New Solar

 

We spent Monday wandering around the Base shopping centre in Hamilton, while they worked on our van and truck. 

The truck now has a fancy gismo, so we can charge the van batteries as we go. On our roof we have another solar panel and everything appears to be working as normal at last. We ended up putting in 2 lithium batteries, in stead of the 4 gel ones we bought. They assure us we won't have to worry about batteries ever again. One would hope so at the price. Luckily they had $600 off each battery, so that was a good thing.

We went to see a movie on Monday too. It's called “The Bodyguard's Hitman's Wife”. It's a sequel to “The Bodyguard and the Hitman”. The language was appalling, but it was quite funny. The added advantage was, we got to sit down for a couple of hours. We aren't made to wander around shopping centres. It is hard work and a bit boring.

We were going to come back to Matamata on Monday night, but it was 6 o'clock before they finished and we had had enough, so we stayed at a park over place in Hamilton. There was no work for  Eddie on Tuesday because of the wet weather, so we took our time and got back to Matamata at lunch time.

We are going to go off grid for a week and see how it all works.

Jolly cold this morning with a -1 temperature to start the day. The frost is melting now and the sun is shinning.

Not a lot of News

 

It's sunny here today for a change. I feel like it has been raining since the beginning of the month. Shortest day on Monday, so that's good. I know it will probably get colder, but at least it will be lighter. I don't mind the cold, but I don't like the dark. It hasn't really been cold yet. We have had a small frost this morning, but the sky is blue and the sun is shinning.

Eddie was home on Monday, as the weather has put the job he was doing, on hold.

The property behind us has hens, that free range all over the place, including Jim and Janice's. I spend a bit of time every day shooing them home again. They dig up Janice's plants, so she isn't at all amused by them.

Back to Matamata

 

We have spent 3 nights at Kaiaua. It is on what is called the “seabird coast”. It is one of the places that the godwits leave and come back in their migration. They fly up to the Artic to breed and then come back to New Zealand for our summer. The babies, who are only about 8 weeks old when they leave the Artic fly back too. It is quite amazing how they know where to go. It's one of my favourite places to park.

Our friends, Natalie and Murray came and parked there with us. On Saturday afternoon, we did a bike ride along the bike track. We did just over 11ks by the time we got back to the vans. We pretty much laughed the whole time they were with us.

It has been very gloomy with a bit of rain since Sunday, and our solar panels have been struggling. We parked at Eddie's sister's place for a night and came to Matamata yesterday.

We went to the solar power expert in Hamilton on our way yesterday and learnt that our system is not working as it should be at all. Well we sort of knew that, but didn't know how to fix it. It is going to them in 2 weeks time to be sorted out and another solar panel added. With 1 more on the roof, we should be ok even on gloomy days. It seems that the people in Whangarei, that we dealt with didn't know as much as we thought they did. They sold us the wrong batteries to start with. Sigh. We can work around that though, so all is not lost.

Eddie is working today and I have been into town and caught up on all the washing that has been neglected over the last week.

Whangateau

 

We are at Whangateau Harbour now, near Warkworth. It's about an hour or so north of Auckland.

Whangateau Harbour

We went to the wharf last Friday to try and catch a fish, but nothing was happening. There is a lot of mullet in the little harbour, but we don't have a mullet net and they have too soft a mouth to use a hook. Last time we were here, someone caught a kingfish from the wharf, but it wasn't to be on Friday.

Eddie enjoying the sun

On Saturday we did a bit of a walk over the mud flats. When the tide goes out the sand/mud is quite firm, so it can be walked on. In the middle is an island of mangroves, so we did a circumnavigation of it. It is a bird nesting site in the spring. You can see the mangrove "island" in the centre of the top photo.

There are a lot of spoonbills here. We often see them feeding at low tide. We also saw a white heron one day. We weren't too sure, as we thought they lived in the South Island.  We googled them and found out that they do spread out over the country after the breeding season.

White herons

Facts about the white heron from the Department of Conservation web site.

The kōtuku is common in Australia, the South Pacific and Asia.

In New Zealand it only breeds near Whataroa, South Westland, between September and January. This colony is in the Waitangiroto Nature Reserve and guided jet boat tours take visitors to view the birds from an observation hide.

During the breeding season time, the birds feed in the large coastal lagoons in the area, particularly the nearby Ōkārito Lagoon.

After breeding, the birds disperse widely and may be seen at coastal freshwater wetlands or estuaries throughout the country.

White heron facts

• The kōtuku colony is located in tall kahikatea-dominated swamp forest. Birds make their nests in the crowns of tree ferns or in kōwhai or kāmahi trees.
• During breeding seasons, they grow long, loose breeding plumes from its back and wings. The normally yellow bill turns dull black, and the facial skin between the eye and bill brightens to a bluish-green.
• They are solitary feeders. At night when not feeding, they roost in trees. Their voice is the typical heron croak in flight or when disturbed.
• They feed mostly on small fish (such as whitebait), eels, frogs, shrimp, aquatic insects, mice and small birds (such as silvereyes). They may grab prey with their sharp, dagger-like beak.
• It is believed that the colony was formed by the natural introduction of birds from Australia several hundred years ago. Australian birds are still occasionally blown over in some years and augment the New Zealand population.
• The white heron is specially adapted for wading in shallow, muddy waterways: it has long legs that are bare of feathers to well above the ankle joint and long spreading toes.
• White herons have elaborate courtship displays. Males build small platforms from which they advertise themselves to females. Male displays include a spectacular raising of the nuptial plumes, with the neck erect, the bill snapping and the wing feathers flicking. Once a female is attracted, the pair preen each other and intertwine their long necks, wings and bill.
• As a symbol of things both beautiful and rare, the kōtuku occupied an important place in Māori myth and folklore, and to compare a visitor to a kōtuku was a compliment of the highest order.
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We have had rain since Sunday. We even had a bit of hail on Sunday morning for a few minutes. Needless to say, we haven't been outside much at all. When it stops we go out for some fresh air. We have been spending the day on our computers and reading.

 The camping ground had people here for Queens birthday weekend. There caravans here that can be hired. There is a little one next to us, which a couple moved into on Saturday. They got out of their car and looked at us and looked at theirs's and burst out laughing. She took a picture of ours' and said she was going to tell everyone it was the one they were staying in. We thought it was quite funny.

We are heading back to Matamata. Eddie is going to be driving a bobby calf truck for a friend over the season. He only has to drive, as there will be a couple of lads to put the calves in and out of the truck. We will be in Matamata for about 8 – 12 weeks. We can park at the truck yard, but it is near the railway line and Eddie isn't sure he wants to live at work, so we might going to go back to where we were before at Ecclestone's property.

Here it is Wednesday and it is still blustery and showery, so we haven't been able to explore as much as we wanted too. There are a couple of walking tracks that we will have to come back to do. The farmers are pleased to get the rain as it has been very dry up here over the last few months, so we mustn't complain.

We went into Warkworth for the shopping today and had  lunch at a café in Matakana on our way home, called the Plume café. It was very nice too. Eddie had an all day breakfast and I had corn fritters with bacon and sour cream. Both very yummy. 

Tomorrow we are off to a pop over place near Titirangi to catch up with some friends. If we can fit in. It looks quite small, so we will see how it goes. 

Tinopai and Pahi

 

We came back across to the Kaipara Harbour on Saturday and we stayed at Tinopai, until Monday morning.

We went down to the wharf on Sunday morning, and with his last bit of bait, Eddie caught a Kahawai. Before that he fed a lot of little fishes.

We did a bit of a drive around the village in the afternoon, as it is too wet to ride the bikes around. We passed a lot of hidden driveways around the place, that must all be houses off grid as there are no power lines near them. I was glad we were in the truck, as the roads became unsealed and quite rough.

On Monday morning we came to Pahi. We are still on the Kaipara Harbour. This is a really nice place. We came here years ago, in our tent for a New Year Eve's.

In the grounds, there is a largest Morton Bay Fig tree you have ever seen. It is recognized as the largest tree of its kind. They think it was planted before 1840. In 2011 it was 25.7 metres high; 14.8 metres around its girth and has a spread of 51 metres. It is full of birds flying in and out making a lot of noise. I thought they might wake us up in the mornings, but they don't.

A little bit of info about the Kaipara Harbour. It is one of the largest harbours in the world by area. At high tide it is 947 square kilometres in size. There are 409 square kilometres of exposed mud flats at low tide. No wonder lots of sea birds live in the area!

Eddie in front of the fig tree trunk

view of the harbour from the wharf

fig tree

Pahi Hall

The Pahi hall was built in 1889 and was the local store. Eventually it became the local hall. It has been upgraded and repainted a few years ago to give it a new life. There was a group of mothers using the other day with all their children. They had a great time running around the reserve and paddling in the water.
The house was the original hotel. I think people stayed in it when they came here on the ships that used to sail around the harbour. It is now owned by a local man who has an oyster farm in the harbour. He puts sticks into the mud about half way between high and low tides. The oysters are wild ones and when they are little spats, they naturally attach themselves to the sticks. In 18 months time the oysters are ready for harvest. He goes out every day and comes back with a load. After harvesting he replaces them with fresh sticks and the process starts again. 

Sorry about the jaunty angle of the house.

I went for a walk today and this is the view from the top of the hill as you come into Pahi. Over the other side is the village of Whakapiro.