Two Hour lunchtimes

The BBC site has an article about France's two hour lunchtimes. Once I came to understand them, I loved them. Once I realised that the only place open in French villages between 12 and about 2.30 was a restaurant, I no longer hated the 'morgue like' feel of the village at that time, and I learned to relish the practice. If you missed lunchtime, you remained hungry: I learned to time my cycling to coincide with lunchtimes!

From the article:

"The village she meant seemed dead, its one road silent and eerily empty.

All that was missing at this French high noon was the tumbleweed.

But opposite the Romanesque church - whose bell tolled an ominous half past one - a lone restaurant was indeed open - and absolutely packed.

This was where everyone had gathered from miles around. Farmers in grass-stained overalls clinked hearty glasses of red wine, discussing the calving season as they tucked into bleeding steaks, while a stone-mason earnestly discussed politics with a carpenter, gesticulating dangerously with his fork.

The fear is that banishing what is bad could endanger what everyone likes most - the sense that people in France still matter more than money, and that a good lunch is worth making time for

The restaurant's rather rotund golden labrador bounded up eagerly as we arrived, wagging his tail.

Hot on his heels came the equally round chef, to welcome us almost as warmly and advise on what to eat.

I felt as though we had walked into a family party, as others turned to greet us with a bonjour and a smile.

On offer was a three course meal for just 12 euros (£8) each, clearly created for a clientele with plenty of time for lunch.

Anxiously, we asked the waitress how long the meal would take. She gave a not unfriendly Gallic shrug. "As long as it takes." But that was not very long at all.

With remarkable efficiency, we tucked into pate on crusty warm bread, home-made chicken stew, and a fresh berry and cream pudding - and were out of the door a mere hour later. Everyone else was still there as we left, looking faintly puzzled at our unseemly rush."

The other wonderful thing about French restaurants was that the service was so good. Sometimes on my bike especially, I felt incredibly welcome, and well cared for. Some days I would emerge from a village restaurant, and feel like I had been treated like a princess.

Colm Toibin and Croagh Patrick

I have read a few books by Colm Toibin, and have just discovered he had some similar experiences to me at Croagh Patrick. (Read here for my account.)

Some quotes from Ch4, The Magic Mountain, in "The Sign of the Cross" by Toibin:

"Now we turned and trudged on, the terrain becoming more and more difficult."

"Nothing had prepared me for the last part of the climb. The rise was very sheer and there was nothing to hold onto. At every step I sank into a bank of large slippery stones. I moved slowly on my hands and knees in the wind and the driving rain."

I guess I was lucky here: the horrendous wind and wetting rain started while I was on my way down! It then became a real effort to stay standing and not be blown over. On one occasion I slipped, and was then rolled around on the ground by the wind. Fortunately, apart from a bruised elbow, I wasn't injured, much to the relief of the guy just above me on the track who yelled "I'm coming!" but who then saw me get up on my own.

"Everybody concentrated on each step, and on making sure not to fall and knock other people over. We clambered forward. It was impossible to see how close the summit was. At times progress seemed impossible; there was no foothold, and if you moved, you displaced rocks and stones, and there was still no foothold. Men and women walked down as best they could, pushing the staff into the ground ahead of them, letting it sink in between the stones, then sliding gingerly down. If they caught your eye, they smiled encouragement. People kept telling you that you would reach the summit soon.
When I got there, I was exhausted and exhilarated."

I know what he means! In my own account I wrote:

There was quite a celebratory feel at the top, and a real feeling of camaraderie amongst those sheltering by the wall of the oratory. It is not a 'long' climb, but the last section is very steep, and the rocky surface is difficult to maintain your footing on. You cannot see the top and have no idea how much further you have to climb, until suddenly, you are on the summit. I think we all felt that the hardest work was done! (We were all sooooo wrong!)

Croagh Patrick is about 762m high. That did not seem like very much. But the steepness of the last section, the nature of the small rocks you had to climb on nearer the top, the fact you could not see the summit, the wind and slippery rocks on the way down, all made for quite a hard climb. I reached the bottom with a sense of relief and achievement!

Round trip to Ahuriri

Time for a wee holiday expedition today, (before a southerly arrives tomorrow with strong winds, rain and cold temperatures.) It was time to 'kill two birds with one stone': I wanted a few more photos of Ahuriri Estuary for the poster I have to make with data from our NZ fauna field trip; and I have never been on the Napier-Taupo Rd and felt my edumacation was therefore lacking.

So here is one viewpoint of the Ahuriri Estuary in Napier. The tide was lower than this when we did our sampling, a little to the right of this view. But we didn't see many birds: the arrival of 80 students + 10 tutors and lecturers was undoubtedly enough to send all sensible birds to more distant parts of the estuary.

This morning was a gorgeous morning, and I was able to watch this heron for a while.

I love coming upon waterfalls I have never heard about as I explore different parts of NZ. Today's treasure was next to the Napier-Taupo Rd, the Waipunga Falls. (This photo doesn't really convey quite how large they were.)

I enjoyed the Napier-Taupo Rd. There were some steep climbs (as I had expected) and some rugged country. Then as I neared Taupo, I was amazed to find some plains! Tauhara, which looks quite a small mountain viewed from Taupo, looks rather large when you see it from the angle you get approaching from the plains.

On the way home along the Desert Rd, I passed Ruapehu. The edges all looked more jagged without much snow covering. Some of you overseas may have seen reports of the lahar that went down from the crater lake at the top of this mountain just a few weeks ago.

Kapiti Island

Time for a little bit of attention to this poor neglected blog. It has suffered while most posting has gone to my nomad blog. But here are a few photos from the trip I took to Kapiti Island yesterday. (Two are repeated from nomad blog: sorry if you have just come from there!)

Kereru (pigeon, endemic to NZ) were abundant and everywhere. With predators gone, you could see them in places you would never see them on the mainland, eg this one was pecking on the grass as a hen would in a backyard coop.


My favourite shot was of this kaka. I have never seen one so close, and maybe never will again....
This little shy weka was pecking in the leaf litter to find its food.

Here is the boat returning from the mainland at Paraparaumu to take us off the island at the end of the day.

Kapiti Island

Today I had the good fortune to finally make it out to Kapiti Island, despite waking to drizzle, and the certainty that the phone was going to ring any moment early this morning with a cancellation! One of the first birds I saw after hopping off the boat was this kereru (NZ wood pigeon), endemic to New Zealand. Usually when you actually get to see kereru, they are high in the trees. Here on Kapiti, with foreign predators removed, kereru are everywhere!

The sign says it all. Kapiti Island has had foreign predators such as stoats, ferrets, possums etc removed. The forest is rejuvenating and the bird life is booming.

Three kaka came to explore as our group was having a talk with a guide. 30 people, food they thought. Right over my head, photo I thought.

A total revelation to me was the Kohekohe tree (NZ mahogany). The "seeds" on it are growing out of the trunk itself, and flower with white flowers in winter. Significantly, I had never seen these buds before. They are apparently beloved of possums, and it is only since the removal of possums from Kapiti Island that they have come into prominence. In winter you can come to Kapiti and see a mass of white flowers on these trees, and they provide a wonderful winter food source.

There were numerous weka on the ground.
And I even saw this kereru looking for bugs etc in the grass. I was able to approach even closer than this to take a photo. With the removal of predators, some birds have become quite comfortable at seeking food on the ground.

Fortunately the sea was still reasonably calm for our departure. Here we are boarding the boat as we leave from Kapiti.

They run a highly practised manoeuvre, getting the boat in and out of the water. A specially raised tractor was waiting with the trailer for us in the waves back on the mainland. And as we disembarked on the sand, another group looked ready to board. Presumably they were going to stay at the lodge and go out kiwi spotting at night. Hmmm, something for another time. It would be a good 50th birthday activity in a few months time.... if only the weather could be guaranteed to cooperate!


POSTSCRIPT:
How timely the Kapiti trip has turned out to be in terms of my Massey NZ fauna paper. We looked at some efforts at mainland ecosystem rehabilitation / restoration during our field trip last weekend. I had organised this trip to Kapiti Island some time back. But I have just discovered that the latest section in my study guide is all about ecosystem rehabilitation and restoration, as well as species re-introductions. And I had all that practical experience yesterday on Kapiti Island!
PS2: I have put a couple more photos from the trip on my photo blog (though two favourites are repeated from here.)

Boundary Stream "Mainland Island"

Sunday morning was an early start. 6.30am breakfast! All packed up and ready to go by 7.30am. We were to travel north of Napier, then inland to the Boundary Stream "Mainland Island", a remnant of native bush surrounded by farmland. One of the unusual features about the reserve is that it has a large altitude variation, and we headed to the top end, which has sometimes been covered with snow on previous field trips. There have been active measures taken to get rid of predators, though the island is not 'fenced'. The reduction in predators has had an amazing effect on the bird life. I saw species I have never seen before, and some of them were quite abundant.

On arrival we were greeted with the song of numerous tuis and bellbirds. For many of us, there was a 'long drop' stop before we started work. Some of the young ones were clearly not trampers and thought the 'long drop' was 'disgusting', but I thought it was a really pristine one! Waiting in the queue to use it was a wonderful bird experience. We had been told the night before that they had released North Island robins in this reserve, and that their numbers had really risen. A little robin was flitting around in the trees near the queue, and seeing it was a 'first' for me. (Thanks to the 'bird recognition' we had had to do prior to the field trip, we were actually able to recognise it as a robin.)

Our first field trip task was not as bad as it sounds...... we had to look in a 10m x 20m area for 'poo' left by various predators. The hope was that we wouldn't find any. We didn't find much, but a rabbit had clearly been active in our area. The pellets were quite dry and not like you would imagine. I need to get used to the fact that my eyes are older now, and take my glasses with me: it was really hard for me to distinguish the dry faecal pellets against the background dry leaf litter. However, I did the recording for this task, so I didn't then need to worry about missing things.

Next task involved looking for invertebrates, firstly on the surface of a 10m x 1m rectangle, and then in three deeper samples. What surprised me was that in this beech forest, we didn't find many. (And it wasn't just my eyesight: the others in the group also found hardly any.) It has certainly been dry lately, but I began to wonder what the birds ate.

Doing a five minute bird count here brought another 'first': I saw a rifleman on a tree trunk. (This was another bird we had learned to recognise.) There was also a harrier flying overhead. Apparently there are kokako in this forest as well, with chicks having recently fledged, but today was not to be our day for seeing one.

We repeated most of our tasks in a piece of kamahi forest, and again we found few invertebrates. But our sampling the whole morning was accompanied by the sound of numerous tuis and bellbirds.

By 1pm we needed to start heading homewards. (They usually do this further away task on Saturday, but this year it was the 10th anniversary of the place, with 100 visitors and no room for the buses. So it had to be Sunday.) We called in to see a predator fence that the local community is in the midst of building to make a safe nursery area for kiwi. Then we did some more electro fishing. With hardly any time for this, Ian found quite a variety of animals.

Back in Palmie around 6pm, my brain was full of all the varied things I had seen on the weekend. It was a wonderful field trip, that opened my eyes to a lot I had never seen or thought about.

NZ fauna field trip Pt2

Next on the field trip agenda was a drive up to Napier. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed relaxing on the beach eating our lunches. We extramurals had already formed quite a bond and I enjoyed some quiet convo with a group as we ate. It was a real highlight of the whole weekend for me, meeting all the other extramurals. We all have this passionate interest that has led us to enrol in this paper, and it was wonderful to meet some of the others who are also studying in isolation at home.

We had a visit to the Napier Aquarium, and our huge group divided into 3. We had a talk with question time about how the place is run; we got a 'behind the scenes' tour where we got to see the suction and water squirts from the lovely wee creature below! and we also had a quick viewing of the exhibits. The kiwi were having an active day. The fish etc were really well displayed with useful information panels, and I hope to get back sometime to see it all at a more leisurely pace.

Our main 'work' for the day was sampling in the Ahuriri Estuary, and we couldn't start this until 3pm, as we needed to wait for low tide. It was great fun working with a wonderful tutor and a very cooperative bunch of extramurals on this. Our sampling represents the fifth year this has been done, so there is now quite a large dataset built up. It will be interesting looking at the data soon to see whether there have been any changes over time.

Here our tutor has gone out with a student to set up our line for sampling. We then had to split the distance to take five sample points.

On our surface sample, the easier kind, we had to count everything living over the size of 5mm, using this square grid.

We also had to do a sub-surface sample, with two wire meshes so we extracted all the bigger stuff first. Despite our best 'gold-mining' technique, the lower mesh had shells etc covered in sticky estuary mud, so the count of the animals there took a lot longer. I guess what surprised me the most was the huge number of cockles present, and the relatively low numbers of the other species.

Back at camp, there was a rush for the showers before dinner as people wanted to get rid of the mud they had acquired at the estuary! We had a wonderful roast meal, with a yummy coleslaw as well.

After dinner Murray showed us a powerpoint display about the concept of a Mainland Island, as we were to visit the Boundary Stream Mainland Island in the morning. I had never heard of such a thing before. Basically, NZ's conservation efforts have in the past been largely addressed at offshore islands. With a "Mainland Island" efforts are made to stop predators getting into a reserve area, so that the bush and wildlife can become re-established. The Boundary Stream Reserve covers quite a huge altitude range, and we were to be climbing to the top end by bus. (Snow was experienced a few years ago on the field trip, and one year snow stopped the buses even getting there.)

Next instalment will be about Sunday's exploits at Boundary Stream. (Sorry, no more photos though: we were too busy on Sunday!) Our bird recognition task was about to be put to some practical use.

NZ fauna field trip

The Massey field trip I went on for New Zealand fauna was just wonderful!

We extramurals, about 17 of us, met at Massey at 2pm Friday, and met Murray the paper coordinator who made us all feel welcome, before we had to sit our bird recognition test at 3pm. (The wisdom of learning these birds became really apparent on Sunday when it was a great feeling to see a few native birds for the first time, and be able to confidently identify them.)

Friday evening, in two buses (for 80 students plus eight tutors and two lecturers), we drove up to Riverbend Christian Camp, in the rural Hastings area, which was our base for the weekend. Breakfast was to be at 7am, so it wasn't a late night! I bedded down with a few of the other extramurals in the 'villa' out the back, marae style on a mattress on the floor, which appealed to me much more than the top tier of three tiered bunks!

Saturday morning we headed out towards Cape Kidnappers. We crossed a farm station to reach this predator fence. A US billionaire controversially was able to buy a huge tract of land at Cape Kidnappers, and has established a top flight golf course there for the wealthy. He is also engaged on a (less well known) major ecological project, and we had come to see the predator-exclusion fence that is in the process of being erected.

This fence truly is amazing. It is designed to keep out most introduced predators (except mice), plus there is intensive trapping and poisoning as well. The fence is not all 'closed' as people retain the right to walk along the beach, hence the trapping etc. They are already having success with native species returning to the dune area. There have been blue penguins nesting on nearby offshore islands: they have put out nesting boxes on these dunes and some are already being used by blue penguin.
Here is a small portion of our group giving some idea of the size of the fence.

And here you can see how the fence winds its way over the hills. There are some forest remnants nestled in the hills that they hope will be restored somewhat as well. It reminded me a little of the "Great Wall."

It was an idyllic sunny day, so the occupier of this farm cottage seemed to have his own little piece of heaven, despite the isolation!

We headed back inland again and stopped at a stream to try bird counts and electrofishing. The waterfall on the stream was beautiful.

The stream itself was beautiful too, but there wasn't a lot of fishing success, apart from this elver. Apparently the calcium carbonate ions in the stream made the electro-fishing not a suitable technique here. It was exciting to see the elver though, having just read in the Study Guide all about their migrations back from the spawning grounds at sea.

OK lots more to tell you but it will have to wait for another day. I am somewhat tired after my weekend of adventuring, plus "Desperate Housewive starts in five minutes time!

Cycle-a-Bull

Rangitikei Active had a brand new cycling event on today, an "achieve-a-bull" one, leaving from the fire station in Bulls. There were two lengths of course, 28km or 50km. I know I can cycle 50km, but wasn't sure if I could do it easily in the time available, so opted for the 28km. Good choice! (It turned out to be quite a warm day and I easily finished the one water bottle I took.)

Here are the entrants lining up for the 50km ride, which started first. As you can see there are a few of us bigger ladies waiting for the 28km ride. I am sure that the series of Women's Triathlons that Shane started have a lot more women out confidently cycling.

Here you can see more of the line of entrants for the longer ride. They all looked suitably competitive! As I found out later, a former pupil was in this bunch, and he has turned into quite a keen cyclist. He came in second in the men's longer ride.

The longer ride headed down to the beach at Bulls, but we only went a few km down that road before doubling back and heading down Brandon Rd, which had a few more hills than I had been expecting, though nothing too exhausting. This farm building was at the turn-around point on Brandon Rd, and I gave myself a drink stop here. Everyone agreed that the trip back along Brandon Rd seemed a lot shorter than the way up, maybe because we knew we were in the home straight.

The finish line was fun: lots of people stood there cheering and clapping as we finished. Also, I was really glad to find that I managed to finish before the first of the 'long' riders came in, as it was great to feel that I hadn't been 'lapped'!

At registration we got this water bottle, which I can now add to the one I got at the Bikewise breakfast. Then I won the chocolate as a spot prize at the end. And yes, I was pleased..... too bad about losing weight.... tomorrow is another day...

Makairo Track

Today I was part of a party of four who enjoyed the Makairo Track. This involved a steady but very gentle ascent up an old road track on the side of a gorge, passing a lot of regenerating bush.

Near the top end of the track were a few signs of the area's former farming life such as this decaying fencepost which took my fancy.

Rangiora, also affectionately known as 'bushman's toilet paper' was prominent along much of the route.

Nearer the top of the track there was quite a bit of flowering toetoe. Fiona and I spent quite a few minutes observing an iridescent emerald green bug sitting on one of the flowerheads. It did not seem able to fly well. By the time the boys got down from their higher ascent, there was no more sign of this bug, and they accused us of finding mushrooms over lunch. But we kidded them not!

What is biodiversity?

Have just been delving into Lecture 2, about concepts of biodiversity, by Dr Ian Henderson. Clever man demonstrated all these concepts by relating them to our closest local beach, Himatangi, which is a long, sandy surf beach. As he described, there isn't much variety of habitat there to support different kinds of shellfish.

Anyhow, there are four components to think about when you think about biodiversity: richness, equitability, disparity and endemism. And the upshot of having such a long uniform beach, is that there is low richness, i.e. only a few species are present. There is also low equitability on this beach, as 95% of the shells you find are the one species, Spisula, so the next shell you see tends to be the same as the last. Disparity is all about having more species, and the species being more different. You need to find a beach with more rocky pools etc to find that. But.... the last concept, endemism, Himatangi has more of (I think, if I read it right!) Turns out that some of the bivalves we find very commonly on our beaches are actually endemic, and found only in New Zealand.

I still love Himatangi though! Biodiversity may be low, but I am a "West Coast beach" girl, born and bred by the coast in Taranaki. And there is nothing I like better than long walks along this sandy beach, listening to the sounds of the surf and the gulls, and feeling the wet sand between my toes.

Beehive Creek, Pohangina Valley

The Pohangina Valley is a well-kept Manawatu secret: it is a lovely place to relax and spend time. Today there was an easy tramping club trip along the Beehive Creek Walkway. Civilised start time: 9am meeting at Foodtown Carpark. Eleven of us to spend the morning together. Someone else I hadn't seen for years on the trip.

We started off with 2-3 kilometres of walking along the gravel road to the other end of the walkway - so we could 'save the best bit of the track until last'. The road was very peaceful on this lovely sunny Sunday summer morning, and only one vehicle passed us.

The first bit of the track involved climbing up to the top of a ridge. I was slow, but I have done this before in recent weeks, so it wasn't too bad! We had great views at the top, then we descended a steep wee hill to get down to the stream. All the last part of the walk involved walking along the streambed. The water was surprisingly warm and pleasant.

We ended our time out with some cafe crawling, not that we had intended that. First we called into the nearby Waterford, only to find it was crowded on this very sunny and pleasant Sunday lunchtime, with a jazz band playing outdoors. We decided not to wait, and headed for the Herb Farm, by this time feeling very hungry. It was, if anything, even more crowded! So we returned to Ashhurst and went to the Domain Cafe. By this time the lunchtime crowd had thinned. I had a scone smothered in cream and a hot chocolate. So much for the health benefits of tramping!!!! Thanks PNTMC for another day of great walking and good company.

Rangitikei River - nearly home

After stopping in Taupo and having lunch with my cousins, I headed home. The sight of the mudstone cliffs above the Rangitikei River made me feel like I was nearly home. These photos were taken from a layby near Mangaweka, the sort with picnic tables. I see they are reminding drivers these days to 'take a break' on long trips, and it is always much easier to do so when you end up getting views like these.

Wai-o-Tapu

On my way home I stopped off at Wai-o-Tapu thermal reserve, about 26km south of Rotorua, just off the highway to Taupo. The scenes and colours are dramatic (though the prices are definitely aimed at the tourist market, not NZ families.)

The 'drama' is not just confined to 'big' pools etc. Here is a small fumarole, where sulphur is forming as the steam cools.

These next three photos show some of the drama of the colours at the edge of the Champagne Pool. Where there is a 'whitish' look, it is because steam blew my way, and it was definitely warm steam, like being in a sauna.