Adventure, Adventure, more Adventure

We’ve really been working hard the past several weeks. First our supervisor was out for a month with a heart condition. Then the Administrative Assistant went in for a kidney transplant; she’s now been out for six weeks. Diane has had to pick up her workload which, in addition to administrative duties, has been the management of the Perpetual Education Fund and another scholarship fund for Pacific Islanders. Between the two funds she has about 350 active accounts to manage. It has been a really heavy work load for her, considering no training and no time for a normal learning curve. On the other hand, I’ve just been playing around doing research, in between a few floods, tropical cyclones, etc. We have sixteen island nations in our Area. (I don’t know how many actual islands – several hundred) Any humanitarian aid or emergency relief that goes to these countries comes through our office. I’ve finally completed my research and have produced a sixty-five page report that recommends where we should be focusing our church-administered humanitarian aid to achieve the most impact.

Some of the countries have few on-going humanitarian needs, while others are in desperate shape. If my recommendations are accepted, we will be organizing several key healthcare projects in such places as Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, and Vanuatu. I’ve also recommended several clean water projects for Tonga, Tuvalu, and Kiribati. Even if they are all accepted they won’t be our only projects, but they will be our primary initiatives. We’ve currently got twenty-six projects in various stages of progress.

Naturally, when our day off comes around, we’re ready for our next adventure. There are 10 other missionary couples working in our office building; however, we are the only ones doing humanitarian projects.

Several of us decided to go kayaking down the Puhoi River. It is wide, lazy and beautiful. Just our speed.

With a few minutes of instructions and a little cruise downstream we were both acting like pros – well, at least we both had our paddles in the water at the same time.

After a couple of hours on the river, we all made our way to a local (English-style) Tea Room for a small lunch. We decided to have their quiche, but they also offered meat pies and Devonshire Cream Tea (not tea at all, but scones loaded with whipped cream on top). For the "Littleys" their menu offered "round sandwiches of jam, honey, peanut butter, or vegemite, along with a lolly, juice, and biscuits".

After lunch we decided to leave our friends and take a hike up a nearby mountain. The trail head was lined with a long row of huge Sycamore trees that were beginning to lose their leaves. (It is autumn here, you know?)

The trail was very steep. Unlike most that we have been on, this one was not cleared and paved with gravel. There were places where it took both of us to get up and over the obstacles. The untamed nature of it added to the natural beauty and ambiance. We really felt like we were in the wilds. If nothing else, we were breathing hard. When we reached to crest we really felt like we had accomplished something.

Obstacle course or not, quite frankly I was pretty glad for the bare roots. They formed a type of stairway up the mountain side, which would have been nearly impossible to climb without the layered roots giving us a foot hold.

We were well rewarded when we got to the top by some breath-taking views of the Pacific coastline. The inlet you can see on the upper left is the mouth of the Puhoi River.

But something that we really hadn’t anticipated was when we came upon these little guys. They were so cute. They just sat there while we took their pictures. (They didn’t seems to give a hoot.) They would cock their heads and just look at us. The flash of the camera gave them “red eye.” When we finished taking several pictures, they flew away.

Strangely, the trail down the other side of the mountain was well groomed, gentle, and spread with a layer of gravel. After a bit of a strenuous climb, it was a welcome leisurely walk down the other side.

Down at the bottom we walked along a black-sand beach that was littered with small striped shells. Since our flat is becoming overrun with shells and other "beach-find," we didn't bring any home with us.

We weren’t the only ones who had thought that this might be a good place to take pictures. The sun was setting on our day, so we headed for home – a long 40-minute drive.

Work Hard, Play Hard, But Relax Calmly

The Friday before Easter (Good Friday) is a national holiday here in New Zealand. So is the day after Easter. But don’t assume it is because they are so religious, although that may have been the case way back when they first established the holidays. The editorial sections were full of comments about Jesus’ death, when in fact -- they claimed -- Christians seemed to be preoccupied with symbols of fertility Gods, chocolate eggs. New Zealanders do seem to have a fetish about chocolate. In fact they only recognize two types of candy: chocolate and lollies (all other candies). Now, where was I? Oh yes, the day before Easter. Being a national holiday, we also had the day off, since our office was closed. The first thing we did was clean our flat, but then as we were moving furniture around to vacuum under it, we started re-arranging. That took most of the morning. But, I think we like the way it is now. We do seem to have more space than we did.

After lunch we thought we would go to Murray’s Bay and see about renting a small sailboat for a couple of hours. There is a little shop there that rents canoes, kayaks, and sailboats. But when we got there, the cupboard was bare, meaning the place was closed for the holiday. Stupid me, here I thought that this being a four-day holiday, and the last holiday of the warm season (winter is just around the corner), that someone that was in business to rent boats would want to take advantage of the last big opportunity – why on earth would I think that? After all, a holiday is a holiday. Who wants to be open for business on a holiday? So, no sailboats for rent (not on a holiday).

Since we were at the Bay already, we decided to stay. We ate our picnic lunch and then went out on the reef exploring (we were there at low tide – my favorite time). As you can see, someone had a sailboat. Actually, I believe it was the shop owner. For this one was the only one we saw.

We had so much fun discovering things that we don’t get to see, except at low tide. He is a picture of a little sea urchin that I found in one of the tide pools.

While Diane went off looking for shells—shells that don’t wiggle or move, I began to focus on the small details that I usually don’t see, except when I’m really paying attention.

This is a close-up photo of the sun glistening off of the ripples in the wet sand. This particular beach had very dark sand.

Here is some type of shelled animal that attaches to the rock. Without having anything to provide a scale, you wouldn’t know that these rocks are very small and the growies on them are almost microscopic.

This picture is of some soft and flowery sea weed that also attaches to coastal rocks. Surprisingly there were almost no fishy smells.

This little feller caught my attention. It is called a bird’s eye oyster. It is a small shell about the size of a marble or a small chocolate Easter egg.

Here I really just wanted to catch the pretty little sea shell feeding off the plants.

Just like the last picture, which I would normally pass by without giving it a second thought, this picture is of a half dozen sea snails resting on a rock in a small tide pool. The sea weed is floating above them.

As you have already seen, tide pools can be so interesting and contain so much variety, if we just stop long enough to look. Here is a sea urchin attached to a rock, with small pebbles and shells scattered about.

Some pictures are just artistically fascinating. This is a picture of some rock oysters. Some of them are closed (still alive), and some have been forced open and only the half shell remains.

You’re probably getting very tired of these close-up shots. Someday when I have some time, I’ll research what all these little creatures are. But for now these are just sea bugs. These hard-shelled legless critters are about the size of a pencil eraser.

These are a different variety of sea snail. They look like little marbles. That is about how big they were. On the lower right are some rock oysters.

I was so surprised when I took the time to study these little fellers. The black colored things are very small clams. They are about the size of a lemon seed. The white stuff are the shells of dead clams that have become bleached. Both are attached to a large rock.

Again, the black things are small clams. The white shelled sea life is still without a name, as I need to do some more research before I know that they are. But name or no name, they are still interesting little guys to look at. Again, they are both permanently attached to a big rock which is under water except at low tide.

These little open cups are the hard shelled carcasses of guys in the last picture. They are very tiny, perhaps just big enough to fit a single grain of rice in each one. You will notice that some of them have a little snail living inside the cup. He just took up residence – he is safe there from other predators.

Compared to the small life we’ve been looking at, this star fish is enormous. The little guys from the list two pictures are on the right side of this picture.

Placed in my hand the star fish is relatively small. After his first and only photo op, we returned him to his tide pool.

You probably already knew that not all star fish looked alike. Here’s proof. This one has ten long legs, not five stubby ones like the other guy. I think we’ll call him Diez – Diez del Mar.

I thought you would be interested to see the underside of Diez. His mouth is in the center. I had to clean him up a little for the photo. Those hairy feelers aren’t very soft and they can really grip on to shells, rocks, and pebbles.

Before Diane would let me keep these shells, I have to confirm that nothing was living inside. (But to our surprise, after we got home Diane found a Hermit Crab living in one of our supposedly empty shells.)

A couple of times while we were there I lifted my head from the tide pools to enjoy the “bigger” picture. This was one that I thought was kind of cool looking.

After a couple of hours of exploring and discovery, we both sat down on a large rock and watched the tide come in. Within an hour all of our tide pools were back under water and our only dry escape was quickly disappearing, so we called it a day, but we didn’t really miss the sail boat – we had fun anyway. A time of peaceful and calming relaxation. Ahhhhhh.

BLUE, BLUE, MY WORLD IS BLUE ....

What a beautiful day it turned out to be. More than beautiful it was a perfect as we could have ever imagined. But we needed one – work was especially hard this past week. We got up early and drove to Hamilton to attend the temple there. We arrived about 7:30 a.m. and left the temple about 10:00 a.m. We changed from our dress clothes to our street clothes in a public restroom; then headed west toward the Pacific Ocean. We set our handy little GPS (we call her Sally), because roads here tend to be unfamiliar, at best. In reality they are just more European than Western. (Four right hand turns never gets you back to the point of beginning). We had a lovely and carefree (thanks to Sally) drive through country that we haven’t seen before. We drove through….

Ultimately, we arrived at our intended destination – Mount Maunganui. It is a fun little mountain of volcanic origin. On the eastern side it slopes gently into the Bay of Plenty. But on the Southern side it has sharp cliffs that drop off into the Pacific Ocean.

Typical for most New Zealand public parks, reserves, and forests, the trail to the around the mount was well laid with crushed gravel. Sometime we had to share the trail with more than just fellow hikers, though.

And naturally, we were tempted to leave the trail at times. However, there is some risk involved in doing so. The “litter” left by the rightful residents sticks to your shoes, so you need to keep your eyes on where you are going.

About half way up the east side (the gentle side) the views became just breath-taking. We started taking pictures about ever 15 – 20 steps. (You should feel relieved that I’m not including all of them.

We were not the only ones that we out enjoying the wonderful autumn weather. There were not only sailboats galore, but also every other kind of boat imaginable. But we were told that the water in the bay averaged between 18 – 19 degree C. (65 – 68 F).

As we continued our assent, we worked our way around the southern side to the mount where the gentle slope became rugged cliffs and sharp drop offs. The view here is looking out into the Pacific Ocean with a distant island on the horizon.

The higher we got the stronger the pleasant breeze became. It never became objectionable, but rather helped cool us down from the strenuous climb. Nevertheless we took frequent advantage of opportunities to sit and enjoy the seascape. In this picture we caught a speed boat cutting donuts in the water.

Alas! We came around to the northern side and could see the lovely town of Tauranga below. It has a wide beach of soft white sand, which was being enjoyed by hundreds of sun worshipers (they are too small to see in this picture, as are the surfers riding the breakers).

Not that we needed proof that we made it to the top, but it is always nice to have some evidence (for those skeptics out there). We may have taken longer than some, nor did we run all the way up and back down again, as some others that we saw – Crazies.

On our way back down we took this picture of the Bay of Plenty, where we started our little hike. Have you ever seen such blue water in all your life? I don’t believe I have. We just couldn’t stop taking pictures; two or three at every turn in the trail.

I doubt it is necessary to say that we were more than a bit hungry after our hike to the top of Mount Maunganui. Fortunately we found this little greasy spoon in a small town (known only for what it used to be). Fish and Chips is about as good as it gets – with native cuisine.

To our delightful surprise when our order came it was … Plenty. All wrapped, in typical fashion, in the current day’s newspaper. Almost too hot to handle, and greasy enough to lubricate a tanker, they were delicious. Five huge fish (the size of my open hand), five big fritters (the size of my fist), and loads of French fries (chips) were more than we could eat, so our $8.00 order provide two meals for both of us.

It was a wonderful ending to a perfect day. So we asked Sally to take us home, and she did.

God’s Creations – in all their varieties

A couple of weeks ago we had a small service project to do, so we got up early and went to the home of one of the ladies from church ... and painted her fence. (See Diane’s Blog about fences). This dear lady has been in the hospital for quite some time and will be selling her home, so she wanted the outside to look as nice as possible. We were done before noon.

Then after buying some fresh veggies at the market, we packed a small lunch and headed for a mountain range on the other side of Auckland. It was a little over an hour drive from our apartment (flat).

We parked near the trail head where we wanted to tramp (hike). The trail in this particular park is maintained with crushed gravel. It was really nice and well maintained.

One of the first things we saw was a short trail leading to a small lake fed by a beautiful waterfall. It was a breathtaking surprise that we hadn’t expected to see.

After hiking for some time we came across several places where we could sit and rest. It became obvious that these were placed strategically along the trail, each one offering a new vista.

This was typical, for along the trails we have taken in the past, the resting places are located to take the fullest advantage of the natural vistas like this one. Today was no different. We’ve noticed, though, that for many of them the views have become obscured by trees that have grown up since the trail was first made.

While this picture was taken on a level spot, there were very few of those on this particular trail. It was characterized with either steep upward climbs or equally steep downward slopes. I am sure we climbed this mountain at least three times -- as the trail kept going up, then down, then up .... We were well rewarded for our efforts, though. It seemed that each turn in the trail unveiled a new vista or feature.

Most of the time our trail followed a beautiful mountain stream. It flowed down the brush- covered valleys and over the rocks forming one small pond after another. We remarked at one point that our babbling brook was becoming a swift stream.

As we continued along our path we could tell that our swift stream had really become a roaring river. Most of the time we couldn’t actually see it, we could only hear it. The trees and the brush provided a good covering, hiding the deep mountain canyon through which the our river ran.

We hiked along the crest of the mountain for a long time (seeing both sides at the same time), before we started the last leg of our loop. As we descended from the mountain tops we had spent most of the afternoon climbing, the trail was much too steep for a gravel path, so we were very grateful for the long series of steps. There must have been 12 – 15 flights of steps in the one grouping.

At the bottom our roaring river became a lovely lake. It was gorgeous in the late afternoon /early evening sky.

Since this lake is used as a public water supply, unlike in Texas, they do not allow fishing, swimming, or boating – just looking and picture taking.

Finally our trail brooks, streams, rivers, and lake took us to this calm creek. The sun was setting and the shadows were getting long. But the reflections were soothing in spite of our tired feet.

One of the incredible things about this adventure is that Diane was able to get a pretty good picture of this native bird. We see them almost everywhere we go. We don’t know what they are called, but they are beautiful (deep blue and black with a bright red beak). We’ve never seen them fly, perhaps because they are quite large -- about the size of a grown chicken. And they are very wary and usually keep so much distance that it has been nearly impossible for us to get a good picture.

Night was quickly coming on, but we finally arrived back at our point of beginning – the lovely waterfalls. We’d had a full, but enjoyable day. Wish you could have been there with us. Are you up to climbing a tall mountain?