Ross and Wyn Davies Travel Blog

What is it with mountains? With rivers, islands and most geographical features the name comes first i.e. Cook River, Cook Islands, Cook Strait etc. But with mountains, the ‘Mt’ bit comes first i.e. Mt Cook. Why isn’t it Cook Mountain? Who decided these things? Was there a committee? You probably hadn’t thought about this so I’m worrying about it for you. In the middle of Mangere suburb is Mangere Mountain. Not Mt Mangere but Mangere Mountain. It sounds bigger and more significant, with some mystery and mana. It has craters and fortifications. Continue reading →

Wednesday was a 29^th of February, that 4-yearly rarity. We only wanted to move home – not far, sort of just across the Manukau Harbour. Except nothing in Auckland is that simple. We (alright I) spent too much morning mucking around and by the time we’d visited the nearby dump station the afternoon was well advanced and rush-hour traffic was upon us. The plan was to travel separately, Wyn in the car following close behind me in Suzi truck. I had Nev the Navman with his 2007 maps and his fixation with motorways. Nev is oblivious to 5 years of rapid motorway development in Auckland – which makes navigation a lot more exciting. Continue reading →

Monday 27 February was Chill-Out-in-Henderson Day for us. Tuesday we launched ourselves at Waiheke Island. I’d been there overnight about 15 years ago and Wyn hadn’t. We figured a day’s exploring was in order. We caught the train in from Henderson and just had enough time to make the 10am ferry from downtown. So had everyone else – it was a popular ferry. The boat zooms along – fast enough to create a bit of windchill and thin out the tourist numbers outside. It only took about 40 minutes to the island, and the bay we arrived in was sunny and calm. Continue reading →

Friday 24 February we were still at Ambury Farm Park at Mangere Bridge in Auckland. We went for a drive to Manukau, among other things to get a city map from the AA that covered Manukau. We needed something to balance our car GPS (Nev the Nav)which was running on 2007 maps! We discovered subsequently that the map we got from the AA was 2009! 3-year old maps of Auckland are not helpful given the changes since then with motorways especially. It rained a lot that day and we visited a big mall in Manukau and eventually found our way safely home to Ambury Park. Continue reading →

Tuesday last week we met up at the nice Countdown car park near the Auckland airport. (Being homeless we appreciate things like thoughtful car parks.) And then spent a while working out where we might go for the night. (Being homeless we often devote time to contemplating where we’ll sleep that night.) And settled on Ambury Farm Park – one of the Auckland Regional Council’s many regional parks. Ambury Park is close to the airport, and is nicely located close to the Manukau Harbour. Booking in by phone resulted in us getting a year pass and vowing to use more of the parks over the autumn and winter. Continue reading →