Matakana: The Animal Sanctuary

We arrived in the town of Warkworth on Wednesday of last week. After lunch and a leisurely stroll around town (and a visit to a pre-loved book store called 'Unicorn Books'), we were picked up by a lively gentleman named Michael. As our new host, he took us to the grocery store, and then drive us the 30 minutes, up past Matakana, and into the hills beyond. Nestled in the hills is Shawn and Michael's Animal Sanctuary (click me). My favorite thing about our new temporary home, so far, is the lack of weeding. Instead we get to do interesting things like creating gates, feeding animals, harvesting basil, making bulk amounts of pesto for freezing,  installing gib (sheetrock) in the garage ceiling, turning soil, applying compost, and even scooping poops!

Saturday Michael drove us down to Matakana to visit the market. The market itself is quaint and lively - live music, fresh smoothies, espresso, fresh honey, hand made goods, crisp loaves of bread and succulent local fruits. However the market is so appealing that it brings in hundreds of people from surrounding areas. It's only an hours drive from Auckland, the North Island's most populated city, so many keen shoppers make the Saturday drive as a day trip. It is such a crowded market that Shawn said she doesn't even bother trying to shove her way through the crowds anymore.

Excerpt from a pamphlet about Warkworth, Matakana, and surrounding regions: "The iconic public toilets, overlooking the tidal Matakana River, caused quite a stir when it was suggested that the town wanted something better than the bog-standard council dunny. After staging a national competition, it was young Matakana teenager Steffan de Haan's design, which got the tick of approval. Although council agreed to meet part of the costs, it took the community seven years to raise the balance. The complex houses two unisex toilets, with an exterior that features recycled kauri panelling and shotcrete walls, sandstone cobbles and marble tiles.the distinctive heads at the entrance were cast from fibreglass moulds. The toilets were declared officially open for business in 2009."

In a weeks time, I haven't had time to photograph all the resident animals yet. I'll introduce them as I take their portraits.

Snowy, the sulphur-crested cockatoo: Despite her ability to master an extensive vocabulary, she only uses two token words; "Ello" and "Scratch?" As you eat your meal at the nearby dining table she screeches and says "ello" until you feed her several pieces. For breakfast, she prefers toast with varied toppings.

The rescue 'chooks': These 10 ladies were saved from slaughter late Tuesday night before we arrived. They're having trouble adjusting and still peck at each other often. Comfort and happiness is on the way though, as soon as they adjust to the free range life they will start to grow back feathers, eat normally, and be given in groups to different welcoming homes.

The hallway aviary residents and Benji: Benji was rescued from a family that kept him locked in the basement indefinitely. Instead of being a meal for a Korean family he now perkily trots around the house, mostly looking for scraps. The first thing he does in the morning is beeline straight for Snowys cage looking for bits of food she dropped from her talons during one of her many snack times.

Bittern: A type of marsh dwelling bird (similar to a heron). This one was brought here on Monday with a broken leg, found on the side of the road by a family who are friends with Shawn and Michael. He raises his head, stretching out his neck to blend on with his marshy surroundings when approached by potential threats. When we approached the cage he was being kept in, he puffed up and menacingly wielded his beak at us with wide eyes.

The animal sanctuary has also been a Kelsey/Harley sanctuary! We have many of the comforts of home, and Shawn and Michael have been very accommodating. We have a free reign over the kitchen and are thus able to cook, bake, and brew at our own discretion. We've been busy making chewy gingersnap blackstrap molasses spice cookies, candied ginger fig bran muffins, silverbeet (aka Swiss chard) stir-fry from the garden, chai, and there are many things to come. 

They have a movie/exercise room with a row of machines and a very extensive DVD collection, so we've been keeping busy exercising while we embark on sweaty cinematic adventures when we have free time during this stormy spell. Over the past 4 days, it has been storming nonstop. High speed winds and constant rain have kept us trapped inside during both working time and free time. The storming is violent enough that many of the towns farther north from us have begun flooding and schools are closed. We have been keeping warm and cozy inside though with slippers, sweatpants, freshly-baked treats and many cups of tea. When it is animal feeding time, we suit up by layering warm clothing, pulling knit caps over our heads and ears, and stepping into hilariously baggy waterproof overpants and jackets, stepping into gumboots before we venture out into the torrential rainstorm.

The End of Oratia

Leaving Oratia today to head up north to Warkworth. It's been an enjoyable time here, but I'm eager for the change. The last week or so has been pretty mellow. Mostly reading books from the many shelves (Love in the Time of Cholera, Sleepers, and Girl with a Pearl Earring were the ones I managed to conquer). There's only a few places within walking distance of the house though. Reading on a grassy knoll in at a nearby field/Maori gradeschool/park was a semi-daily occurrence. The walk got us out of the house and in the sunshine. On the way there is a splendid little produce market that sells very cheap fruit and veggies - this became our favorite place to hunt for nutritious munchies and we walked the kilometer or so to get there quite often.

One morning, Monique's daughter Mischa drove us to Piha to explore while she surfed a few waves. She directed us toward a bush trek that leads you up to a waterfall.

Oratia has a lot of orchards, one which has been left mostly unattended that we began harvesting apples from. Made an apple dessert every night, and also started slipping it into breakfast foods whenever possible.

If I had previously thought that avocados were plentiful back home, I had no idea how numerous they could be! We have been feasting on avocados here. Considering that their creamy deliciousness was a huge treat back home, having a couple a day has me quite spoiled :]

Saturday was a festival in Auckland called Pasifika. It was a huge event - apparently more than 20,000 - at Western Springs Park, a beautiful oasis in a crowded city. 

This is a group of young men who played panpipes phenomenally. For many of them, coming to Pasifika was their first time leaving home.

Oratia, so far

We're currently in a magnificent place near Oratia, Glen Eden and Henderson. Our host Monique is unique because she's not a Kiwi. She's a Dutch woman who teaches High school French. She lives in an older farm house just enough off the beaten path to allow pleasures of the country (I.e. a huge backyard and plenty of privacy), but simultaneously within a decent proximity of little towns and even some city life.

Friday night she had a council meeting in Piha, so we got to tag along. The reputation of Piha is that of a killer surfing region and also one of the most dangerous rip tides on the Northern island. To the extent that they have a cheesy reality tv show depicting the almost daily scares of injured, lost, or drowning visitors.

Monique bought us dinner and beer at a local pub and hang out spot. For the duration of her meeting, we were left to our own devices. Took a walk down to the beach and hiked up to the lookout to see this infamous coastline.

Amused ourselves with attempting to deduce the rules of Rugby from a game that played on the television in the pub. A rough storm had blown in and kept us from continuing our explorations as the night crept in.

Saturday Monique took us to a local patisserie owned by a short little Swiss man. He actually worked out of the industrial district of Henderson and only opened his business for drop in once a week. The rest of the week, he wholesales his delicious pastries to the surrounding region.

Been doing a lot of garden work here. Only three hours a day instead of 6 (like at Fiona's), which is really nice. The garden resembles an old English style garden with really extensive paths. More like a labryrnth than anything else. When we weed an area it's almost unrecognizable. Keep finding crazy fungus and bugs here.

Mutant mosquitos here, I counted 30 bites on my right foot this morning. My calves and ankles are covered as well. More to come, I'm sure.

And the best thing about this new home is that Monique doesn't mind us playing around in her kitchen. So far we've made somosas, ginger soy stir fry, zucchini pancakes, fresh applesauce, chicken satay, and much more. And we've only been here for 4 days.

More cooking and adventures to come :-)

Back to Auckland

After our stay in Waiheke, a trip back through Auckland was necessary. Since our new host, Monique, is a French teacher at her local high school, we had until late afternoon to entertain ourselves. We hiked across the CBD, back to the Auckland domain, to see the greenhouses.

It was too magnificent for words, so I've just posted plenty of pictures to give the feeling of it. There were two greenhouses, just across a courtyard from each other. And behind there was a Fernery, absolutely full of lush ferns. It was cool and damp inside of there. Reminded me a lot of walking through Armstrong Redwoods and trekking around my home when I've lived in Occidental.

Took the train West from the Britomart in the CBD.

Off to our next destination!