Continuing in the tradition of taking advantage of what this city has to offer us, we had a weekend filled with a pretty random assortment of activities. To broadly generalize, they fell into three categories: community, waste, and nature.
When we moved, Pete brought many of his hand tools for woodworking with us, but left many of his power tools at home because they don't work here. He makes most things with hand tools so it isn't too much of a burden, but occasionally a power tool (e.g., table saw) would really come in handy. Pete found a "shed" in north Auckland where he could go to use power tools. It isn't that close to our house so he hadn't tried it yet. While on the ferry a couple weeks ago, I heard about another group of sheds that Pete hadn't found in his internet searches. As it turns out, there is one in our neighborhood! We stopped by last weekend to check it out and Pete joined the group. The sheds were originally designed as a place for men, especially retired men, to build a community. The suicide rate in NZ for men aged 20-24 is the highest of any developed country, but the rate for men over 60 years old is also quite high. The sheds were a way to try to combat the loneliness that contributes to high suicide rates. Although they were designed with men in mind, most sheds now welcome everyone. They are intended to be a space for working on projects, while also helping to make the shed better.
off to the shed with his tool tote
Pete's first day at the shed was yesterday. He is working on our tortilla press and needed a bandsaw to cut the handle. After he finished that, he went to work on some equipment that had been recently donated to the shed that needed some TLC. They are just getting a machining area set up but the existing members didn't have the expertise to get it going. Pete did a lot of machining work at the USGS so he jumped right in. He rewired a lathe and got it up and running. There are a lot of boxes of things to sort through too, which he loves doing, partly because it reminds him of times spent with his dad and grandfather.
While Pete was at the shed, I headed off for other activities. My first stop was the Parnell rose garden. Roses are not my favorite botanical species, but their history is interesting and a big garden is a lovely place to wander. This garden is set within Dove-Meyer Robinson park, which also has the largest pohutukawa tree in Auckland.
the giant is just starting to bloom and will be
covered in red in a few weeks
the pohutukawa is also known as the NZ Christmas tree
The rose garden has hundreds of varieties of roses, including some vintage varieties. The thing I enjoyed most about the rose garden was the variety of structural patterns in the blooms. The varieties closest to the wild rose were delicate and relatively simple in design; the old garden varieties were dense, odiferous, and complex; the modern varieties tended to be big and showy, and come in colors a bit atypical of nature. A lot of the modern varieties (floribunda and hybrid tea) were developed in New Zealand.
Prosperity - a hybrid musk with a simple structure
Anna-Maria de Montravel - a polyantha with dense blooms
Omar Khayyam - a damask with wicked spines
Starry Eyed - a unique floribunda variety created in NZ
Beach Baby - another floribunda that looks much more
like a hybrid tea than the previous one.
my favorite of the day - Freedom, a hybrid tea
the garden in full bloom
After the rose garden, I went to the other end of the olfactory spectrum and toured one of the wastewater treatment plants in Auckland. Without wastewater treatment facilities, civilization would look a lot different. As such an important part of human existence, I was really excited to learn how wastewater is treated in Auckland. The Rosedale plant is the smaller of two plants in Auckland and serves about 250,000 people, or roughly 25% Aucklanders. Purifying wastewater is a multistep process that relies heavily on bacteria and microorganisms. A drop of water that comes through the plant leaves it in just under 24 hours. From there, it enters a series of ponds for another 20-30 days before being discharged 2.5 kilometers offshore. They say the water being discharged is clean enough to drink. The solids are on site for much longer and are eventually taken to the landfill after bacteria have done their job and it has been heated to kill any pathogens. The site generates about 80% of its electricity from the biogas produced during the solid decomposition phase.
the primary screening process removes all
the toys your kids flushed down the toilet!
bioreactor ponds where microorganisms clean the wastewater
clarifier ponds that remove the bacteria from the water -
from here the water goes into the ponds where it will
undergo UV treatment before being discharged into the ocean.
After the poo tour, a walk to clear my sinuses seemed like a good idea. I headed to the nearby Long Bay Regional Park for a quiet walk along the coastal cliffs. This country is spectacularly beautiful, even in the middle of a metropolitan area.
Pohutukawa Bay
Whau plant (the seeds look like cockleburrs on steroids!)
Pohutukawa tree growing out of the cliff
a rosella (native to Australia) on a dried flax stalk
flax (harakeke) flower - nectar-feeding birds love these
a baby pukeko - fluffballs with HUGE feet!
For my bit of community building, I volunteered at the Sanctuary Mahi Whenua community garden this morning. This amazing space is a 4-minute bike ride from our flat. They hold a working bee once a month for the community and plot holders to come together to work on projects in the shared spaces of the garden. Today we focused on the traditional Māori garden where we weeded, planted Māori potatoes and kumara (similar to a sweet potato), and built a hugelkulture for the gourds. I learned a tonne today and look forward to going back. We might even get our own garden plot!
comfrey leaves line the potato trenches -
they provide essential nutrients to the plants
kumara starts are grown on the tuber
and then removed for planting
kumara mounds
hugelkulture - you dig a trench and fill it will sticks, cover those
with weeds, pile the dirt on top, plant your plants, and top with
mulch (or banana leaves in this case). The sticks and weeds act as
nutrients for the plants as they decompose over time. Cool!
Last but not least on our random list of weekend events was a visit to the Waikumete cemetery. This is the largest cemetery in New Zealand, spanning 108 hectares. The earliest graves are from 1886 when the cemetery in central Auckland reached capacity. They had an open day today with lots of talks and demonstrations. We find cemeteries to be really interesting places, so we decided to check it out.
We learned about muslim burials, how to dig a grave, and about the "natural" burial plots they have installed in one section of the cemetery. The idea here is that people can be buried however they choose, as long as their clothing and the vessel they are buried in are biodegradable and do not contain any chemicals. One NZ company that makes shrouds and caskets that meet those standards had a few of their models on display. They were beautiful! The natural plots (photo below) were designed as circular plots that are filled sequentially and then planted with native shrubs and trees so the landscape goes back to forest rather than lawn. The family of the deceased gets a GPS point of the burial location so they can find it even after the place becomes a forest.
One of the natural burial plots at Waikumete. The concrete
walkway to the middle, which will ultimately be removed, is
a koru, or the shape of an unfurling fern frond (fiddlehead).
One of the unique things about Waikumete is that the older section of the cemetery is also a wildflower sanctuary. The grounds crew mows a track between each row of graves, but everything between the graves is left to grow. The wildflowers are a really lovely contrast of color and softness against the dark, square, sharp-edged headstones.
So there you have it. Community, waste, and nature all jumbled together in a busy but interesting weekend.
