Category: Pacific

I think I’ve fallen in love. I vowed to be very cautious about forming new relationships in the aftermath of losing my partner of 44 years and leaving Hawai’i. I’ve been traveling most of the time for the past 14 months, and met many interesting people and seen some beautiful and unusual places. Yet I’m very aware that there is the phenomenon of ‘falling in love’ and that it is not the same as ‘being in love’. Jung is my main advisor on this topic. This leads me to be especially cautious about the exuberance and enthusiasm of new love. I will in due course tell you all about The Object of My Affection (we’ll call her TOMA for short for the moment). You may wonder why I am being uncharacteristicly verbose, or perhaps if you don’t know me, whether I’m getting paid by the word to write this. I’m not getting paid a dime for this, trust me. The purpose of this verbosity is to not reveal the identity of TOMA in the first screen you see, and thus maintain a bit of suspense about TOMA.

TOMA has many lovely qualities. She is exceptionally beautiful, with a warmth we often only find in the tropics. There is a calm and and unspoiled quality about her that is endearing. My dear partner Judy had an unusual quality: whenever you were near her, you were in a zone of peaceful happiness that was contagious. TOMA has a similar effect. If you come under her spell, you find you want to stay and get to know her much better. The problem I’m having is whether this will turn out to be just an infatuation that will pass. I’m just not sure yet, so I’m being cautious about committing.

If you’ve stayed with me this long, you deserve to meet TOMA. So here is the first of many pictures of her: (tab down a bit to begin)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TOMA is Northland, the most northerly section of The North Island of New Zealand. Northland is the warmest part of New Zealand, and parts of it are considered to be subtropical. As you will see in the pictures to follow, there are a myriad of beaches and picturesque rocky islets and points, fringed by lush green ferny forests. It is very easy to fall in love with Northland, if you love ocean, beaches, forests and pristine natural areas. It does not exceed Hawai’i in natural beauty, but rather is equally beautiful in a different kind of way.

Less than 4% of the people of New Zealand live in Northland, and half of these are clustered around Whangarei. The result is that other than around a few popular beach village areas, it is lightly populated.

I was led to Northland by my Kiwi family. Katherine, Jeremy, Haley and William invited me to come up with them to their ‘shed’ west of Matapouri. It is about 3 hours drive north of Auckland. Though New Zealand is quite varied in climate zones, I still was surprised to find how different the subtropical climate was such a short drive north. Driving north down under is the same as driving south in the northern hemisphere.

‘Wellington’ Beach (Whangaumu Bay), where I took my first swim. Brrr! Much cooler than Hawai’i, but very pretty. Nothing a 5mm wetsuit would not cure.

The many little coves make for nice mooring spots. Many Kiwis are avid sailors, and you see many keel yachts here, and motor yachts, too. Canoeing and paddle boarding are popular, and I would love to be able to sail a one person boat, such as a Laser, here.

New Zealand has lots of indigenous trees, and so walking here is a natural history experience.

The deep red blossom of the Kiwi ‘Christmas Tree’, (Metrosideros excelsa, or pōhutukawa) has a short flowering season, peaking in mid to late December.

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Tane Moana, the biggest remaining Kauri tree in Northland, is more than 11 meters (36 feet) in circumference. It must be more than 500 years old, perhaps 1,000. The oldest Kauri in NZ is estimated to be 2500-3000 years old!

The Kauri are impressive!

Whangerwai Falls from Mel Malinowski on Vimeo.

No place is perfect. NZ has sandflies, which are annoying. It can rain any time of the year. Electricity is almost as expensive as on the Big Island of Hawaii. Americans are considered by some to be an annoying invasive species (some kidding there, some reality).The Chinese have discovered NZ and are bidding up real estate prices, so they may be in a bit of a property price bubble. However, it has none of the poisonous critters so numerous in Australia, and much to recommend it.

I’ve decided to not buy any land in Northland (just yet), but rather to come back for a month in the future to get to know it better. At the very least, it is an exceptionally interesting place to visit. You could do worse than spend their warmest summer weather time, January through March, here. And most tourists have gone by March, so that would me my month of choice.

 

This post is a photo collage of Auckland and other North Island places I have visited. New Zealand is an exceptionally green place, which is due to rather frequent rains. It can rain any time of year, and does, sometimes more than once in a day.

I soaked in a natural hot creek south of Rotorua with a group of German backpackers.

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In 1982-83, we hosted a girl from Auckland for a year. We have visited them in NZ twice before, and this year I’m joining them for a ‘Kiwi Christmas’. Here, Katherine and family are sharing Christmas Eve dinner with me. As you can see, the food is good and colorful. I love visiting their family.

Dessert was ‘Summer Pudding’, which is raspberry-infused bread pudding with whipped cream. Yummy!

For Christmas Day, we went over to Katherine’s parents, who live in another part of Auckland, for family dinner.

Kiwi Christmas is a bit different, in that it happens in at the equivalent of the end of May weather. As is typical Auckland weather, we had some blue sky and fluffy clouds, and then some clouds. Much of Katherine’s family came, and we had a delicious Christmas dinner.

The following day, I drove 3 hours north from Auckland to the ‘Northland’ area.

Lots of little coves like this and sandy beaches, very pretty. I’d love to sail here, lots of bays to anchor in. The water is rather chilly, perhaps 65F or so, but clean and inviting, so I had a swim.

 

Returning to North Island, I began my first explorations there.

About 3 hours drive south of Auckland lies Matamata, a big lush green valley that is mostly farm pastureland. This area was the setting for The Hobbit movies, and some of those sets were preserved and now are the popular theme park ‘Hobbiton’. More than half a million people tour ‘The Shire’ every year. I like the books more than the movies, and decided to skip the rather expensive ($79NZD) tour.

A hobbit-like playhouse in the yard of the lovely AirBnB place I stayed at Kaimai Sunset B&B.

When I expressed an interest in learning to fly and getting a private pilot’s license, my pilot friend Rob Baker suggested gliding as an alternative that has all the fun of flying without the expensive impracticalities of part-time motor flying. I figured out that I would have time in the spring of 2017 to do this in a very favorable location (Arizona), and discovered that there was a gliding club in central North Island New Zealand where I could try out soaring and see if I have the knack and enjoy it. I contacted the Matamata, NZ Piako Gliding Club, and scheduled an introductory flight, as well as five more that are allowed thereafter. The club members were friendly and welcoming, and it was a privilege to spend time with them and hear their stories. They even invited me to a no-host dinner they have before a board meeting.

Modern gliders are sleek and beautiful.

The cockpit is very form-fitting. No room for claustrophobia!

Tauranga Gliding Club is another, nearby club. Perhaps they bought this glider from them.

Yes, the wings are long!

There are fewer instruments in a glider than a motor plane. The ones of most interest are the altimeter at the top right. This one needs a minor adjustment to the field altitude of about 180 feet. The airspeed indicator is the next most important dial, as you must go fast enough so you don’t ‘stall’ (quit flying and drop like a stone), and yet not fly so fast that you exceed the structural strength of the glider and tear the wings off. In practice, it’s not so hard to stay in the safe zone. And then there is the ‘variometer’, which tells you with audio signals whether you are gaining altitude within the airmass you are flying in. It allows you to recognize areas of thermal or other lift, which are essential to staying aloft, as you don’t have an engine (in most gliders). No lift, short flight. You will hear it beeping in the video.

The rudder pedals are under the dashboard, and they control the rudder on the tail which makes the plane ‘yaw’ or turn. The stick in the middle controls your ailerons on the wings, which raise or lower each wing and help you turn, as well as controlling the speed of the glider by tilting the nose up or down. You need to learn to use the ailerons and rudder together in a co-ordinated fashion in order to efficiently turn the glider.

Here we are up at 2,450 feet altitude above mean sea level (which is 2,270 feet above ground level here), circling in order to stay in some rising air. The piece of yarn on the outside of the canopy is very important. It tells you whether you are flying straight into the wind. If it tilts top to the left, it means you are turned a bit too far to the left, and need to add in some right rudder. You learn to use the horizon as your speed guide, as you don’t really want to look down at the speed gauge too much. If you keep the same angle as you see here to the horizon, your speed stays steady. Lower the nose relative to the horizon, and you speed up.

Learning to fly is like learning to drive, but in 3 dimensions. At first, you are overwhelmed by all there is to do at once. With practice, as with driving, the basics become automatic, and your attention is freed to scan the dials as needed, and more importantly, look around you to make sure you don’t run into another aircraft! In just 6 flights, I am beginning to get the feel of this, but it is clear I need many more hours aloft in order to get good enough at it so I can safely go up on my own, alone. I have made plans to do this in Maricopa, Arizona in April.

Some of you who have not done this may wonder: is it scary? The answer is, for me, not at all. I have no fear of heights, perhaps due to my experience rock climbing. I like being up high, and find any bouncing around in turbulence fun rather than scary. It is a beautiful feeling to roll the glider into a turn, and climb in a column of invisible rising air. There is no amusement park ride to equal this. I look forward to becoming fluid at it, and then soaring with the hawks gracefully.

On my last flight, we caught good lift, and were up for 61 minutes. I was in control flying the glider for about half of that time, climbing in the thermals. We flew 64 miles in that hour, and gained about 3800 feet in thermals. It was a BLAST!

This is a GPS track of our flight using Motion-X GPS app. The spiraling is where we are climbing in a thermal. Then we’d go to below another cloud looking for lift.

The total ascent includes the tow to 2,000 feet AGL. Subtract that, and you get what we gained riding up on thermal lift.

Here is are a couple of videos that show our gliding in action:

soaring from Mel Malinowski on Vimeo.

This video shows our tow up to 2,000 feet AGL (above ground level) which is at a speed of about 70 knots (80 mph), and then some climbing in a thermal. The beeping you hear is the variometer. Higher pitched tones mean you are climbing. Lower or no tones mean you are not climbing, or descending. This particular glider normally descends at about 200 feet per minute in still air. So you need to climb at least that much per minute in order to stay up, or more if you want to build up reserve in order to fly between areas of lift.

A glider trailer. Apparently, when you buy a glider, you usually buy the trailer too and it comes in the trailer, some assembly required.

Reassembling Glider from Mel Malinowski on Vimeo.

This video shows a glider being reassembled. The experienced pilot flew this high performance glider to the north, believing he could find enough lift in order to fly around and then come back. Unfortunately, there was little lift where he was, and he had to land the glider in a ‘paddock’ or pasture. There are lots of them in this area, and the farmers are friendly and allow the retrieval of gliders. So a couple of his friends in the club hooked up the glider trailer, and drove 20 km to where he had landed. They took the wings and horizontal stabilizer from the tail off, put the glider in the trailer and brought it all back to the field. The wing has a structural beam that plugs into the body of the glider, and snaps securely into place. It only takes 10-15 minutes to reassemble the glider so it is ready to fly again.

 

SoaringTakeOff from Mel Malinowski on Vimeo.

A takeoff, and a landing.

More on soaring when I do my flight training in Arizona next spring.

 

Heading even further south, I set about walking the Humpridge Track.

You begin by hiking along the coast.

These are BIG old Rimu trees.

A Kiwi couple from Wanaka, South Island, that I met along the trail.

 

After 8 hours of strenuous climbing, I reached Okaka Lodge, perched high atop Humpridge.

On the ridge top above Okaka lodge are some dramatic weathered rocks and tarns

As you leave Okaka Lodge heading toward Port Craig, you descend through a gnarled forest area they call ‘The Magic Forest’

After dropping down off Humpridge, you walk along the railroad grade built during the brief logging activity in this area from 1916 till 1928. There are several very high viaducts that have been preserved to walk across.

After returning from the Humpridge tramp, I went down to the southern-most part of The South Island, the town of Bluff. Near there, at a beach I watched small penguin walk slowly up the sand. You know you’re pretty far south when you begin to see penguins!

 

Yellow-eyed Penguin walking in New Zealand from Mel Malinowski on Vimeo.

Heading further south, I decided to go spend a night at remote Waitutu Lodge. There are no roads in this area, so the most common way to get here is to take a jetboat from Lake Hauroko down the river to the coast.

Along the way, Johan stopped to tell us about the natural history of this unusual area.

After a very bumpy and exciting high speed trip, we arrived at the coast.

That is $35 NZ Dollars, which is about $24 USD. You can get linen and towels for $20NZD extra. Very good value. This lodge was built by local people over many years, largely by hand due to the remote location.

Rose and Pete are charming and helpful hosts.

Waitutu Lodge is the work of this group, who have preserved this primordial forest area.

The large amounts of tannin in the water of this fern and old growth Rimu trees make it dark red/brown.

Further along the jungly South Coast Track is one of the most basic cable bridges, a ‘wire bridge’ consisting of just 3 wires. It’s your responsibility to not slip off the bottom wire and fall into the river. More fun than an amusement park!

The Tasman Sea

Walking in this primeval forest made me think of the iconic images in the movie Avatar.

It also led me to write this short poem in my head while hiking there:

I so often hug a tree,
Pull it right inside of me,
Share its tall tranquility,
Yearn for such simplicity.

It drinks the earth, it breathes the sky,
It builds a tower way up high,
Up where the clouds go floating by,
Untroubled by the question: why?

While I go rushing ’round below,
Thinking there’s so much to know,
New places that I have to go,
Ideas that I have to try.

The ancient forest calls to me,
It says we all came from the sea,
Long before humanity,
And metal birds we use to fly.

We live together but alone,
In cities made of steel and stone,
Forgotten is our wild home.
There I found some clarity:

When I lay me down, you see,
The earth can make a tree of me,
In harmony we then will be,
Alone, together, family.