The Story of a Saturday

In the middle of a bundle of back issues of New Zealand Gardener magazine that I bought at a book sale somewhere along the way was a year-old issue of Weekend Gardener, with a special section on the nurseries of Matakana. The other day, I noticed that this village was within an hour's drive of Mangawhai Heads, and when Saturday dawned a bit cloudy and we had no other specific plans, I convinced Frank to chauffeur me to all these nurseries, gathering information for my horticulture blog.

As we were preparing to leave, I picked up my camera bag and knew immediately that something was wrong--it was too light. Sure enough, my long zoom lens was missing. I didn't recall using it lately, but searched the cottage with a growing sense of alarm, and then went out to search the car in case it had somehow fallen out of the bag and rolled under a seat... but nothing. I came to the reluctant conclusion that our car had been broken into in Auckland, and the lens stolen out of the camera bag. This was a big blow, as the lens is very expensive and I use it a lot, but there seemed nothing to do about it, so we got into the car and began to leave. As we got to the top of the drive, Frank suddenly slammed on the brakes. I looked at him in concern, and found him staring into the rear-view mirror, open-mouthed. "Look," he said, pointing backwards--and there lay my zoom lens, in the middle of the driveway. I jumped out to get it and found it miraculously unhurt--not a scratch, and in perfect working order. I must have left the camera bag unzipped the last time I put the camera in, and the lens must have tipped out when one of us grabbed the case to bring it into the house, though how we missed the sight and sound of this large object falling to the ground is a mystery. Because it rolled to a stop under the car, rather than continuing down the steep drive, it was protected from the previous night's rain, and because Frank happened to glance behind him as we drove forward (why he did, I'll never know), he saw it and we avoided running over it as we backed down the drive later in the day. How lucky can I get?? Obviously I was thrilled, and we ventured off with me in a very grateful frame of mind, and with a resolution to zip that camera bag in future!

We started by going into Matakana itself to check out the Saturday morning market--little did we know that this offering of gourmet treats was a drawing card for every resident and cottager for a 50k radius!! The streets were jammed and you could scarcely move inside the small market building. I managed to buy a classy teatowel and taste some heavenly cheese on offer, but then the crowds got to be oppresive and we snuck out a side door.

Nearby was our next stop, Tumbleweed Nurseries, where I admired cool garden sculpture and drooled over gorgeous phormium hybrids unavailable in North America.

Next, Morris and James Pottery and Tileworks, a business that has endured through flood, fire, and receivership to emerge as a very popular tourist spot offering lushly coloured pots and garden art. Deciding that the wares were either too large or too fragile to get home, we fled just as the tour buses pulled in.

Back towards Highway 1, we checked out two nurseries specializing in subtropical plants. The Protea Patch grows and sells--yup--proteas, which are wonderfully alien looking plants, more like birds with their feathery petals, but the bees obviously love the nectar. The other lovely thing here is the meditation garden, slowly being created out of a swampy paddock beside the nursery. I loved the tropical jungle feel of it, and admired the imaginative use of logs to form this interesting sculpture--you may just see something similar at TwelveAcres next year!

Exotica specializes in colourful bromeliads, which for some reason I have always found scary, looking as if they'd snap closed on your arm if you were unwary enough to venture a hand into the well of water in the middle. They are very popular here, however, and are certainly exotic looking.

As we drove back to Mangawhai by a route we had not taken before, we admired the lush valleys of the surrounding countryside. Even now, deep into their autumn, New Zealand is green and beautiful--and features contortionist cows!

After lunch back at the cottage, I ventured out again, in search of the cottage of Nev Arbury. Nev wrote an appendix to Muriel Fisher's Fernglen book (see last posting), about the native plantings around his cottage at Mangawhai Heads, so I've been trying to track him down since we arrived. Unfortunately, his cottage has no phone, so he was not listed in the phone book, and none of the many folk I asked in the village seemed to be able to tell me where the cottage was. I had just about given up, but tried asking one more time when we were at the library the other night. His name didn't ring any bells, but when I opened up my book to the photo of the cottage, the librarian immediately recognized one of the houses in the photo: "My brother once lived in that house!" (no, she wasn't the cardiganed nemesis from my first library visit, though that would have had a poetic sense of justice!). She gave me the street address and pointed it out on the village map, so today I hoped to find the actual house. It turned out to be at the very top of a no-exit, incredibly steep street, and I had a couple of nerve-jangling minutes turning the car around. However, when I knocked at the door and held up my copy of the Fernglen book, Nev's face broke into a huge smile. The next half hour turned into the most energetic, enthusiastic, and informative tour of a garden I've ever had. Nev is a true evangelist for NZ natives, and he obviously loves his plants like children. He has made this windswept, clay-soiled section into a veritable Noah's Ark of rare species and forms of these little appreciated plants. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit, and hope to see him and his charming wife again some day. We have certainly met some great Kiwis through our garden hunts!

Only a few more days here in Northland, and then we will wind our way back south on the way to the South Island for a more Canadian-autumn-like experience of fall colours. Funny to think of all of you back home enjoying daffodils as we enjoy the deepening leaf colours here!

The real Fern Gully

We left behing a spectacular sunrise on Tuesday and headed back down south to Hamilton to finish up some work with Wintec, the polytech there.

Afterwards, we had a wonderful dinner and overnight stay with Judy and Gavin Smith in Cambridge (Gavin is the artist we studied watercolours with last month). Wednesday we headed back north, stopping in Auckland for some appointments at the Auckalnd University of Technology. Midafternoon, however, found us at Fernglen, a native plant sanctuary in the middle of the suburb of Birkinhead, on the north shore of Auckland. This marvelous little gem has been preserved through the efforts of Muriel Fisher and her late husband Bill Fisher, and her son Malcolm, now the curator of Fernglen, for more than sixty years.


The bush walk through the deep gully is sheltered by tall native trees, with an understory of tree ferns, native shrubs, and ferns. It is a magical, shadowy trek through dappled sunlight and moist greenness, enhanced by a chorus of the varied twitterings and flutelike calls of a pair of tuis and a number of fantails. It's like entering another world, and the occasional sounds filtering in from the surrounding suburb seem unreal.

We were fortunate that both Malcolm and Muriel, who is now over ninety, were at home, and they graciously showed us around the alpine house and regaled us with tales of the history of Fernglen. Muriel has been fascinated and inspired by the native flora of New Zealand since she was a young girl, when her determination to go overnight tramping in the wild areas surrounding Wellington was viewed with horror by her Victorian era parents. She is as spunky today as I imagine she was then. I can only hope that I have half of Muriel's spark and wit when I reach ninety! We felt very privileged to have spent time with this special lady in this beautiful place, and thank Arnold and Ruth Dench, our botanical friends from Wellington, for their referral here.

Far North Adventures: Part 3

Our third day in the north began with yet another gorgeous sunrise, and we lingered over breakfast overlooking the harbour.

Before checking out we enjoyed the subtropical gardens (there are HEDGES of blooming hibiscus!) surrounding the Waterfront Apartments for a few minutes, then headed back south to Kerikeri.

Our first stop was Scope NZ, a studio where a couple make unique and beautiful kaleidescopes. This cozy studio is in a rural setting graced by myriad birds, including fantail doves, exotic poultry and peacocks, as well as a dignified old Jack Russell terrier. The artists use kauri wood for the scope housing, and have developed their own method for making the internal mirrors. In their tiny showroom, they have set up a variety of special kaleidescopes that diffract things placed in front of the lens: one had many small colourful objects placed on a speaker that vibrated and made the objects bounce in time to the music, creating a complex and beautiful dance pattern to appear through the scope; another revealed the incredibly beautiful patterns moving in a bubble held by a wire frame dipped into Joy dish soap; and three different lenses focused on this trickling fountain where colourful flowers floated, causing an infinitely changing pattern. After much deliberation, we chose a kaleidescope made from a lovely piece of ancient kauri, and filled with pieces of the iridescent NZ paua shell (a type of abalone) that create subtle patterns of blues and greens enhanced with a few flashes of bright pink and red. A wonderful souvenir of a unique visit.

Next we proceeded to the actual village of Kerikeri where I took photos of NZ's oldest frame building (1822) and oldest stone building (1836), both built by English Christian missionaries, of which there were many in the 1800's, here to covert the Maori. The gardens surrounding the Mission are maintained in the style of that period, and my photos will make good illustrations for the horticulture blog I am also doing for my U. of Guelph Diploma in Horticulture thesis project during my stay in NZ. As well, we stopped in at a nursery selling subtropical plants and I marveled at seeing a bromeliad in bloom for the first time. Quite a contrast between these lush tropicals and the English cottage garden at the Mission!

A pleasant coincidence happened here, too. We decided to stop a bit longer to have coffee on the green lawns of the cafe overlooking the river, and who should arrive but the two couples on motorcycles we had met the day before at one of the rest stops on our bus tour up the cape! We ended up enjoying a laughter-filled hour with these four Kiwis, and exchanging contact information--I'm sure we'll end up seeing them again.



Our final stop of the day was at a private museum where a rather eccentric Englishman has amassed a collection of vintage vehicles (including about 20 British motorcycles from the late 1920's and '30's), machinery, and tools. Frank spent an intriguing hour in here, but I chose to enjoy the sunshine outside with my book, so, sorry, no photos!

We got back to our cottage in Mangawhai Heads in good time for supper and a quiet evening watching the huge moon rise over the sea. It was an amazing trip, but it's also very nice to be back here. I certainly have lots of new material to translate into paintings!

Far North Adventures: Part 2

After a wonderful sleep in our luxurious apartment, we woke to another incredible sunrise, had a quick but delicious breakfast of banana French toast in a cafe steps from our door, and boarded a bus right out front that whisked us away to another day of adventure with only five other day-trippers.

Dennis, our Maori guide and driver, regaled us with stories and songs as we travelled north towards the very tip of New Zealand, Cape Reinga. Along the way, we stopped at the Ancient Kauri Kingdom, where the salvaged wood of these giant trees is carved into decorative items and sculptures. The kauri tree is a giant along the lines of the California redwood. Sadly, two things have happened to make these trees very rare, and it is now illegal to cut any of them down. First, early pioneers felled many of the trees for lumber and to clear the land. By the time the Europeans arrived, however, many of these giants had already been toppled by some catastrophic event that even scientists today can't agree on--a meteorite? an earthquake? All they know is that the trees are all lying in the same direction, and obviously fell at the same time. However, over centuries they were buried in layers of peat. So today's woodworkers can only work on kauri logs that they dredge out of the peat bogs and dry out until the wood can be worked. Needless to say, it is very expensive to obtain and process. Frank was told that every board in this stack would be sold at $14,000 per cubic metre--not cheap!!

Under the peat, the sap that seeped out of the broken wood hardened into an amber-like gum that could be processed into varnishes and other products, and there was a time when gum digging was a huge industry in New Zealand. With today's plastic resins, the kauri gum has become just a souvenir item, but occasional finds of things preserved in it are still treasured, such as this entombed lizard (shades of Jurassic Park!).

Some beautiful sculptures are still made from the larger pieces of kauri wood. This one, of the famous Whale Rider of Maori legend (remember the film?) was especially lovely, I thought. We watched that movie again the other day and were amazed at how much more we got out of it, having now seen the country and its people.

Further north we stopped at a beach said to have sand with the highest silica content in the world. As a devoted world sand collector, you can be sure I filled my pocket with a handful of this pure white stuff! Hope some customs agent doesn't think it's something else on the way home.

Onward to the lighthouse at Cape Reinga, NZ's northernmost point, and a site very sacred to the Maori, who believe that, after death, their spirits depart from NZ at this cape, and travel back to their ancestral Polynesian home. It's certainly a long way from OUR home, as you can see by the mileage to Vancouver from this point (6059 miles/ 1222 kms). It is here that the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean become one.
Lunch was at a beach whose Maori name means 'the descending valley of beauty.' It certainly was beautiful, with fascinating, very tropical-looking tidal pools. It's also a great surfing beach--these guys managed to surf tandem!

Next stop, a new adventure: dune surfing! Or should I say, dune tobogganing, as few risked the hazards of standing. I decided to skip this thrill, but Frank gave it a whirl and shook sand out of every body part for the rest of the day! He said it was fun, though!

To our surprise, our driver then drove our bus straight up the freshwater stream leading to the ocean at Ninety Mile Beach (a misnomer, as it is really just over 60 miles long). We zoomed along the low tide line in a convoy with other tourist buses (that's our bus in the foreground), heading back south, and observing the sad fate of a car whose joyriders ignored the rising tide! Along the way, Dennis kept us entertained with Maori songs, and I had the privilege of being feted with a 'Happy Birthday' in English and Maori, as I had the nearest birthday of the group. A pretty special way to celebrate my upcoming 50th, I'd say.

Again, this is a trip we would highly recommend--the cape roads are very tricky to drive and best left to the experts--this way, everyone gets to relax and enjoy the scenery, plus the local history and culture as supplied by the guide.

Back in Mangonui for the second night, we went back to the 'world-famous' (and deservedly so) Mangonui Fish and Chips where they deep-fry your fish just hours after it's been caught--truly the very best fish and chips I've ever eaten. Stuffed full and satisfied, we watched the sun set over the harbour and the last fishermen on the jetty. As we strolled back to our apartment, a full moon rose over the still-pink sea--did we tell you that we love New Zealand?

Far North Adventures: Part 1

This week has been a marvelous adventure! We have so much to tell you that this blog will be in three parts, over the next few days.

We left Mangawhai Heads before dawn on Tuesday and headed north. Along the way we just had to stop and record this view of an island off the coast putting on a good imitation of Mount Doom as the sun rose!



We stopped for a necessary 'pit-stop' in the small town of Kawakawa and found ourselves confronted by a FAMOUS public toilet designed by a well-known NZ artist, Friedrich Hundertwasser, in 1999. Hundertwasser involved the members of the community in this project, having the local school students make many of the ceramic pieces. It's truly amazing and its "colourful exuberance" has, as the brochure says, "put the Northland town of Kawakawa on the international tourist route." Frank assured me that the men's side was just as cool. New Zealand--it constantly surprises you!

We arrived in Pahia just in time to pick up our tickets and catch the passenger ferry across the bay to Russell, where we boarded our home for the day, the tall ship R. Tucker Thompson! This replica of a classic sailing ship was built in 1976 and has sailed to many destinations including Vancouver, but at the moment it is offering day and week tourist experiences in the beautiful Bay if Islands. And what an experience it was! This shot is a not-so-good photo of a photo to show you the ship under full sail (when you are ON the ship, you can't get this shot!), and the other shows her with sails reefed as we lunched in a sheltered cove.
I took dozens of photos of the impressive masts, sails, and rigging, but here are just two to give you an idea of how majestic it all was.

The rather multicultural crew (Australian skipper Sam, Welsh cook Andree, and 3 other young people, only one a native Kiwi) were welcoming and competent, and made our day exciting but comfortable. It was really impressive to see these young folks (none over 30) deftly handle the complicated sails and rigging as a well-oiled team. They are shown here briefly relaxing after serving the 8 passengers tea and scones with jam and whipped cream (delicious!) mid-morning.
Just after our tea break, there was great excitement as we were briefly joined by a small pod of dolphins playing and swimming alongside. Hard to get a good shot of these swift creatures, but here's an attempt to capture one...

The crew members were clearly very experienced...as Andree's tattoo attests! She may be a 'Pyrate Queen' but she's a great cook--the lunch of curried chicken salad and fresh mussels was fabulous, even if I couldn't bring myself to eat the mussels (Frank said they were wonderful--I'll take his word for it).

While we were at anchor at lunchtime, we were invited to try climbing the rigging. Frank got pretty high up, and I decided to challenge myself to trying it too...not bad for a couple of oldies, eh?

I also got a chance to steer the ship for a short while. As you can see, I was lovin' every second! Along the way we saw the bay where Captain Cook (the first European to NZ) harboured (now aptly named Anchorage Bay) way back in 1770--not too memorable a sight unless you know the historical significance, but anyway!

Most of the day was clear and sunny, but late in the afternoon a brief squall blew up and we had the excitement of clinging to one edge of the deck while the other edge was underwater as the ship heeled over hard to run with the wind. Very thrilling! I couldn't take too many photos as the rain and sea were threatening the camera, but hope you can get an idea from these few.

We were sorry to see the harbour come into view at the end of a fabulously memorable day. It was an experience we will both treasure and would recommend to anyone visiting New Zealand.

Back on the mainland, we drove another hour north to Mangonui to our overnight stop at the Waterfront Apartments. The beautiful sight that met our eyes as we entered our room was almost enough to make us forget our regret at the day coming to an end. A huge bed dressed in pure white silky linens and brocade cushions, draped in a lacy net canopy, with vibrant orange hibiscus blooms adorning the bedside tables, a full kitchen, and a living room complete with free current DVD's and microwave popcorn--bliss! The evening view out over the harbour from our large balcony completed the magic. What a perfect day!!