Tween saves her own life in violent dawn brawl!

A sneak attack on a local tween was thwarted Sunday with quick reflexes!

Perseverance BrAmPa climbed out of her bed Sunday morning then woke her father by imitating a car alarm before sitting down to enjoy her breakfast with a book.

"Not five seconds later I heard a squeal and then the whole room was filled with flying arms and legs and debris" her mother reported after the incident that left the household of three mildly disturbed, but also amused.

"I was just about to bite into my Ricies when I saw it moving on my bathrobe. That's when I freaked out." Perseverance remembers yelling and jumping up to swat at the offending insect with Calvin and Hobbes, the Sunday Special. The insect retreated under the dinner table where it was contained with a clear plastic bowl by her mother, much to its fury.

"This spider was unlike our typical spider visitor, and I was able to identify it as the dreaded White Tail Spider, one of two harmful spiders in New Zealand, this one being brought here from Australia, naturally," reported Perseverance's father, who attempted to transfer the spider to a more suitable container but accidentally squashed in it the process, thus ruining any desire to save it and show it to friends.

The White Tailed Spider feeds on other spiders and usually only bites humans if provoked, however the bite is immediately painful. Landcare Research notes, "It is usually possible to catch the perpetrator easily, since the spider has poor eyesight, and its identity can then be confirmed. It should be noted that cases of confirmed White-tail spider bites have rarely resulted in anything more severe than a red mark and localised, short-lived pain."

In other news, Syndey, Australia, land of the nasty, biting animals, has been inundated with funnel-web spiders as of late. This from the NZ Herald, "Unlike most spiders, which scuttle away when disturbed, funnel-webs, which can grow to up to two inches long, may rear up and bare their fangs....Found mainly in eastern Australia, they are said to be able to leap 18 inches, and their fangs can penetrate soft shoes and fingernails."

Kia whakatāne ake au i ahau!

I got so excited to show you the pig I kind of got ahead of myself. This is Whakatane. It's not actually on the east cape, but it is really close. The clouds were amazing this day.

The island in the background is Whakaari (White Island). It's actively volcanic, and a lovely dive spot, I'm told.

This is Moutohora (Whale Island). It's a wildlife management reserve (bird sanctuary).

This is a statue commemorating Wairaka, who dared break tapu and paddle the canoe to shore.

Nice work, sister.

Cooker

Once upon a time I wrote stories of my adventures here in NZ.

I haven't been doing much of that lately but everyday for the next couple weeks I will post pictures and a few stories from my trip round the east cape.

We met this lovely pig in Opotiki.

His neighbor took us on a tour of the town.

Big plans brewing for Opotiki.

If ever in town be sure to visit the tangata whenua gallery, owls chopping boards,

and robyn forbes studio.  Stay at the blue view estuary.

Yes, that is number 8 wire in his nose.

I don't want to hear about it.

This pig is well loved.

And not at all rabid- he just finished munching his favorite snack- kiwi fruit.

This house isn't big enough for the 12,000 of us anymore!

I know they have lived here much longer than we have, but I am now asking our flatmates to leave. We were getting along great for awhile. I was willing to pretend they didn't exist and promised only to smash the rabid looking ones that dared come into the light.

But that all changed when one of them barged in on me in the shower.

In the middle of the day.

Pretending to be a preying mantis.
(Naturally, I didn't have my glasses on, and my eyesight is quite bad, obviously, without them). I was able to relive all of my horror movie nightmares during that battle and emerged victorious!

(The Gisborne Cockroach)

So now the real battle begins. Bring forth the borax!

Independence Day, a study of light.

To round out the day I went for a sunset walk over to the hereford paddock. I can't think of a better way to end the day, really, than to spend it with some hoofstock.

A lovely sunset picture. Too bad blogger makes all my pictures so blurry.



Here are the lovely lassies I went to visit. I'm not sure how it will look on your monitor, but on my monitor this picture looks like I photoshopped in some cartoon cows and painted the sky pink. For the record, I did not. This is really what it looked like.

While clambering over a fence to chat with the girls, I slipped and fell in the mud. How embarrassing. Now I have bruises to match the sky in these pictures.

I was quite excited about the mist rising off this stream.

Surely you recognize this landscape from the start of my sunset walk.
This was the picture I was taking when I was nearly attacked by a kereru, but that story will have to wait for the next installment.

Zebra Kisses

Last weekend P was able to check off one more thing from her life time goal list: Pet a Zebra.



I have a feeling it will be slightly harder to scratch off Pet a King Cheetah.

These are the fancy parrots that feed on the neighbor's tree.

There are two of them- one is hiding in the shadows.
They are not escaped pets, they are native.
I don't remember their official name.

Pig Update

I know you've been wondering what the pigs have been up to.


Same old thing, really.
Looking cute.
Eating veggies.

This is Snippet and a can of Wattie's baked beaNZ.

Black-eyed pig salad.

Daisy, Milo and Marmite.
One of these is the name of the pig.
The rest are foods you can only get in NZ
(or by special order).

Invaders!

(photo credit)

This is a brushtail possum, a native of Australia that was introduced to New Zealand (goodness knows why) where it has thrived, much to the detriment of the local flora and fauna. I think of it as New Zealand's raccoon. They only come out at night, and I've never seen a live one, but there are scads of them squished on the roadside. They are New Zealand's most hated animal as they kill the native plants, kill the native birds, and have introduced disease to domesticated livestock. They are a menace.

(photo credit)

But, as P often points out, they are also quite cute:

(photo credit)

In fact I think that is possibly the cutest thing I have ever seen!

(photo credit)

I started a new job this week, and it requires me to wake up earlier than normal. I'm not much of a morning person, and I think this is why it took me a few mornings to realize the garbage can in the kitchen was not just falling over and spilling its contents in the middle of the night. The morning I found little tomato bits pretty far from the can I realized my "clumsy can" theory was flawed. While I have no proof other than a messy floor, I suspect we have been visited by the night possums. There is a window we (used to) keep open just off the kitchen that is the perfect height for possums and rules out dogs (cats are still an option, though not many cats would work that hard to eat my veggies).

(photo credit)

So it's a little spooky to think of a possum (even an adorable one) lumbering around my kitchen, and I'm glad it only attacked the garbage and left the rest of the food and humans alone!

More beaches, more sunsets

This was in Whangaroa harbour.

On Ninety Mile Beach at Ahipara.

I had no idea how many dead things wash up on beaches. I'm quite fascinated by it. Here's my folks and P investigating the upper half of a shark (ok, actually only P and I were interested in it. I even touched it with a stick and flipped it over to checked out the underside.).

90 mile beach at sunset.

M&D and P on St Helier's Beach, also at sunset.

Catherdral Cove on Coromandel Peninsula.

Hot water beach on Coromandel Peninsula. This place is very touristy - definitely the busiest beach we went to, but for good reason! Hot water springs bubble up through the sand and at low tide you can dig your own hot tub. Dreamy. I imagine if low tide was at 2pm it could be an unpleasant experience - like being boiled alive, but we went at sunset and it was perfect!

Finally, Piha beach. Yup, sunset.

Tiritiri Matangi

***Before finishing the writing on this post I broke my hand, so it starts out wordy then dwindles to near nothing - here's hoping the pictures are worth a thousand words!***

Saturday we took the ferry to Tiritiri Matangi island, an open scientific reserve/bird sanctuary. We were lucky enough to have as our guide a local scientist and professor that has been working on the restoration of this island for the last 30 years.

Tiritiri Matangi ("a place tossed by the wind"or "looking to the wind" or perhaps "wind tossing about") was originally settled by the Maori several hundred years ago, and after much fighting it ended up being owned by the government which leased the land for farming until the 1970's.

The island had very little vegetation after 100 + years of slash and burn farming and ranching, and since becoming a reserve has had almost 300,000 native trees and plants replanted by volunteers. They have also successfully released many rare and endangered native birds (and tuatara) on the island thus making Tiritiri one of the most successful conservation projects in the world (so says the website).

We walked along this beach:
where we played with these rays at the waters edge:We then hiked through the old growth forest - love these ferns!
And then through the replanted forests and took many exciting bird photographs like this:
Go ahead- just try to find the bird! Like I mentioned before we are great bird feeders, but not die hard bird watchers. For truly impressive pictures of the birds on Tiritiri click here.

We popped out on the far side of the island where we ooooohed and aaaaaahed at the lovely view:
Then B sang The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music:
as we walked to the lighthouse which used to be the brightest one in the Southern Hemisphere:
Where we posed for a token family lighthouse picture:
And a picture just for my mom (further proof I still exist. Look ma - two hands!)
Then we ate lunch with Greg the Takahe, an endangered bird from the fjords of the South Island. Greg must be short for Gregarious as he was hand raised and enjoys being around people and stealing lunches (we were told to not feed Greg). I loved watching Greg, one of only 230 living Takahes on the planet, run around the eaters. He was a lot bigger than I was expecting:
On the way back to the ferry we sat at this watering station enjoying the view and the bird calls:
Bird enthusiasts can become Supporters of Tiritiri and are then allowed to stay at the bunkhouse on the island for a small fee. The dawn chorus is supposed to be glorious!

Dolphins! and Penguins! and Wallabies! Oh my!

Recently we sailed from the Bay of Islands to Auckland, and it was a trip filled with wild beasties. We spotted jellyfish, little blue penguins, small white and grey dolphins that swam with our boat, wallabies - not just small kangaroos!, native wood pigeons and peacocks.

This jellyfish was quite large and I really enjoyed watching it swim all around. One of the locals laughed at me for taking pictures of a jellyfish, but what can I say- there weren't any where I can from, and who knew they have spots??

The Bay of Islands (BOI) is an amazing place. I must have taken 700 pictures just like this one because everywhere you look it is just heartbreakingly beautiful. Sadly, pictures cannot do it justice. You will just have to come and see for yourself!

This is Hole In The Rock, and is a major tourist destination. At low tide boats can fit through the hole.

More wild beasties. That red flag is the flag of the Vice Commodore for our yachting club. That's right- we were invited to sail with the Vice Commodore! I tell you New Zealand is the most fantastic and fascinating place! Yachting seems so snooty in the US, but here everyone sails, and lots of people have boats and most are quite happy to invite us along! I think we are very lucky people.

This is for those of you that want to see more of the boat. I'll let B explain what happened to the main sail.
In BOI we anchored in this small, quiet nook and rowed to the beach:

And hiked up to this cemetary on the hill:

Quite a nice place to spend eternity, really.

But most importantly, we saw Dolphins:





P has declared that seeing these dolphins was one of the best experiences of her entire life. I think dolphins have this effect on a lot of people as our good friend, la hamburgler, went swimming in the BOI and told us that it was one of the most amazing experiences of his life.

B took some lovely video of the dolphins, which I will endeavor to install in this post later.

Then we went to Kawau, and the Mansion House. B has been here before, so read more about it here.
Below is a picture of the boat from the beach, above.

Here we saw wekas (a native bird that is very rare and reminds me of little dinosaurs), peacocks, wallabies and the also rare native wood pigeon, which is very fat and heavy looking for a bird, and makes a lot of noise when it flies.


This is the wood pigeon. This is a rather slimming photo of the bird, I think. Imagine it weighing an additional kilogram, and wheezing when it flies and you have a good idea of what I'm talking about.