Walking the Wild West

Another overcast Sunday, another opportunity to put on the hiking boots. This time we headed way out to Whatipu, the northern head of the Manukau Harbour and the southern tip of the Waitakeres. The walk was a 5-hour loop, first climbing up to around 300m before descending into a valley and then returning along the coast.

The drive out there was an adventure enough in itself - we didn't see too many other Mini's heading out along the dirt road! The climb up through a Manuka Forest took us just over an hour, no where near the signposted 2-hours. Supposedly you can sometimes have views all the way down to Mt Taranki - not this day. The descent was pretty steep, and we had to billy goat it a view times. Passing through an awesome grove of Nikau Palms (and a couple of Kauri too) we finally made it down in the valley. Here our lack of tramping cred was exposed, as we removed out boots to cross the stream. Of course, this is when we saw the first people as day, as two guys strode straight past us and straight across the stream.

With dry feet on the other side, we made our down the way and out to the coast and some pretty impressive sand dunes. This was real wild west stuff. The dunes must stretch out for nearly a kilometre to the sea, where the Tasman Sea was throwing down it's best on the coast. It took us nearly 2-hours to make our way back, not seeing a soul the whole way. It felt quite surreal walking through this black expanse all by ourselves. We tried to take the direct line a few times, though each time we were beaten back by grass and wetlands. In the end, it was easier to just take the wide way.

When we finally make it back to the heads at Whatipu, it was a shock to see how many people were there - we had seen the sum total of 4 people during the whole walk. We pulled our tired legs back into the car and headed back in to the city - where we were surprised to find that on the other side of the hills it was brilliantly sunny. But the gray and the clouds had suit the scenery. And now we could enjoy the stunning evening with a couple of well earned pints at Galbraiths, and satisfaction on a bloody good day.

A long time coming...and a fair way up.

It's been nearly 9 years since we moved up to Auckland, and now we finally ticked off one activity that has been near the top of our list. Climb to the top of Rangitoto. Only a 30 minute ferry ride, there's no good excuse for why we hadn't got around to it earlier, but some welcoming cloud cover spurred us on this morning (on a sunny day, you literally cook on the lava fields).

The climb to the summit, at 260m and nearly an hour, isn't too tough, though on a warm and humid Auckland day, it didn't take long to get a sweat up. The 360 degree views from the top are pretty spectacular. Though this is depreciated somewhat by finding that all the lazy tourists who got the ride up have beaten you to it. So when they went left, we went right - circling the crater and then having a look in some lava caves. From there we walked down to Islington Bay, which separates Rangitoto and Motutapu Island. In fact, the two islands and so close that a 5 metre causeway bridge joins them. It was a great spot to have some lunch and cool off with a swim.

We then had a couple of hours left to make it back in time for the last ferry. The "Coastal Track" turned out not to be coastal at all, being more a scramble over lava fields and though Pohutukawa Forest. Of course, this was when the sun decided to come out and it was a hard trek back. Surprisingly, there isn't as much bird life as you expect. You only hear a few songs from time to time, though the fantails are pretty friendly. The lava does dominate, and though it is no Fernandina in the Galapagos, does make for a stunning contrast with the rest of the city lying just across the water.

This gun's for hire...

Not so much dancing in the dark, as dining in the dark. In the ongoing run of tin-arse proportions, Anna and I recently won a table for four at the 'Dining in the Dark' evening to be held at one of Auckland's best restaurants Clooney - and selling on TradeMe for over $600. Our tickets arrived as the blindfolds we were due to wear for the dinner and we invited Tom & Rae to join us for what was an awesome night.

We arrived on the night in the midst on NZ celebrity - the usual Auckland exhibition of Shortland Street actors, designers, and newsreaders. Alas, our entrance was not as sought after, as the photographer decided to skip asking us to strike a pose (nor did we make it onto the Close Up feature - see chapter four). Picking up champagne on the way through to our table, we were quickly served up a canape of - raw tuna and cured salmon, topped with a wasabi foam and caviar. Suspicion that we had invited only invited Rae so that we could drink her wine and eat her seafood are unfair, though we took full advantage!

We were then briefed that the lights we about to go out and that we were to don our blindfolds. We were also told that we were to be served up five courses, each accompanied by a different wine - to be told what the dish was after we had finished.

Though we all picked that the first dish served up was seafood, it was Anna who first to pick it was scallops. But none of this picked the foie gras. Though Rae - who had a non-seafood dish - out did us all...claiming that she had a potato risotto, only to be told it was a pear souffle! All accompanied by a Riesling.

Second course was a bit easier, ravioli filled with goats cheese. Though none of us picked the anchovy butter sauce - especially Rae, who supposedly doesn't like seafood. We certainly didn't pick the wine - a Pinot Noir...though as a white Pinot Noir, this wasn't surprising.

Next up was the most unusual dish of the night - it had us all stump. Beef was an early call, though I was putting my money on some kind of kidney or liver - which ended up being kind of close. Though I was well off with my dim sum dumpling call. It turned out to be lobster and veal sweetbreads! With artichoke, white asparagus and hazelnuts. The lobsters was obviously somewhat wasted on us, but it was a good way to introduced to sweetbreads. The easiest part of this course to pick was the wine - a Chardonnay.

Fourth course was pretty amazing. Anna showed off - picking early the venison on cauliflower puree, with cherries and cocoa flakes in a licorice sauce. Well, everything but the licorice. Served with a Pinot Noir - a normal one this time - this course was absolutely delicious.

The last course - a chocolate dish - was a bit easier to pick, especially with Tim Tams Classic Dark being a sponsor of the event. Though none of us picked that it was Sherry and not Port that accompanied it.

Our assumption that each dish would be presented in a form easy to eat blindfolded was very wrong, as each dish was set out on a plate and required deft use of both knife and fork. It was hard not to take a peak now and then to watch others chasing their food around the plate. Rae took nearly 5 minutes to stick it to one bit of asparagus. It also took a while to get used to conversation blind-folded, as you kind of projected your voice at a few decibels than what was probably required. Even going to the toilet required sticking your hand up to be led by the staff - though wisely blindfolds were removed once you got there.

The food overall was simply superb, and if we had paid $150 each to attend, I wouldn't have been disappointed. The experience of eating blind was also very cool. Interesting, rather than heightening the rest of your senses, they actually seemed subdued. I guess meaning that seeing your food is important to the overall taste you get from the food.

The Night of Two Halves

This week we could have had two more different consecutive nights out.

On Thursday night we went to the opening night of the opera Eugene Onegin. The first time either us had ever been to an opera, which to be honest, was only because we won tickets through a competition in the Listener (which we subsequently found out were worth $150 each!). The opera is based upon the novel of the same name by the Russian author Alexander Pushkin. The follows the title character, a young aristocrat in the 1820s whose friend (Lensky) introduces him to the idealistic Tatyana, who subsequently pronounces her love for him. He rebukes her love and then soon after in a ball gets in a quarrel with his friend, with Lensky challenging Onegin to a foolish duel. The duel ends with Onegin killing his one and only friend. The last Act is several years later, when Onegin meets Tatyana again, who is now married to a Prince and has developed into a sophisticated Princess. Onegin realises he is now in love with the girl he rebuke long ago and pleads his love to Tatyana. Showing up Onegin's emotional and moral inferiority, the story finishes with Tatyana's rebuke of Onegin's love.

So how was three and a half hours of Opera? It was a lot of Opera! And we were certainly in the minority in the crowd under 50 (and I was the only person I saw wearing trainers). We did enjoy it, though trying to concentrate on the performances and read the sub-titles (it is in Russian) isn't easy. Some of the longer scenes were tiring, but the ball and duel scenes were fun. Not sure I will be rushing back to the next opera, but it was a good experience all the same.

Our Friday night couldn't be in greater contrast. We attended the charity event - Fight 2 Survive - which involved 14 colleagues from ANZ who were stepping into the boxing ring for the first (and probably last) time. The charity was Child Cancer, and these 14 brave souls had been receiving training for the past 3 months, though prior to that had no boxing experience. It was great fun - watching from ringside! The fights themselves were three 2-minute rounds, which you could tell was more than enough by the end. Each gave it their all, and it was fun watching them grapple between what they had been trained to do and their natural instincts to throw wild punches. But there was no holding back in the ring, a little bit of blood and one fight which was stopped early. The whole night was professionally run, Shane Cameron even turned up halfway through to say a few words. In all, $70,000 was raised, which is a pretty amazing feat. As someone who has never thrown a punch in their life, I could only respect what these guys had done.

City Chasing

On Saturday Tom and I took part in the inaugural ANZ City Chase. It drew more than 300 teams into an adventure which ranged from the North Shore's Devonport to the eastern waterfront's Okahu Bay.

The event was the first in New Zealand and the 300 teams made it the largest first time event per capita for any country that has a City Chase event. The winning team completed ten of the twenty chase points in 2hrs 9mins - a fair bit faster than Tom and I. But we were just in it for fun, and we had plenty of that.

Teams must travel only by foot or approved local public transport - bus, ferry or train, and stay within 25m of each other at all times. Any other methods of transportation, including any form of private transportation, bicycle, car, taxi, motorcycle, rollerblades, hang glider, magic carpet, camel and rickshaw were strictly prohibited

Tom and I finished down the pack in what was still a respectable 3hrs 40mins, well inside the deadline of 6 hours. Our biggest hindrance time-wise was heading over to Devonport to claim the chased points there - all of the top teams stayed on the southern side of the harbour. However, as a result they missed out on the best task of the day.

The Chase started off down at the Viaduct with an impromptu task. You couldn't get your Clue Sheet until you brought back two of - an ATM receipt, some foreign currency, or a coin from 1993. This set off a mad dash by all competitors, with every tourist (or anyone who looked like a tourist) hassled for change. This too longer than you think - even more frustrating that I had been to an ATM just 20 minutes earlier - but of course, no receipt.

Finally, with Clue Sheet in hand, Tom and I thought the best plan of attack would be head across to Devonport, where 5 of the tasks were located very close together. We weren't the only ones, as the first ferry was crowded by other teams with the same thought. Though the short trip gave us an opportunity to strategise - and also call Anna to google some of the clues.

Our first chase point proved simple enough. At Devonport Chocolates, we simply had to wrap a couple of chocolates to their approval - and we got to keep the chocolates.

Close by was our second task, which was to paint each other's faces to match the pictures. We choose what look to be easiest - the Dalmatian. Mistake was to let Tom go first, he was trying to make my face perfect and absolutely caked my face with paint. After looking at what some of the other efforts were given approval, I realised all I need to was randomly put some white and black paint on Tom's face and it would be fine.

Caked in paint, we headed off to the next stop, which was the "special ANZ Chase menu". This proved to be rolling a dice and having to eat a grub or insect. They were quite small so ended up pretty easy, the worst seemed to be the crickets and fortunately neither of us rolled those.

We now had a bit of a march to North Head where a queue had built up waiting for buckets. Fortunately I had a VIP pass, which enabled us to jump the queue - go to be some benefits working for the sponsor! We had to carry two buckets of water from the beach to the top of the Head and then complete a mental task with the water. I had seen it before, so it proved quite easy. However, the combination of all this running and and the sun meant we had quite a sweat on - not that great when you have a paint face!

We not just had one last task in Devonport - and this was the best of the day. We had to head in the Naval Base, where we had to done overalls and life jacket - all to the orders of a young drill sergeant. We then boarded the frigate Te Mana and had to leap from the side into the harbour, and the scale the ladder up the side back onto the frigate. It was absolutely awesome and if I had thought about it then, I would have done it again. It's not every day you get to jump off the side of a naval frigate.

With 5 Chase Points down, we were pretty chuffed with ourselves, and even had enough time for a pie and a coke before the ferry left to go back into the city (what we didn't know was that the winning team was finishing as we were chowing down!).

Back in the city, a short sprint to Britomart, where we soon found ourselves trying to find a stranger to sing Split Enz's I See Red with us.

It was then a short wait to take us up to Parnell, where we had to find a park to answer some questions about the ANZ Netball Championship and then shoot some hoops.

We then thought we were making our way across to the Parnell Rose Gardens, which we thought were an answer to another clue. However, on arriving we quickly realised we got that one wrong and there was no one else in sight! Fortunately, this was en route to the Parnell Baths anyway, which was definitely a correct answer. This involved swimming a length of the Parnell baths herding blow up sheep. A little unusual, but Tom and I aced this, even having to wait for a couple of young guys who we caught up, who couldn't control their sheep.

We were on the home straight now and only had two last Chase Points to collect, with plenty of options Downtown.

At the Ice Bar, there was the simple task of bobbing for of ice cubes. Though a little surreal with some tourists drinking cocktails out of ice glasses next to you (though why they are in the Ice Bar in the middle of the day, I do not know?).

Our tenth and last Chase Point was then just across in the Maritime Museum, which we had to scour for answers to a question sheet. Then it was a sprint (more a half-walk/half-jog by that stage) of about 200 metres to the finish at O'Hagans pub - and a much welcomed beer.

It was an awesome event and I cannot recommend it more highly for anyone who wants something fun to do next year.

A Day at the Tennis

Courtesy of the shareholders and customers of a certain bank, I spent the day court side at the finals of the NZ Heineken Open. The tennis was good, the beer was pretty bad.

The men's single final involved top seed and number 9 in the world - Argentine Juan Martin Del Potro - versus namesake American Sam Querrey. With Del Potro playing, this gave me the chance to dust off my faux Puma's top and go a bit latino.

As you can see, the view from the corporate box wasn't too bad - though with the sun out it got pretty hot. What to do...give the wave and order more drinks. Though things didn't go so smoothly around lunch time. Having just been served our lunch towards the end of the 1st Set, a first serve fault very nearly rebounded straight into my crispy pork belly. Before I knew what had happened, a work colleague behind me tossed the offending ball back onto court. Problem was, the second serve had just been sent down. This didn't do much to endear us to Mr Del Potro, who was at the receiving end at the time. Mutterings of Spanish were quickly sent in our direction - probably just as well that they appeared to be outside my five and a half word Spanish vocabulary. Fortunately my pork belly wasn't threatened any further in the match, and Del Potro won comfortably in two sets, 6-4 6-4.

Once the tennis was finished, we retired to the 'Base Line After Party', which included a pretty awesome set from Liam Finn, and a whole lot of terrible middle-aged dancing.

Ponsonby Cafe Files: People Cafe

If you didn't look hard enough, you wouldn't know People Cafe was there at all. But being hidden on the bottom floor of a modern office building doesn't seem to be holding this cafe back. Inside it is all modern and minimalist, with some jazz being played overhead. No Allpress coffee, but still the beans here were strong. Anna and I were both lured by the hash cakes, which were good - though I was thankful I asked for the Hollandaise sauce on the side (Anna's was swimming in it - which would be great if that was your thing).

Definitely a cool spot for a weekend brunch.

Walkabout: Te Atatu Peninsula

On a warm and sunny Auckland Sunday and with Mum up for the weekend, we decided to walk off the delicious dinner from the night before with a walk around Te Atatu Peninsula. If like me, you main memories of Te Atatu was their league team thrashing it out against Wainuiomata in the old national competition, you probably thinking of it as a strange destination for a Sunday walk. And it's true, some parts of Te Atatu do closely resemble the West Auckland of Outrageous Fortune. But the eastern side of peninsula also affords some stunning views back over the city, as well as walking through mangroves and wetlands with plenty of cabbage trees, pukekoes and fantails.









To complete the loop walk of the peninsula (a quite tiring 11kms), we also got a good look at some of Te Atatu's 'urban scenery', with some spectacular over-grown lawns and cars in the back yard with no wheels and on blocks. Though there was one feature that caught my eye...

Motuihe Island

Bad weather closing in. Rain and stronger winds forecast for later in the day. What better thing to do on such a Saturday as cruise out to one of the islands in the Hauraki Gulf for a walk and picnic. Well, that's exactly what we did this weekend.

As by way of explanation, we had credit to use that was about to expire after, of course, numerous stunning weekends in recent weeks to use it. Nevertheless, this was our last chance to use the credit, and despite low scudding clouds and a touch of dampness in the air, we decided to head out to Motuihe Island.

Motuihe Island is just a small island about a 30 minute trip from downtown Auckland, and after a diverse and interesting history, is now a DOC-controlled reserve. At various times in its past, Motuihe has been home to Maori pa settlements, farming, a quarantine station for 50 years, an internment camp for German nationals in WWI, and a navy training ground. However, since 2005, DOC has managed the island, eradicating pests and starting a native planting programme. Native species are also to be reintroduced to the island - Saddlebacks and Kakariki having been so already - and Kiwis are set to be released next year. Motuihe is also renowned for having some of the finest sandy beaches around Auckland.

Of course, on the shortest day of the year, taking advantage of the beaches wasn't a priority for us. Staying dry was one - though that fear turned out to be unfounded. Arriving at the island just before 10am, Rae, Tom, Anna and I had nearly 5 hours before we had to return to the wharf to catch the ferry back. This proved the perfect amount of time to walk around and enjoy the island. The island doesn't have the natural beauty of Tiritiri Matangi - yet - but still occupies a great scenic spot in the middle of Hauraki Gulf. From the vantage points of cliff tops and beaches, there are numerous views of Auckland landmarks like Rangitoto Island, Waiheke Island with the Coromandel in the distance, and Auckland City itself. Of course, that was when the misty showers allowed us to see them. Though despite the showers passing through the harbour, Motuihe seemed to dodge most of them and we were left virtually untouched by the weather. As well as the views, the island itself is plenty interesting enough. Apart from the young plots of native plantings, there are also some old gnarly trees, especially in a coastal strip aptly named the Old Forest. We didn't come across a Tom Bombadil unfortunately, but we did share our walk with plenty of Pukekoes, who did a surprising amount of flying.

With enough time to picnic by the beach and wander the remnants of gun placements and navy base, we were much relieved to rest our weary feet as the ferry returned at 2.30pm, most satisfied that we had dared the weather and made the most of the day.