Some time ago I found an old wiro notebook in a drawer. A scruffy wiro bound notebook with a photo of 2 men in a kayak with a bear on the front cover. In that notebook I found terrible sketches drawn in pencil made while travelling in 1991. One sketch leapt out at me. It was a rough pencil sketch of Mt Ararat from a backpacking trip to eastern Turkey. The sketch really surprised me – it was a very basic pencil sketch, drawn using a .5mm technical pencil on a cheap notepad. The sketch is just black and white… To my surprise the sounds and smells of the day came flooding back. Meeting some Kurdish goat herders and their flock near the base of Mt Ararat, about 10km from the Iranian border on a bright sunny but cool, alpine day. Along with memories of driving across the mountain steppe in an old Renault 19 and the smells of chai and coffee in a Doğubayazıt pasta solunu. It all came back come flooding back! Why did it evoke such vivid memories? I’m not really sure to be honest. Maybe t...
Have you walked Northcote’s new treetop walk at Kauri Glen Reserve?
Despite being in the heart of suburban North Shore you will feel like you’re tramping in a remote national park. Rowdy Tui were dive-bombing each other through 300-400 year old kauri trees while I was sketching this view one evening.
The bridge is a short walk from the end of Kauri Glen Road, but I recommend a slightly longer walk, by starting on Lake Road and walking the connecting tracks through Cecil Eady Reserve which eventually links to Kauri Glen Reserve.
Completed just last year, the bridge is part of Te Ara Awataha – the Northcote greenway project developed by Auckland Council’s urban development arm Eke Panuku.
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