somewhere to squeeze our double door fridge. So Peter got to a flying start with the sledge hammer, and one elusive framing nail later, and the glass window we wanted to save for another project was in pieces. Certainly one way of opening the window to get some fresh air.

Oops, just a little broken glass

The day was getting a little late, and after stopping for an extended afternoon tea with a visiting neighbour, we elected to fill in the hole the next day. Bad move.

The next day arrived with a vengeance. The heavens opened up, and only a slither of building paper separated the kitchen-cum-workshop from the elements. And the forecast for the week was for much of the same.

Fortunately we woke to sunshine this morning, so armed with the knowledge that two storm fronts were on the way, we made haste and filled and sealed the window gap just in the nick of time. Nothing like a deadline to get one motivated!

Building on the island is a pleasantly interesting experience. Sure, we’re a few miles (about 50 miles as the crow flies) from the nearest Bunnings or Mitre 10 Mega, but the local hardware stores  make up for things (yes, there are two on the island – both about 3 minutes drive away). The other day when we ordered the plasterboard for the walls, it was delivered by truck within 20 minutes! Now you try and get service like that on the mainland! And what you can’t buy locally, you can generally order in, or buy over the Internet. I’m busy buying the kitchen cabinets over the Internet. And we’ve learned how to secure wallboards and seal out the elements by downloading building and installation instructions from the Internet. Peter is complaining of tummy pain, so I’m just reading up on how to take out his appendix over the Internet (just joking).

It's just been work, work, work...

Okay, so we did get out in the boat for a bit too.

We’re back!

We’re back on the island, and we’re back on the air (well, Internet). Our myisland.co.nz link broke down over the weekend, abruptly ending transmission to you loyal readers. We could hear you all gasping as you searched in vain for our updates. But I see things are up and running again.

Here on Fantasy Island we decided to go exploring today and climbed to the top of our 13 acres. Yes, we’ve owned this piece of dirt for nearly two years, and have only been using about an acre of it! Today we climbed up to the top of the hill at the back of the property, through an amazing glade of native forest with aged nikau and kauri, and emerged at the peak to stunning views across the whole of Tryphena Harbour and across to Coromandel. I’d include a photo, but sadly we didn’t take the camera. So it looks like we’ll have to climb the ruddy hill all over again tomorrow.