Into Northland

A Crash on the Road to the Bay of Islands

The following day I decided to head for Russell in the Bay of Islands via a quiet coast road that was un-made but scenic. After branching off the main road I came across a wandering cow in the middle of the road. A farm was close by to I road up the front door and knocked. A Maori answered the door and didn't seem that interested. He asked me "what colour is it?". "Was it red?". "no", I said, "it was black". It looked at me like I was an idiot. He meant what colour was the tag in its ear not the colour of its coat! In any case he wasn't interested and the cow remained unmolested.



After that I crossed the Helena Hills and came down to the village of Oakura and had lunch overlooking the sea. It was very quiet down here. Shortly afterwards the tarmac road finished and gave way to a rutted dirt road of gravel and rocks. Before I knew what was happening I'd gone over the handle-bars and found myself flat on my back in the middle of the road. I was covered in dust, had a grazed bum and a cut on my head which was drizzling blood down my face. I hadn't been wearing a helmet. I picked myself up feeling a bit dizzy, but more or less fine. The bike looked fine too, but I tried wheeling it I could see that the front wheel was heavily buckled.

At that moment a fisherman turned up driving a pick-up and towing his boat. A quick chat followed where the situation was appraised and summarised. He suggested that he give me a lift all the way back to Whangerei as the chances of getting a ride the other way was slim and he was here right now. I accepted. We lifted the bike into the back of the pick-up where I was surprised to see a large Tuna fish. The bike went on top of it. I jumped into the cab beside him still gently bleeding. I was to be driven back the way I'd come. A waste of 40 miles effort!

I asked about the Tuna. He told me to keep quiet but he'd caught it illegally and was driving it to a small airport where he would sell it and it would be flown directly to Japan. Blimey!

When he dropped me off I lifted out the bike which was now covered in Tuna blood. He recommended a pub for me to stay in and after checking in I wheeled my bike around to a bike shop to see what could be done. The guy said he could fix the wheel and I should come back the next morning.

I then spent a long time in the bath soaking away my aches and pains. I spent the evening propping up the bar. My odometer said I'd gone through 2000 miles today.

On the Road to the Bay of Islands 2

After picking up the bike, which had only cost 24 dollars to have the wheel repaired I rode the more conventional route to Russell. The ride was a bit tedious as I had a sore neck and shoulder from the fall. I was however determined to get to the Bay of Islands.



Whilst having lunch at Tawai I almost had an altercation with a local Maori. He seemed to think I was paying too close attention to the spat he was having with his girlfriend! I was sat outside the pub and they were in a car just in front of me. I couldn't avoid seeing them. They calmed down eventually and just as they were about to leave he waved me over. I was a bit apprehensive but he placed a small package in my hand which turned out to be some nice Thai flower heads. He told me that they weren't properly dry yet so I needed to wait a few days before trying them. Pretty friendly I thought.



After that it was a long climb over to Kawakawa and then a five minute ferry ride at Opua and a short hop around to Russell, a town on a beach. I arranged to stay in a Samaritans Backpacker place and then spent the time walking around town. I walked up Flagstaff Hill to watch the sunset - this is the site of a Treaty in 1840 between the British and the Maori.

North to Auckland and Whangerei Falls

The Northerner

After ten days or so sojourn in Wellington with Jo on Friday April 2nd 1993 I took the "Northerner" night train from Wellington to Auckland. The weather in Wellington had been cold so I'd decided to go as far north as possible and ride back down to Wellington.

The train had no sleeping compartments but I was warm enough on the sheepskin covered reclining seats. I see nothing all night apart from strange stops in the middle of nowhere. Eventually the dawn breaks as we head into Auckland. At the station I photograph a steam engine on it's way out on an excursion. An hour later I'm on a bus going even further north to Whangerei. This is a three hour trip on a busy road through the isthmus to Northland. After all that travelling it is raining. Fortunately it's only a five mile ride to the camp-ground at Whangerei Falls. I stay, alone, in the bunk room, and manage a walk to the falls in the late afternoon.

Things have changed in Auckland since I was there. The Northerner service was stopped in 2004 and the Auckland Station I used has since been closed too - though a new one has been built close by.



That steam train I saw was called the Cannonball Express for that excursion. In fact it is KA942 built in New Zealand in 1940 and in mainline use until 1966. She was restored in 1991 and again in 2001. She is still running. Here are a couple of videos: near Dunedin, and here and here.

Paris Photo Shoot

Le Raboteurs des Parquet

First up was a re-making of this painting by Gustave Caillebotte, which I believe is in the Musee D'Orsay.

After clearing away the furniture we made some wood shavings by curling strips of paper, and then set the scene with these, some tools, the bottle of wine and glass and some bags at the rear.

Sam was photographed with his shirt off in the three positions and the photograph was then assembled in photoshop and processed to give the monochrome look. The angle of shot is not quite correct but this I think is the best I can do in a room this size.



In this version Niamh and Ella play the role of the 'scrapers'. The natural daylight is better in this one. I blame Sam as his shot was made later in the day when he got home.



Glen Baxter

Niamh went through a series of postcards to find a pose to copy. I can't remember the name of this one. I'll find out and update this later. When Niamh turned up after school with her friend Ella it was easier to get them both to pose in the same, but opposite, way.

They were just sitting on the floor, which was still clear from the previous shot, and the white wall. It was tricky balancing the natural light with the flash so that they didn't throw up harsh shadows. I tried with a warm gel on the flash, but I liked the colder light better.

The idea to make a sort of Glen Baxter cartoon came about later when I was messing around in Photoshop. So I just masked them out of the room and searched for a suitable background to drop in behind. I liked this view of the Seven Sisters on the South Downs in England. I used a painterly effect to make it more 'cartoony' and this meant I didn't have to worry about the exactness of the mask either.



On this pair I dropped in a photograph of some old tree roots. This tree has subsequently been cut down. Like many Beeches in the park at Hof ter Saksen they became diseased. They have been replace though.

You'll have to excuse my poor excuses of captions. They are not as 'off the wall' as the real Glen Baxter would have done.



The Arch

For this shot I simply dropped in a couple of borders around Niamh and Ella. It's a nice and relaxed shot.

Baking in Paris

Gingerly: A Solid Cocktail

I spent another long w/e in Paris nominally in charge of a couple of kids whilst the parents were off gallivanting.

I might add that it was not 'baking' in Paris it was perishingly cold. Spring, I am reliably informed, is still weeks away and we can look forward to a White Easter and April snow showers. Great!

To ease the pain I ransacked the larder at the said establishment and thought I'd lessen the future possibilities for food poisoning by using as much of the beyond the 'sell by date' stuff as I could find.

Unfortunately this left me with the need to use Custard Powder and Jellies.

First up then was a Solid Cocktail. That is a cocktail made with Jelly but something more than an American College style Jello Shot. I only had two flavours to choose from, Orange or Raspberry. A deflated bottle of Ginger Beer was languishing in the fridge and of course the house was not without a bottle of Gin.

Method: the jelly was melted with as little boiling water as possible and left tio dissolve and cool. A good shot of Gin was added and topped off with the remains of the Ginger Beer. Two tall glasses were found and the cocktail was poured into these and placed in the fridge to set overnight.

The glasses were tall Mort Subite glasses: this is a Belgium Lambic or Geuze fruit beer which comes in Cherry, Raspberry and Peach flavours. The beer is sold in a traditional cafe of the same name in Brussels where the beer is sold on draught by suitably moody waiters.

When examined the following day the cocktails had set and a taste of one revealed that they still had a fizziness captured within. The second cocktail was then left outside the fridge until it melted to the extent that the bubbles were starting to be released and it was then placed back in the fridge so that the bubbles, now enlarged and visible, were captured in the set.

Kit-Kat Kustard Kake



My current favourite baker is Dan Lepard. His 'Short and Sweet' book is genius.

This recipe is based on Dan's Apple, Walnut and Custard Cake, which is from the book mentioned.

The recipe is really three recipes in one.

First make a custard using the custard powder and make it using half the quantity of milk specified and pour it into a shallow container and leave it to cool in the fridge until it is set solid. You should be able to cut it up into wobbly blocks.

Second make your sponge mixture. Whatever you favourite proportions are, cream the butter and sugar, add the eggs, and then stir in the raising agent and flour.

Third make your topping. Dan caramelises apples with sugar and walnuts. You could use anything. We used Kit-Kat Balls which are like Maltesers. Which to use? Unfortunately K-Ks are Nestle.

Final preparation is to cut up the wobbly set custard and stir the blocks into the cake mixture gently and then pour into a cake tin and then poke in as many chocolate balls as you can. In retrospect we think a more gooey chocolate ball might work better, Rolo's perhaps.

Bake in the oven at 200c for 50 minutes or whatever.

Doughnuts



By special demand I was asked to make doughnuts. Not a bad idea as we could make a huge batch of dough and use some for doughnuts and some for pizza. I also reserved some for Croissants but the less said about that the better. Croissants! in Paris? What was I thinking?

Meanwhile we rustled up a dough and put most of it aside for pizza later.

After the usual palaver the first rising was knocked down and divided into 9 balls: 3 doughnuts each. A hole was punched into each to make the classic ring shape and these were left to prove a second time.

Next up a frying pan was filled with a 2cm depth of sunflower oil and these was heated to a dangerous temperature and tested by dropping a small piece of dough in. If it fizzed and browned immediately it was hot enough. The risen doughnuts were dropped in, two at a time, and browned on each side, before being lifted out and drained on a napkin. The hope was that they were sufficiently cooked on the inside without being scorched on the outside. A tricky business.

The next problem was getting the sugar coating to stick. Who knew this could be a problem? We had to brush them with sugar water before rolling them in granular sugar. (An attempt to colour this sugar was a failure). The doughnuts were then iced with a paste of coloured icing sugar. Again it was difficult to colour and the icing ran straight off the doughnut.

So the presentation of the doughnuts wasn't really up to standard. However they were piping hot, were sufficiently sticky on the outside and gooey in the middle and gave an immediate sugar rush which migrated to a sugar migraine which remained for the rest of the day. Nice!

In future I'll take the kids to a funfair (preferably in Belgium) where you can observe a machine automatically make the mini-doughnuts which are dropped into a canal of oil where they float along as they cook, are flipped over half-way along and then tipped out into sugar quarry before before served in paper cones.

A Jelly Trio



This dessert took three days to assemble and also made use of the out-of-date materials.

The bottom layer was a Raspberry Jelly dissolved in the usual way with boiling water, but then diluted with only half as much cold water specified. A stronger jelly resulted. This was placed in a series of glasses in the fridge.

The middle layer was made by mixing up a custard using the custard powder and sugar and adding an equal amount of drinking chocolate powder. These were creamed together using some hot milk and then diluted with the rest of the hot milk. Only half as much milk was used as per the instructions on the box. Some real chocolate was thrown into the mix to give give an extra chocolate lift and deepen the colour. When this was sufficiently cool and gloopy it was poured on top of the set jelly in the glasses.

The top layer was the most problematical. What we wanted was a Pink Blancmange. Once again however we were foiled  by the uselessness of our colouring agents and the milk resolutely refused to go pink even after we added some strawberry cordial. To make the milk set we dissolved some sheets of gelatin in cold water and then wrung them out before mixing them into the warmed milk. In future we would probably use agar as our setting agent. It took an age for the blancmange to start to set but eventually we risked pouring it on top of the jelly and chocolate layers already assembled and left it to set overnight.

It turned out very well, though of course the Blancmange was NOT pink.

House Light Gallery

New Web Site

The House Light Gallery web site has been given a re-design and moved to a new host.

The new web site provides the following:

• a way to browse through Galleries my Photographs in a number of different ways
• a way to order Ready-Made, but Hand-Made Mounted Prints from an on-line shop with a check-out via Paypal
• a way to order Hand-Made Custom Prints where you specify the print, the size and the details about any Matte and its Mount
• a way to order some prints from Third-Party Printers
• a way to order Books of my Prints

Any feedback on the look and feel of the website is welcome.

The website is accompanied by a new House Light Gallery Page on Facebook too. Any 'likes' would be appreciated.

Other shenanigans are at the House Light Galleries at Google+, Tumblr and 500px, and of course at my own faithful Flickr.

New Zealand, South Island - Cycle Tour Map

A Summary of the South Island Tour



Overall distance was about 2500km or 1500 miles, between February 3rd and March 20th 1993.

Finished off with a w/e wandering around the Marlborough vineyards with Jo. We did this on foot starting with a champagne breakfast somewhere (getting there by taxi first) and then visiting a string of different vineyards until I was carrying a case of a selection of wines. I was intending to have these shipped home but when I enquired after the costs of shipping and the duty I would have to pay I decided against it. They were eventually drunk at a party at Jo's place, in Wellington, before I left.



Here are my cheats:

1) Rode on the Kingston Flyer Train, about 10 miles
2) Accepted a lift in a pick-up for the last few miles into Te Anau, may be 15 miles
3) Took the bus from Te Anau into Milford Sound, 80 miles
4) Took the bus out of Milford Sound to the tunnel, 30 miles
5) Rode the "Southerner" train from Invercargill to Dunedin, 120 miles
6) Rode the Taieri Gorge Railway from Dunedin to Pukerangi, 50 miles
7) Rode the Post Boat from Nelson to Pohara, 60 miles



Regrets:

1) I should have ridden to Christchurch
2) I should have gone to Stewart Island
3) I should have rode the train over Arthur's Pass to Christchurch and then ridden back over it
4) I should have found someone to go on a sea-kayaking/camping tour in Abel Tasman National Park
5) I should have gone back!
6) I should have done some 'tramping'

Abel Tasman and Queen Charlotte

To Abel Tasman National Park and back



This morning I did some shopping and then collected my bike. From the docks in Nelson I caught a catamaran water-taxi to Pohara, the other side of the Golden Bay Park. Like Milford Sound only one road goes out to Abel Tasman National Park and back and I thought I could avoid riding it both ways by going by boat on the outward journey. I was the only passenger on a trip which took four hours. Mostly we had parcels to deliver. At Pohara the camp-site was only minutes away. I was greeted by extremely inquisitive ducks and during the night, when it was raining, my tent was visited by a hedgehog who made a hell of a racket rummaging around my rubbish bag in the tent foyer.



The next day it rained on and off all day. All I managed was a short fifteen mile ride to Takaka where I did some shopping and watched some cricket in the pub. It was also a very dreary drizzly evening.



At last the sun came out and I had a chance to dry the tent. I continued my ride along the northern coast of South Island and found another camp-site on the sea. After setting up I continued by ride, without panniers, to Farewell Spit the westernmost point on this coast. I also travelled a bit south on an unmade road to Whanganui Inlet. This was very isolated. In the afternoon I sunbathed and walked along the beach. It was a beautiful and hazy evening.







Today was another perfect and cloudless day. My ride was back along the way I'd come to Takaka, with a side-trip to Collingwood. At the base of Takaka Hill I stopped at the Rat Trap Inn and had a beer whilst watching some cricket. It then took me an hour to ride the five miles to the top of the hill. Definitely the steepest climb yet. After that it was an exhilarating downhill ride until I discovered one more hill to climb before reaching the camp-site. I had a couple of beers in the Paradise Cafe that evening.

Marlborough, Vineyards and Queen Charlotte Drive

The ride to Mapua was a short one of about two hours. Once again I spent the afternoon in the sun and walking around the beaches. This is a very antiquated place with a fifties feel.



The following days ride took me through Nelson and then over two steep climbs to Pelorus Bridge. The camp-site was peaceful and quiet, apart from the sound of rutting deer. I took some nature walks through the forest.

The next day was also a short ride to Havelock, but after setting up camp I rode further on to Renwick and visited several vineyards. It was a bit of a struggle cycling back.

My final days ride in the south Island took me along the Queen Charlotte Drive into Picton. The road itself was atrocious but the views were very picturesque over the sounds. I found a motel in town and booked in for the week-end as Jo was coming over from Wellington.