tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-146772432008-10-08T11:11:19.289+13:00Pete lives in the Pohangina Valley, Aotearoa/New Zealand and writes about mountains and mountaineering, rockclimbing, photography, Aotearoa-NZ, natural history, people, travelling, thinking, a wee bit of politics, life in general and a swag of other stuff. Lots of photos, too.pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comBlogger125125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-53489512151092813462008-09-29T20:05:00.000+13:002008-09-29T20:09:41.229+13:002008-09-29T20:09:41.229+13:00

A pair of magpies [1] flashes across the edge of the paddock, the black and white a brilliant, swift streak of contrast, of non-colour, against the dull yellowish-greens, taupes, and greys of the overcast day. The birds arc around a pair of startled lambs, veer up towards the old apple, dive behind a manuka, and disappear below the terrace. A minute later one bird reappears, flying straight over

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-84235828541068419902008-09-15T12:00:00.000+12:002008-09-15T12:01:06.629+12:002008-09-15T12:01:06.629+12:00

He’s twenty-one years old. He still hunts, patrols the fencelines, and is adept at extracting morsels from rubbish bags. His hearing, although not as good as it once was at recognising commands like, “Get outta there!” or “Get off the table ya mongrel!”, shows no signs of diminished ability to hear a fridge door opening or the rattle of dry cat food poured into a china bowl. It occurs to me

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-30615923906123073012008-09-07T11:26:00.010+12:002008-09-12T11:28:20.340+12:002008-09-12T11:28:20.340+12:00

A magpie warbles behind the sheds; starlings scuffle in the box surrounding the header tank (they're nesting there, as usual). The monotonous cheep of sparrows; a whoosh of wings as a kereru swoops over the paddock where blackbirds and thrushes peer and tug at worms. Something hops on the iron roof and the dogs whine and bark. Only the kahu remains silent, floating in the early morning sky,

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-61903272954906104002008-08-29T16:00:00.001+12:002008-08-29T16:02:20.091+12:002008-08-29T16:02:20.091+12:00

In the front paddock a kāhu stands in the rain, tearing at an afterbirth. Tugging at the membrane, from time to time stopping and raising its head to check for danger. Bending again over its work. It's usually there at the end of a life — the shot possum; the road-crushed hedgehog a mess of guts and spines; the car-struck silvereye tumbled along the tarmac, feathers blowing away like life — but

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-66586108616706950452008-08-21T19:00:00.001+12:002008-08-21T19:01:11.417+12:002008-08-21T19:01:11.417+12:00

"And now for something completely different..." Here's something I wrote four or five years ago for an in-house newsletter when I worked for a large science research organisation. Warning!! This is not for the squeamish, nor for those who believe eating animals is morally reprehensible. "There are things he stretched, but mostly he told the truth." —Mark Twain [1] It's Tuesday, so we eat Phil’s

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-4096482239156797762008-08-18T12:00:00.001+12:002008-08-18T12:08:18.113+12:002008-08-18T12:08:18.113+12:00

More sketches from Nepal, early last year ... Saturday 17 March 2007 I ate at the Bella Napoli again in the evening, sitting at one of the tables next to the footpath. The middle-aged French couple I met several times on the trek walked past, and in a spontaneous act of bonhomie, I called out, “Bonjour!” It probably should have been “Bon soir!” but it was enough. I think they had even less

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-83613346878426709802008-08-13T11:40:00.002+12:002008-08-13T11:42:37.128+12:002008-08-13T11:42:37.128+12:00

The Hawkes Bay Today warned of a dangerous storm on the way. Be prepared to look after yourself for 72 hours, it said. No electricity; watch out for storm surges along the coast and be prepared for broken windows; have the gas barbecue handy. But when we left Flounder Bay the storm still hadn't arrived and we drove through an eerie, heavily overcast morning; calm, ominous, oppressive. Then

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-69569835184436001622008-08-05T22:15:00.002+12:002008-08-05T22:31:58.970+12:002008-08-05T22:31:58.970+12:00

"...the table rose into the air and headed south with pancakes, jam, fruit and flowers, punch and sweets, and also the Muskrat's book which he had left on the corner. “Hi!” said the Muskrat. “Now I should like my book spirited back again please.” “Right!” said the Hobgoblin. “Here you are, sir!” “On the Usefulness of Everything,” read the Muskrat. “But this is the wrong book. The one I had was

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-82740059499615189102008-07-28T18:20:00.001+12:002008-07-28T18:20:01.065+12:002008-07-28T18:20:01.065+12:00

This is what Tony would term a 'cup-holder' post — something to keep you interested while a more substantial post remains in gestation. The picture is a version of what Wordle does to the last paragraph of my post about Kileshwar, Gujarat. The size of the words is proportional to how often they appear in the input text. The colours and layout are not proportional to anything, but can be chosen

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-20336636122947708952008-07-19T09:20:00.002+12:002008-07-19T09:22:34.908+12:002008-07-19T09:22:34.908+12:00

This is the world now. Without leaves with herons grey and craning high in branches like omens over winter water; a hawk turning, turning, in dull distant air above a ridgeline a cold wire fence the desiccated heads of old dead weeds. The world now is a pair of yellowhammers each on its own post then gone slipping sideways off on the elsewhere wind. The world now is plovers stepping in damp

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-86482408284421588102008-06-17T23:23:00.003+12:002008-07-28T11:59:59.139+12:002008-07-28T11:59:59.139+12:00

If the Himalaya hotel is, in a sense, abandoned, it will be only for a matter of hours. On the way down we meet several trekkers coming up the the trail. One asks whether we've been to ABC. No, I tell him, bad weather, too much snow, too dangerous because of the avalanches. “F**k!” he says. A New Zealand accent [1]. We chat briefly, then Kamal and I continue hurrying on down, passing all the

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-13795328992589944142008-06-07T19:05:00.000+12:002008-06-07T19:09:41.206+12:002008-06-07T19:09:41.206+12:00

I suppose I should continue writing up my notes from my overseas travel in 2006–7. So, here, in much abbreviated form, are sketches from my time in Nepal. Thursday 8 March 2007 At Kanti Path bus stand the hawker tries hard to sell me things I've already bought from someone else. He drops his price for a Snickers bar to 80 Nepalese rupees. “You have 100?” he asks. “I give you change.” Of course,

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-15554957114568583032008-05-16T21:25:00.001+12:002008-05-16T21:31:56.885+12:002008-05-16T21:31:56.885+12:00

Amelie looks out the window, at the ominous cloud, the strengthening wind, the spray whipped back from the breaking surf. “It's looking threatening,” she says. A few minutes later the rain begins; a squall, a wild wind from the South. The last surfers scurry from the beach back to their car; a fisherman joins them, rod and bucket in hand. The beach is left to the birds, the surf, the weather, the

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-2375902647997707622008-05-09T19:25:00.003+12:002008-05-09T19:31:29.512+12:002008-05-09T19:31:29.512+12:00

CephalopodCalled spineless but the structure of your eye’s like ours the brain too complex admittedly alien with other solutions. You speak in colours but we refuse to listen deny the sense of kin though we too communicate with the sense of skin. Few touch you and you touch few. For the most part your parts serve us as we serve you. We consider youa delicacy. Notes: 1. A poem from 2001.

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-27372950568805775722008-05-07T16:30:00.001+12:002008-05-07T16:34:45.575+12:002008-05-07T16:34:45.575+12:00

Contrary to what you might have believed, neither the blog nor I have terminated. I trust we'll both be around for some time yet (and not with the Oates connotations). My knee's slowly coming right; it's nothing serious, but I have no intention of aggravating the injury by doing too much too soon. The hills have been out of bounds, but they'd have been infested with people (many with rifles) for

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-48078054857108301732008-03-31T22:20:00.004+13:002008-05-08T07:42:09.404+12:002008-05-08T07:42:09.404+12:00

Paua[1], alive, hide beneath their camouflage; the brilliant, swirling blues and greens and purples pressed against that wet, black body on the inside of the shell are revealed only after the animal dies, when only that shell remains, stripped of the living animal. In life, the iridescence has no function—at least, none known to us. But who, on picking up the empty shell for the first time,

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-50841037639700733302008-03-13T14:55:00.002+13:002008-05-07T20:42:38.213+12:002008-05-07T20:42:38.213+12:00

I returned from the Ruahine on Monday afternoon after 4 days; before then I'd been home for 2 nights after having been in the Ruahine for three nights. Seven of nine nights: not a bad session in a place I love, I reckon. I'm a bit worn out, though, and my right knee's playing up, so I'm popping voltaren and looking forward to taking it easy for a wee while — at least until I head South at Easter.

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-398285306715358672008-02-26T21:30:00.001+13:002008-02-26T21:36:54.636+13:002008-02-26T21:36:54.636+13:00

As I mentioned in a recent response to Miguel, things seem ridiculously busy for me as someone with a supposedly relaxed way of life—hence the long hiatus between posts. I've been collecting ideas, but last weekend I drove South to stay with my older brother on Friday evening, spend Saturday photographing and catching up with friends at the Baring Head Rock Hop, enjoy another evening with J, and

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-31915194470706933982008-02-05T15:30:00.000+13:002008-02-05T15:28:36.735+13:002008-02-05T15:28:36.735+13:00

In a grey dawn threatening rain the dogs howl and yelp, a kind of lament for confinement, a note of resignation in the song as if the protest nevertheless acknowledges the ineluctable way of life of a farm dog—a few hours of ecstatic running over steep hills, chasing sheep and practising the selective deafness that allows them to ignore whistled commands and shouted curses just to the point of

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-34990770649283034042008-01-18T12:15:00.000+13:002008-01-18T12:12:20.774+13:002008-01-18T12:12:20.774+13:00

No, I haven't forgotten how to write right. The words are the conclusion of a post I wrote just over two years ago; the image is based on a recent photo of rapids in a small gorge in the Pohangina River. I don't know how to label this. It's not a photo; "image" is too wishy-washy; "artwork" too pretentious. Moreover, it probably benefits from a little explanation, even if the explanation's

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-51151260944978178832008-01-16T22:50:00.000+13:002008-01-16T22:48:58.971+13:002008-01-16T22:48:58.971+13:00

Hone Tuwhare died today. As was the case with Ed Hillary, I'd been bracing myself for this for some time. I wrote this poem a few years ago. Tuwhare's Mussel what words could ever say what you ask for. for him. it’s worse than wrenching winter mussels from wild rocks wet fingers numb, cut and the sea saying one day, one day mate i’ll claim y’ back. fed you all these years the

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-49259370759830701582008-01-12T18:05:00.000+13:002008-01-12T18:04:21.836+13:002008-01-12T18:04:21.836+13:00

Ed Hillary has gone. Already a legend, he now faces another challenge — that he will become lost among the excesses of eulogy, that the legend might become so conflated with myth that we no longer know who he really was. On the day he died I heard two of his friends, both well known media personalities, reminiscing about him. “The thing about Ed,” one said, “was that he had no negatives.”

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-23275405522359165692007-12-31T15:30:00.000+13:002008-01-01T10:52:19.076+13:002008-01-01T10:52:19.076+13:00

At the end of a year, where does one begin? One begins, of course, most often by stumbling, by tripping over words that aren't there, or words that, like the long, wiry seedheads of ryegrass in the paddock in front of this verandah, are far too abundant (how do you choose?); far too tangled to move through easily (how do you create a path?) A scraggy blackbird, not long from its morning bath

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-74700586710443190902007-12-17T08:40:00.000+13:002007-12-17T09:02:28.770+13:002007-12-17T09:02:28.770+13:00

Here's another photo of whio from the Waikamaka river. I'm off into the Ruahine again today, for the rest of the week; the weather forecast's not too flash, but we have a comfortable hut and I'm taking a good book, a pen, and my notebook (the paper version). I hope you have as good a week to look forward to. Photos: 1. Whio (Hymenolaimus malacorhynchos) adult and Class II chick. Waikamaka

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-19496568941769016232007-12-13T08:25:00.000+13:002007-12-13T22:17:07.547+13:002007-12-13T22:17:07.547+13:00

Sometimes the best action is to take no action; sometimes the best choice is to carry on doing what you were doing, which might mean doing nothing much at all. Like sitting quietly, watching the dawn river river slide by, green-tinged and transparent beneath an overcast sky. Like realigning a few feathers or nibbling at a wingpit louse; digesting a dawn feed of caddis larvae; waiting until the

pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com