Kate and James joined us for The Fellowship of the Weekend. We explored more filming locations and some beautiful forest north of the city… and recreated our own scenes where they were not filmed as well!
After wizards in the forest, we retired for backyard dinner of Mexican-style corn and nachos.
Jelly tips are a classic NZ dessert – we gave them a try, and although they aren’t bad, but most of us gave seconds a pass!We’d planned to rent bicycles, but they were booked up, so instead we walked a windy, steep coastal track.Hold onto your hats!There were a whole farm of wind turbines in the hills… a bit bigger up close than I expected.And lots of natural flotsam on the shoreline.
The shoreline was remarkably dry (presumably because of the wind!?) – dead gulls seemed to have withered up rather than rotting as they do at home. We could see the south island where we go next!
Plenty of live birds as well – these are terns, I believe!We all got commemorative weta tattoos at the breaking of the Fellowship. (If you want to see what they look like, you can spot them on the beer drinkers tomorrow)
Alice
PS. I have been accumulating some fun forest learning (thank you, Kate!):
Koru – fiddlehead shape, symbol of new beginnings
Kawa – leaf tea, medicinal, for toothache at it has some numbing effects (the more holes, the better)
Horopito – red streaked, edible leaves, peppery, more common at higher altitudes, and there’s some possibility of finding it incorporated into chocolate
Kiekie – Epiphytes which can be harvested for weaving fibers, although the fibers are narrow, so you need to be a pretty skilled weaver
Kauri – giant tree, used for making wakas (canoes), grows slowly, and as most of it has been logged, there are few left
Rimu – tall, sturdy trees with dangling fronds, the ones that were probably the main zipline support trees
Tawa – slightly smaller tree with olive-like leaves
Kareao pirita (Supplejack) – translated as “twisted rope” – it looks like lose bush wicker basket, and is nearly impossible to bush whack through!Ponga (silver fern) – endemic tree fern with silver underside, longstanding national symbolRata – starts as a seedling on another tree and sends roots vining down, eventually starving out the host tree for light, etc. Not sure what this giant is – might be Kauri?
BC by Cycle 
Tatoos? I am agog (not Azog).
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