winter picnic

We took our little van down to the Clevedon Farmers' Market a couple of weekends ago and stocked up on fresh salad greens and tomatoes, spicy sausage, local cheeses and bread. Then we found this spot on the road to Maraetai to tuck in to our simple picnic feast. That's Waiheke Island across the water. It felt like an adventure - that we'd discovered a hidden treasure - and not that far from the big city.

Reading: Fashionable Selby by Todd Selby. This is a great book. The best quote is "Cats are like living ornaments that don't need dusting" said by designer Natalie Gibson who has twelves cats - Cool Dude, Blondie, Pansy Puffball, Precious, Scaredycat, Orlando, Florence, Sweet Lorraine, Tiger Lily, Archie, Smokey Robinson and Monroe (who was originally called Marilyn until it was revealed she was a tom cat). Meet Natalie here.

Watching: Fargo (TV series) and Borgen

forty-six days later ...

Easter is the last long weekend in New Zealand to get away before the weather turns colder so we headed off in our van to the winterless North again for a few days at Pataua South and Mangawhai. It was too cold for me to swim in the sea but we did lots of walking including part of the Te Araroa trail along the clifftop at Mangawhai. On our last day at Pataua we ate the best ever hot chips bought from the campground store on their last day open until Boxing Day. Sadly we didn't have the same luck at our favourite ice cream shop at Waipu Cove. It was already closed for winter.

- footbridge over the Pataua River
- bach at Pataua North
- view from our campsite of the estuary and sandbar at Managwhai at dusk
- the village butchery at Matakana

This is my first post since 11 March. It's been so long I even forgot my password. I've had a sort of photography equivalent of writers' block. I was (and still am a bit) feeling stuck.

Anyhow, the big blog break has given me a longer list of reading to share with you:
The guest cat by Takashi Hiraide - beautiful simple story about a couple's friendship with a neighbour's cat
The Rosie project by Graeme Simsion - popular novel about an autistic man's search for love
Humans of New York by Brandon Stanton - interesting photos of people taken on the streets of New York
Letters of note: correspondence deserving of a wider audience compiled by Shaun Usher
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell - 1982 in a village in Worcestershire as told by a 13 year old boy

north again

Last week we were making the most of the last bit of summer and camping with friends in Northland. Lots of road but also lots of swimming in the sea. That's our little grey van under the pine trees at Whananaki.

Reading: When Mr Dog bites by Brian Conaghan

taranaki

These are my favourite photos from a few days of camping in New Plymouth. The first two pics were taken on the coastal walkway - our "best thing to do" in New Plymouth - although we did eat some nice meals and drank some good coffee and enjoyed the rhododendrons at Pukeiti.

The third photo/second beach is Oakura Beach where Tom Cruise stayed while filming The last samurai in 2003. The locals still talk about it.

And the last one was taken somewhere along the Forgotten World Highway on our way to the tiny, remote settlement of Whangamomona. The locals declared the town a republic in 1988 after a boundary dispute with local government. The town's most famous resident was Billy the goat - the first animal to be elected as president.