Striving for Light

It’s Sunday and our last day here is Wednesday.  I can start to feel the tearing of life about the change.  My mind wanders more towards home and all that is there waiting for me.  We’re working hard to resist the tearing and the tug.  It’s hard though because we are feeling the deadline.  It’s less of living in the moment.  Many decisions have to consider the pressing future.  How much can we reasonably enjoy in this short period?  Are we going to be able to eat all this food?  Oooo – will all this fit in suitcases to take home????

After farms of sheep, cows and deer, here was a surprise.  You’ve heard of pink elephants – here you have pink sheep.  ;-0     Straight to you from Sheepworld in Warkworth.                                 We were able to see more Kauri trees further north in Whangarei at the AH Reed Park.  This description was on one of the displays:

Te Kauri

O Te Iwi Tane Mahuta

Karui are a self supporting

life support system

they have

gardens in their branches

an extraordinary stalk

and delicate fibres down below

They start out as one of many

small flat seeds

travel 20 to 30 metres

from a round she-cone

in autumn on a good day

They give rise to two tiny leaves

striving for light

turning to gangly stalk

with many more

before a hundred years

of looking awkward

Kauri are a patient plant

they are shapely at a century

with a pyramid of leaves aloft

and branches that reach out

into the canopy before they move out

and take in lodgers

Insects in tens of millions over time

amoungst a mass of mosses and lichens

an entire worlds of epiphytes

and the likes of lizards and birds

dropping in the compost

or shedding with the bark or odd-branch

down around the ground

a mound of pukahu or thick mulch

stacked to a great height over hundreds of years

colonize in places by kauri grass astelia

a lily as a saving grace

for minding the roots

These are a few hundred years old unlike yesterday’s young ones.We ended the day in Russell on an evening cruise in the Bay of Islands on the R Tucker Thompson.  She was built to train youth in Russell in the ways of sailing.  The proceeds of the trip go to funding the training.  These kids get to live on the boat for 7 days at a time.  This ship is 21 years old, has sailed 145,000 nautical miles over 7 oceans to visit 61 ports.  In those 21 years there have been 14 ship masters, 797 sail trainees and 67,500 passengers.  For this evening it was ours.                                                                    We were invited to be part of the crew.  We both helped in hoisting a couple of the sails.  We did fly all of them that night – all 6…We were then given freedom to explore the ship.  Here I am climbing up the rigging and James out on the bowspit.  We were having so much fun with the boat that I can honestly say that we didn’t take any pictures of the bay – we’ll do better tomorrow!  I think we’re still pretty much here despite all the thoughts on Wednesday.  We at least can still lose ourselves!

For more pics, try these:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jjpeavey2/20100110JRP?feat=directlink

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