BLOG about PAINTING
No painting today. Just a long drive through the pouring rain to get back to Scotts Landing. We didn't bother doing the tourist thing since we wouldn't have been able to see much through the rain and fog. Good to be 'home', and happy that we had two decent days for our exploration. The kitty seems happy to see us, too. (She's probably just really, really glad to get in out of the rain and wind. Ha.)
(Sept. 15 in North America)
I had a wonderful (birth)day. We went to beautiful places, and I got to paint.
In the morning, we went to Arai Te Uru, the southern headland guarding Hokianga Inlet. There's a whole Maori mythology about this marvellous place. Suffice it to say that it's a headland overlooking the entrance to the inlet with its killer sandbar offshore, rocky reefs, and tides that create huge standing waves as they roar through the gut. There was a light station up there years ago, but it's gone now and there are no remnants except an open area in the scrub and feral pelargoniums down by the beach.
Anyhow, from the top of the hill I did a sketch of the Tasman Sea rolling into the bay, then did another from down on the beach.
Tasman Sea at Arai Te Uru
This afternoon, we hiked a forest walk up through a narrow gorge to a lovely little waterfall and beyond. The forest was amazingly rich and varied, from tiny little antler-shaped mosses, to towering tree ferns and native palms, to epiphyte-laden Pahutukawa trees to massive Kauri up on the ridge. It was a true wonderland and probably the most wonderful place we've yet seen in New Zealand. And mostly unsung. There was nothing in the literature to indicate that this would be such a magical walk.
The waterfall was quite delightful, but I found the upper falls and pools even more gorgeous.
Upper Waiotemerama Falls
TODAY'S TIDBIT
New Zealand money is coloured and of the same size as Canadian bills. That's OK with the twenties, since they're the same green colour. But you must be very careful because the $10 NZD is exactly the same blue colour as the $5 CAD!
It's Hump Day, Wednesday, down here in New Zealand. Midweek. Quiet. A day for a morning walk south along Ridge Rd., then down, down, down to the water on the west side. Skirt the Burton Wells Scenic Reserve via the sandstone/lava beach littered with small native oysters (does anyone eat them?), then up, up, up to the road again. Down, down, down through the bush on the east side to 'Tui Row', where the Tuis gurgle and chirp and cackle in their spring mating ritual, past the amazing, epiphyte-draped Pahutukawa tree, back up, up, up to Ridge Rd. and home again.
Prepare for our excursion to the Kauri Forest, planning an early get-away. All the food is ready. We simply need to get up, eat and go. One final quick sketch of the ridge on the other side of the valley, and it's time to have a drink with the neighbours (they're taking care of the cat while we're gone).
Tomorrow it's off to explore!
Triplet 2, a.k.a. The Three Kings
What a difference a few hours make. This morning dawned cool and drear. We needed to put on a bit of heat to take the chill off the living room. But by lunchtime, the clouds had pretty well cleared, the sun was shining, and it was really quite lovely.
After playing around with watercolour in the morning, I decided to go out and sketch some of the plants that we see pretty well everywhere we go, common native plants that help to give this landscape its distinctive flavour.
So,
Tawharanui Reworked
(I can't resist colour.)
L. to R. Flax Plant, Tea Tree, Tea Tree
As you can see, I don't plan my sketches very well and consequently run out of room at the top!
We had a quiet day. Started out with a trip into town for the weekly grocery run. While in Warkworth, we finally took the time to go see the famous big Kauri tree in a park near town. We were very pleasantly surprised with the park. We had expected to see a big tree - yep, it's big, sorta like that huge Sitka spruce we saw in Olympic National Park, WA - but we hadn't known that there was also a boardwalk trail through a native forest full of younger Kauris, tree ferns, and lots of other native species. It was really very interesting and lovely.
Spent the afternoon making arrangements to visit the Kauri Forest later this week and prepping some food. Didn't have time for any fancy kind of painting, so I'll go with a loose rendition of the top of the valley:
Valley
Today we went back to Scandrett. It was the first park we went to after we arrived. Ha. We had been here only a couple of days and were much less used to the roads and driving. We were thoroughly traumatized by the trip there and back - a mere 10-15 minutes in each direction. Now it seems so tame! There's still the long, twisting, gravel access road with the blind corners and barely any place wide enough to crawl by oncoming cars, but now we've seen so many other hair-raising tracks that this seems pretty tame.
The day was stunningly gorgeous - sunny, warm and windless. The fields had dried out so we could take the track out to Mullett Point and from there around the perimeter of the headland, through the high field dotted with huge Pahutakawa trees, then down the draw to the beach and back along the hard-packed sand past the Dotterels and Oystercatchers to the parking lot. Along the way, I took time to do a quick sketch in my notebook of a fisherman on the shore below the headland.
Fishing at Mullett Point
Spring is here. We saw more boats out on the water today than we have seen in almost the entire time we've been here. We also saw other walkers - perhaps half a dozen in the entire park. I guess Kiwis don't visit their parks that much in winter. Fine by us. We have the place to ourselves!
We went back to Tawharanui and hiked all over the place. And, as spectacular as was the scenery, with the wind-whipped ocean a deep turquoise, the hills bright spring green and the forests a deep Winsor green, the highlight of the day was the birds.
We did a fair amount of walking, part of it out on pastures in the 25-30 knot wind (well bundled up), and part of it in bush. The forest near the point is a very young monoculture of ti trees (rather boring, yet affording shelter from the gale), but the forest in the creek valley is wonderfully rich and diverse. We saw great vistas of rugged sea stacks, we lunched while watching gannets, and we dawdled back along the creek, binoculars at the ready .
Tawharanui is a great place to see birds. A peninsula, it has been fenced off from the mainland, and all of the invasive predators - rats, stoats, etc. - have been trapped and eliminated. Several almost extinct bird species have been re-introduced and are now thriving. Many cannot survive outside of the park. They leave, they die; it's that simple.
We had the great pleasure of hearing and seeing quite a few of these rare specimens. We even saw the two native species of parrot, one big, and brown, the other eye-catchingly colourful. A visiting birder (the only other person we met all day) explained some of the programs and tried to lure in the elusive and very rare robin. (No luck, though there are several nesting pairs in the park.)
On the way back to the car, I sat on the beach and did a quick sketch. It may have been a great day for birding, but it wasn't quite as good for painting... Oh well, all in all, it was a great outing!
Tawharanui Beach
The one downside of the day? We were having such a great time that we didn't start home until after 4:00 pm, and by then the gelato place was closed!
Grey day today. It wasn't bad for a while this morning, so we took advantage and walked the loop around to what I refer to as 'Tui Row'.
The Tui is a great, slightly-larger-than-a-Robin-sized bird, mostly black with dark blue on its shoulders and two prominent white tufts on its throat. It looks like it has a fluffy white bowtie! As fun as it is to see, it's even more fun to hear. This little guy chatters away at a mile a minute, and no two of its sounds are alike. They range from clicks and clucks to bell-like ringing. Tui Row is alive with their calls, and the dawn chorus down there is truly amazing.
We made it home just as the first few drops of rain started to blow in. It never did get really wet, but the wind picked up to 20-25 knots, about par for the course. Not terribly springlike.
Looking up the Valley 1
(Note that there's still a bit of blue sky.)
Looking up the Valley 2
(Going downhill.)
It was another windy day today, but I refused to confined to the house. I wrapped a scarf around my head and neck - geekiness be damned! - and went out for a walk. When it blows like this, the harbour/river mouth is very turquoise in the sun with dark patches of shadow. I did a quick sketch, again trying to work swiftly and loosely. I like the looseness, but it's not nearly intense enough.
Mahurangi Harbour
That's Mahurangi West across the water... West, but it's actually south of Mahurangi East. To get there is quite the drive, You have to go north and west to Warkworth, then head back south and east. By car, it takes at least 40 minutes. I imagine that you could row across in 20 minutes or so.
TODAY'S TIDBIT
One of the joys of being here is seeing all the weird and wonderful plants that grow everywhere. Not only is this a very benign climate, there seems to be very a deep overburden. Lots of soil, though I don't know how rich it is.
Here's the flower of one plant that started blooming a couple of weeks ago. The leaves look rather like Yucca, and there are anywhere from one to four great spikes that look a bit like dinosaurs:
The day was a throwback to July. Sudden, heavy squalls with sheets of rain blowing sideways across the valley, broken by sunny warm spells, all in the space of a few minutes. It makes for a very interesting vista, but it doesn't work for outdoor field sketches.
I'm trying to loosen up the little paintings. (Ideally, I should be working BIG, but that's rather difficult to do when you're packing your kit along in a small daypack. So I'm simply trying to sit farther back from the little piece of paper and not get too precious.)
Sky, Sept. 5
Gosh, those clouds look really innocent, don't they? Who'd have thought that they had all that driving rain hidden away inside them?
TODAY'S TIDBIT
Have I mentioned that Kiwi men wear shorts all winter here? Usually with gumboots. It makes sense if you're going to be outside in the changeable weather. With shorts, you don't have wet trousers clinging to your legs after each heavy downpour. If you start when you're a kid, you'd get used to having bare legs even in the colder weather. And Kiwi winters aren't really that cold. Mind you, I'm a wimpy Canadian, so I can't imagine wearing shorts in this stuff.