rachel.blog

Tag: Auckland

  • Bethells Beach

    My sister left early this morning after a wonderful week for all of us. I wish we didn’t live so far apart. Yesterday we took her to Bethells beach on the west coast. I have visited most of the other west coast beaches – Piha, Muriwai, Karekare – but not Bethells. I like the west…

  • Auckland: city of sails cars

    I often complain about Auckland’s car-centric culture and a couple of recent events have emphasised just how dire the situation here is. A friend of mine was cycling to her home a couple of weeks ago when she was struck by a car from behind. Apparently the driver did not give way but will not…

  • Lake House Arts

    A few weeks ago Daniel attended a dragon-making art class at the Lake House Arts centre. I took some nice photos but have been too busy reading scientific journals to upload them to my blog. Here they are at last:   While Daniel was busy being artistic, Elizabeth and I wandered around the grounds. They…

  • Parking for five cars

    There’s an article in the NZ Herald this week, Auckland house prices vs world’s, which compares the median house price in Auckland – a whopping $670,000 – with other similarly priced homes around the world. The house chosen for comparison in Auckland, is a $675,000 five-bedroom, three-bathroom house in the suburb of New Windsor. New…

  • Eruption vs meltdown

    Which is the more likely: a volcanic eruption in Auckland or a nuclear power plant meltdown somewhere on Earth? The risk of the Auckland volcanic field erupting is 6% over 60 years. What is the risk of a nuclear power plant going into meltdown? The first nuclear reactor was built in Russia in 1954. There…

  • Auckland Botanic Gardens

    This coming July, we will have lived in Auckland for 2 years. Today, for the first time, we visited the Auckland Botanic Gardens. Why has it taken us so long? Well for a start, it’s miles away in South Auckland and the only way to get there is in a car on the motorway. What…

  • OMG, EARTHQUAKE!

    I was enjoying a very happy lunch with a friend of ours today when two pesky earthquakes came along and spoilt it. These are the first earthquakes I’ve felt since leaving Christchurch. They were little – Mag. 3.1 followed by a Mag. 3.9. I felt both. No-one else in our house felt the first and…

  • Housing in Auckland

    There is much talk in Auckland at the moment about how to provide affordable housing for a growing population. Should the city continue with the urban sprawl that it is notoriously renowned for? Or should it densify and become more compact? I’m sure everyone can guess my thoughts on the matter. Urban sprawl = depression,…

  • Auckland has a mother-in-law problem

    Yesterday afternoon my fab husband babysat so that I could enjoy a could of hours skating at the ice rink. It was great exercise without feeling like exercise because it was fun and there was no risk of keeling over with heat stroke. This is how exercise should be. I could avoid the heat stroke…

  • Waitangi Day

    A friend of ours said to me this morning, “I read the article you wrote for Stuff Nation”. What!? A couple of weeks ago I made a blog post about how to save the world by bicycle.  I’m quite passionate about this  topic and really wanted to spread my thoughts and because I only have…

  • Saturday morning at Takapuna

    It has been quite hot here. Not as bad as the heat folks in Australia are enduring, but hotter than we’re used to. So we’ve been swimming in the sea every other day and I’m quite enjoying it. This morning I thought it would be nice to go for an early swim at Takapuna beach…

  • The biggest public health problem of the developed world

    Governments the world over are making leaps and bounds in the fight against smoking. Australia recently banned brand labelling on cigarette packets, the UK is running a campaign called Stoptober next month and there are increasingly fewer and fewer public spaces in which a smoker can light-up. But is smoking really the biggest public health…

  • Could Auckland be hell?

    If hell is featureless suburbia, concrete motorways and soulless shopping malls, then Auckland is it.

  • The Auckland Harbour Bridge and computer science in New Zealand

    I was driving over the Auckland Harbour bridge last week and thinking, I don’t really trust New Zealand engineering. This is possibly because I got to witness the catastrophic collapse of two New Zealand buildings in Christchurch not long after they’d been deemed safe by engineers. Although it has since transpired that the so-called engineers…

  • Hobsonville Point

    There’s a very interesting development towards the west of Auckland called Hobsonville Point. It overlooks Waitemata Harbour from the west and was a New Zealand air force base for almost 100 years, providing a crucial role during WWII. Now it is the site of a planned community or township with a ferry service to Auckland…

  • Monogenetic volcanic fields

    Auckland sits above a monogenetic volcanic field. This means that rather than having one visible mountainous crater, there is an assorted mix of craters, lava flows and scoria cones spread out over a large geographic area. While each vent tends to be smaller in size than if there were just one vent, they can pop…

  • We gotta get out of this place

    There are three volcanoes erupting in New Zealand at the moment. Mount Tongariro in the central North Island has awoken from a 100-year slumber; White Island in the Bay of Plenty is erupting, and an undersea volcano (miles and miles away from New Zealand) has produced 25,000 sq km of pumice. None of these pose…

  • Sheep in Auckland

    We visited a friend of ours today and she has some pretty cool neighbours. Sheep! Lambing season has begun Checking for dags Freud has completely bounced back and is practically 100% again. How does he do that? Now he’s back to scavenging for food in the rubbish overnight, lungeing at cats and barking at dogs. 

  • A day at the beach

    Freud has perked up again. He’s a bit of yoyo. One day I think, this is it, he’s going to die, then the next day he recovers and continues onward. He’s not 100% but he has started eating again. The Vet gave me some acid-reducing medication as kidney disease can cause ulcers and gastric bleeding,…

  • Nappies, Auckland and the beach

    Elizabeth is completely toilet-trained. No nappies anymore, ever. Not even to bed. Daniel on the other hand wears the biggest, most-expensive night-time nappy which still fails to hold everything and he often wets his bed. How long will this go on for? It’s always depressing coming back to Auckland after a trip away because it’s…