News ‘n’ views of GBI Greetings on The Day Out of Time We hope you’ve been cosy, warm and happy as winter settled in and now begins to wane. The winter here has been great, with enough sun to keep the house warm most days and the solar power ticking along nicely, and enough rain to fill the tank. It’s a windy island with ever-changing weather, sunshine to storm and back again. High winds sometimes get the house shaking. One day we had a wicked thunderstorm topped off by a bout of hail and another day a brief torrential downpour, like every drop was a barrelful. Our intimacy with the weather and the sea has led to keeping these wind and wave scales handy (below the photos). I love the descriptive terminology! Who’d have thought “near gale” is just a small step up from “strong breeze”? After our swim a few days ago, driving over Sugarloaf Hill between Medlands and Kaitoke, we saw the best rainbow ever, so amazing it needed a new name, beyond rainbow, just like the ancient kauri trees of Northland go beyond what we think of as trees. Its colours were surreally vivid, intense, deep, glowing, each one distinctly differentiated, all forming a wide, complete and perfect arc, CLOSE and LARGE. I grabbed the camera but there was nowhere to pull over. Ro stopped the car right in the road! Another car came along behind us whose driver wasn’t quite as interested, so I never got the photo. We stopped at the top of the hill but by then the glory was fading. We said, if nothing else happened the entire week, that would be enough. At Kaitoke Beach we've seen small bits of rainbows in the spray the wind blows off the breaking waves. Krishnamurti said that God is colour. GBI is great place for rainbow lovers! One day we left mid-morning and went up north, over a few saddles with the mountains ever closer to our north, then our west, and finally to our south. We continued past the Okiwi Passion market garden, run by the lovely Gerald and Caity (photos below) and up to four WWOOFers at a time. This was the furthest we’d been before, 40 minutes from where we’re staying. We drove to Port Fitzroy, the northern port, and to the road-end past it, which is also a carpark for treks in the mountains. We were surprised to discover sizeable kauri trees along a path to the bay! On to Orama Christian Community (and nonsectarian resort!) at another road end on the west coast (photo below), then back over to Whangapoua Bay on the ocean side for the most blissful swim ever, seriously. A lot of superlatives happen on GBI, it seems! Whangapoua is the vastest and most spectacular beach here (possibly tied with Kaitoke) with Arid/Rakitu Island offshore. Photos below, but the beach is much bigger than my photos can show. We explored to the ends of the only other two roads in North Barrier. We saw very few dwellings up there (no wonder!), next to nothing except paddocks and bush. All of that and we arrived back home just after dark (which in July would be before 6 pm) – total 100 km. That little yellow car we bought from Grant L before he returned to Oz has become our claim to fame here, without us doing anything but driving in it! We’re continually surprised that people know our names and yellow car, though we know relatively few people’s names and cars! We’re keeping a list of everyone we meet. We’re up to 91 — a bit more than 10 percent! This, we learned, is a flounder. You can see why they're classed as flatfish – through the rippling water they almost look like small skates or rays. They sit flat on the sea bottom in the shallows at the southern end of Medlands, where a small stream enters, so as we walk in we sometimes see them swimming off, fins fluttering, or even touch one with a foot. This is so unexpected I won’t even tell you what it’s about, though the link address gives a clue: www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/201763050/great-barrier-pandemic-scenario\ A few weeks ago Ro and I celebrated 43 beautiful years of being together. We're carrying on caring for one another, seeking out interesting and enriching pursuits, growing some food, making a contribution, however small, and doing our best to enjoy each moment and every day, at the same time seeking within to try to manifest the best future for our remaining – what – years, decades – who knows? On to the photos! This is Gerald at the Saturday morning market at Tryphena. He’s really not fuzzy. Unfortunately I hadn’t switched my camera to normal mode after taking a close-up! And this is Caity, with Meri and Cullen, deep into getting the order sorted for the North Barrier Coop, which orders in bulk from Ceres once a month. We joined the coop soon after arriving. Here are a few more of our favourite locals. Lovely Saskia at our place, who makes the most gorgeous soaps and other skin care products: aoteaembrace.co.nz Lorraine, the owner of Pigeon Post gift shop and post office contractor. You won’t find a nicer person anywhere! From our North Barrier exploration.... Whangapoua Beach with Rakitu/Arid Island Southern end of Whangapoua Beach Karaka Bay from Orama Christian Community Closer to home... Great Barrier Air arriving at Claris from Auckland GBI’s Trash Palace!! Behind the medical centre at Claris, very informal.
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