After 11 weeks in a charming granny flat (as they say in New Zealand) or mother-in-law apartment (as they say in the U.S.), we're moving this afternoon to another AirBnB. I've taken 75 photos of the amazing view, and I'll show you some of them. First, a view of our place from below. The house is more than 100 years old, and the upstairs addition, where we're staying, was added in the late 90s for a granny/mother-in-law. That window has been the joy of my life for the past 11 weeks. You can see a desk in the window. That's where Dave paints. There's a sofa to the right of the desk (from this view), and when I lie on the sofa to read, I can see the harbor and ocean out the window through the legs of his desk! Be sure to notice the big cabbage tree a bit to the left of the house (looks like a yucca on a stick). The cabbage tree is a lovely part of our view.
Wednesday, April 7, 2021
The harbor and ocean from Belleknowes
Friday, November 27, 2020
Familiar places: St Clair Beach, Olveston House, Taiaroa Head
We've been in Dunedin six weeks now, and we've visited some of our old favorite familiar places. When we left New Zealand in 2017, I was totally surprised to find that what I missed most, in addition to friends, was the beaches. St. Clair is our city beach with benches and surfing. Our son, Mike, spent Christmas 2007 with us in Dunedin and wrote his masters thesis at the Hydro Cafe, at the end of the line of buildings in the photo. A couple of weeks ago, it was pure joy to sit on a bench, listen to the waves and seagulls, and watch a lone surfer float around among the waves.
I went into the centre, used the toilet and poked around in the shop, and went back outside after perhaps 15 minutes. The wind had blown in, the temperature had dropped many degrees, and enormous raindrops were falling. I made my way to the car and got there before the heavens opened, the rain poured down, and the wind roared so hard that the car rocked and rolled in the wind. I strained my eyes to the sky through the raindrops on the car windows -- surely the albatrosses would start flying -- but no. Dave joined me in the car and we found ourselves fascinated by the behavior of the seagulls in the wind. Only a few were now flying, and they struggled to land. Often one would approach the ground, and a gust of wind would pick it up again.
The albatrosses never did appear, but we were amply entertained by the seagulls. The rain poured down for about 15 minutes, but the wind continued after the rain stopped, probably the same wind we had experienced in Dunedin 2 hours earlier. Here are two videos of the seagulls taken after the rain stopped. The second one moves up the hill to show the power and beauty of the wind in the grasses.
Thursday, November 5, 2020
Dunedin overview and highlights
We arrived in Dunedin three weeks ago. The day before yesterday -- election day in the U.S. -- was beautiful and very still. I wasn't feeling well so I couldn't write that morning. Dave and I hopped in the car and drove to the top of Mount Cargill, 2230 feet or 680 metres. We can see it from our living room window.
Monday, October 12, 2020
Napier: art deco, palms and Norfolk pines
We left beautiful Napier more than a week ago, and I have been slow to get this post written because I've been sick. In our first two days in Wellington, I had a sore throat and a runny nose. I called the national Health Line to see if they wanted me to get a covid test. Within an hour of the phone call, I was on my way to a drive-in testing station in downtown Wellington. I had the test, for free, and got the negative results the next day.
The complication is that the Health Line person told me to self quarantine until I had a negative covid test AND 24 hours free of symptoms. This was perhaps related to the fact that I called them on our 13th day out of quarantine, and covid can have a 14 day or longer incubation period. I quarantined for 3 days in our hotel in Wellington, and still had symptoms. We couldn't stay on at the hotel, which was fully booked -- along with just about every place to stay in Wellington -- because of the big rugby cup game in Wellington between New Zealand and Australia. So we drove an hour and a half northeast to the Wairarapa Valley, a gorgeous agricultural valley between two sets of tall hills. We are staying at a cottage on a vineyard (photos in an upcoming post), and I feel well enough to take ferry to the South Island tomorrow (photos of the ferry trip in an upcoming post, too).
The rest of this post focuses on our two full days in Napier more than a week ago. Napier is the most visually charming small city in New Zealand, shaped by a big earthquake in 1930, which destroyed the city. A lot of it was rebuilt in the 1930s in art deco style. I had been there in June 2017 with my brother, who wanted to play the gorgeous golf course on a nearby headland, Cape Kidnappers. I thought Dave would love painting some of Napier's buildings, and he did.
One of the first things I noticed this time in Napier was the trees. On my first morning there, on the way to a public swimming pool, I drove on a street that looked like southern California.
Dave spent our two days in Napier painting like a maniac. Some of the charming art deco buildings:
The earthquake in Napier influenced architecture elsewhere in New Zealand. In a museum, Dave found the following photo of Wellington's town hall. Before Napier's earthquake, the town hall had a tower. After the earthquake the tower was removed for safety in case of another earthquake.
The photo above is taken from a hill within Napier that you can see in the photo below. Beyond the hill is a long headland to the north which marks one boundary of Hawke's Bay.