TheBanyanTree: Close observation of the kiwis on their own ground

[Indiglow]

Clicking the "like" button.
Jana

--- On Fri, 2/11/11, Peter Macinnis <petermacinnis at ozemail.com.au> wrote:


From: Peter Macinnis <petermacinnis at ozemail.com.au>
Subject: TheBanyanTree: Close observation of the kiwis on their own ground
To: "A comfortable place to meet other people and exchange your own *original* writings." <thebanyantree at lists.remsset.com>
Date: Friday, February 11, 2011, 12:20 AM


We have just been in centres that are sulfurous, trotting around bubbling gloopy boiling mud, wandering safely past sullen geysers, tiptoeing past wisps of steam emerging from bushes and contrary to safety instructions, dabbling hands close to hot water that might have been boiling, but only after close and careful observation of things like insects on the water's surface.  Some of them were hopping around happily on water that was just too hot for comfort, around 65C, about 150 F.  Such is the training given to science undergrads when we were young and thermometers were expensive.

Our daughter advised us against staying in Rotorua, on account of the sulfur smell.  What a good daughter she is!  We swam in lake Taupo afterwards: it draws water from the snowfields of an active volcano called Mt Ruapehu: the water ought to be freezing, but thermally warmed and sulfur-free water oozes in on the edges of the lake, making it around 21 Celsius, around 70 F.  Not bad for 37 south and 360 metres up.

No matter, we are back in Auckland, having driven up from Taupo this morning, stopping in Cambridge for breakfast.  This is my third Cambridge, and I am thinking of collecting them, but I don't know whether to keep them in cages or just to press them and store them in an album.  We had stopped there for lunch on the way down, and were heading for the same place when we were side-tracked by a place that looked nice and had a courtyard in the sun.

Getting there had entailed a lot of driving on the "Old Taupo Road", past sunny green hills covered in Friesian cattle--we can't get over with how close together they can pack them here and not destroy the pasture.  Bends and corners were the order of the day, and much of the country could have passed for Britain.

We also drove between the Waikato River and a massive fault escarpment, and noticed that they still have an active civil defence organisation here, mainly to deal with matters seismic.  Auckland is completely pocked with old volcanic craters which were mapped in 1859 by a chap named Hochstetter, who is an interest of mine, because back then, Austria had a navy, and he arrived on 'Novara', and obtained permission to stay for a while.  He got around, because at Orakei Korako yesterday, we saw "Hochstetter's Cauldron", and he left his name and that of his emperor on glaciers in the South Island of New Zealand.

Anyhow, I digress.  The cafe that we chose had a marvellous collection of teapots:teapots in the shapes of elephants, Friesian and other cows, sheep, cottages, decorated pots with flowers and many more.  From another list, I have learned that while we, the British and the New Zealanders all make tea in teapots, many Americans call the thing they boil the water in "a teapot".

We and kiwis heat our water in a "jug", meaning a hot water jug.  The originals were ceramic and had a wound-wire coiled element that could be removed and replaced, or when it broke, could be stretched so the two ends could be tangled.  Being a bit shorter, it drew more current and so boiled faster, and in the end, it began to blow fuses, and had to be replaced.  It was a great way for youngsters to learn the basic of electricity--luckily, the jug could not be opened to access the works until the power cord was removed.

That said, Chris and I and many of our generation will speak of putting the billy on.  The billy is the traditional Australian quart-can used to make tea in, and named for the Scots "billypot", they tell us.  Most foreigners these days only encounter it in 'Waltzing Matilda', but the name travelled over the Tasman to New Zealand.

Australia has creeks in the American sense, because we obtained the name from those in the First Fleet with American experience--some of the soldiers, some of the convicts, quite a few of the naval people.  Given that New Zealand was settled from Australia, we expected to find creeks here as well, and we did, indeed, find a creek today, but most of the small water courses are called something like Waikikamukau Stream or Polyputaketalon Stream.

No, neither of those is real, but they are not unlike the real names.

Tonight, we demolished a nasty prickly rose bush that has been trapping the grandkids: I cut the stems off, one by one and snipped them into small bits, suitable for wrapping and binning. Brianna, now almost four, has a strong interest in living things, and was fascinated by the spiders that came off the rose onto the snipping table.  She was enraptured when I found a small praying mantis and slipped it into my pooter, a small insect catcher, generally used for sucking up (without inhaling) very small animals, though at a pinch, it can be used to imprison larger beasties.  It will stay there overnight, be photographed in the morning light, and then, she has told me, she will let it go.

The genes are holding up.

-- peter macinnis
Auckland, in the North Island of New Zealand