A day trip








Boogie boarders in the surf at Port Waikato / tyre tracks in the black sand / Parents posing outside the Mercer Cheese shop / Tuakau Bridge, which leads to Port Waikato / a Bayleys exclusive property for sale / blurred Mercer cheeses / rough waters at Sunset Beach

 While visiting New Zealand I generally limit myself to Auckland - apart from a week spent at the family beach house on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula (which is pretty much part of Auckland these days anyways) the main priority is to catch up with friends and family. However I do like to fit a day trip in at some point. Last time my parents and I motored northwards to Brick Bay Sculpture Park and the Scandrett Regional Park, both places I had never been to before, and both now with my seal of approval. This time I put forward the notion of heading in the opposite direction, as I never seem to venture southwards a great deal.

Driving south these days seems to take about half the time it used to, and the smooth sheen of the motorways  detract a little from the sense of adventure (as adventurous as one can be, when your parents are sitting in the front seats chauffeuring you), but as long as you take some pit stops along the way, you feel like you are off the main drag a bit, even if technically you are not out of Auckland.
We stopped in Mercer, to buy some Mercer Cheese, one of those small towns where they are all known for something. I wish we had also stopped in Pokeno, for some Pokeno Bacon. We nibbled on our mature Gouda with slices of apple as we took a scenic route of our own invention towards Port Waikato, the small settlement on the West Coast which is the mouth of the Waikato River, New Zealand's longest.

Port Waikato doesn't have any of the glamour of Piha, Bethells, or Muriwai. It's decrepit, the houses falling apart, single storied, single roomed, they all seem hunched over, sheltering themselves against the stiff breezes that pound them with salt. The surf beach goes by the rather misleading name of 'Sunset Beach', perhaps trying to trick innocent tourists into thinking it's New Zealand's answer to Home and Away's Summer Bay. But it is so unspoilt, and it's bleakness is to it's benefit. The beach was empty except for a few boogie boarders and perhaps a dog, and the surf lifesavers camped between the flags sitting in their buggy.
An overcast day, one could just stand on the beach at look out to sea, and see nothing.
I stared out into the distance as the clouds and surf spray merged with the sand dunes at the end of the spit which curves around into the mouth of the river. Apparently there is a walk you can do around there, and in the springtime sightings of dolphins and seals are possible.

We stopped at the local café/restaurant/takeaways (it was maybe the only shop at the beach, there was a sort of general store by the old wharf) and in a fit of New Zealand patriotism indulged in an L&P and a Hokey Pokey ice cream. We drove around the streets before leaving, I think I noticed a library, half the houses seemed to be for sale. If anyone wants to join me in setting up an art commune there, pretty sure we could buy the properties on the cheap.

On the return trip we crossed the Tuakau Bridge which spans the Waikato River, stopping for mandatory photo documentation. Built in 1933, in a way it served as the 'bridge' (what other word can I use) between the 'island time' of Port Waikato and the pounding repetition of everyday life.




A change in scenery


Taken the last time I was in New Zealand, at Scandrett Regional Park. Pretty much the essence of New Zealand in a photo, and I will be looking to indulge in more of the same when I touch down 15 minutes to midnight on New Years Eve. Tomorrow is my last day in Malmö for a month, pity my two favourite places just happen to be on opposite sides of the globe. Antipodes, here I come!

Diagonal tourism


When your camera takes film and you only seem document your holidays, it sometimes takes many months for images to see the light of day. These are a few more from my summer touristing in Stockholm in August, these four taken at Drottningholms slott, the private residence of Sweden's Royal Family.

It appears I have a propensity for taking photographs on an angle, perhaps to make them more "dramatic". I think I just rue the fact that a camera does not have the same peripheral scope as my eyes.


Back To You

Claire has recently departed after an amazing two weeks in Scandinavia. Based in Malmö (where I currently reside) but also featuring a 4-day visit to Stockholm and a couple of day trips (perhaps night trips would be a more fitting phrase) to Copenhagen and its surrounds. In due course of our travels many photos were taken. With me equipped with a trusty point-and-shoot Konica film camera, and Claire with her Canon digital camera as well as her (smart) phone, we were armed to the hilt.
On looking through the accumulated snaps, a certain trend became rather apparent. And what was meant as documentation of two friends exploring three cities, ended up looking like Claire just followed me around in a rather stalkerish manner - a generous chunk of the images are of my back, or me in various stages or turning around. Perhaps there is now enough material for a 'Florence strides forth' tumblr or some such lunacy. But here let's keep things to only the choicest cuts.
My photos are due to be collected next week,and should hopefully even out the disproportionate number of Claire stalking Florence photos.

All photos by Claire Cooper.

PLACES: Drottningholm / Copenhagen / Drottningholm / Frederiksborg  / Stockholm / Frederiksborg /



Travelogue part I










  
Museu D'Art Contemporani De Barcelona / fruity furniture, La Rambla del Raval / beach loungers, Barceloneta / mosaic work, La Pedrera rooftop terrace / on the cross harbour cable car / interior courtyard, La Pedrera / Jardí Botànic de Barcelona / street scene, Barri Gòtic / Barcelona from the cross harbour cable car. 


A few of my favourite photographs taken with my trusty Konica point and shoot in Barcelona. More to follow.

At the Hotel Peninsular


While in Barcelona we stayed at the Hotel Peninsular, a typical one-star hotel just off the main drag of Las Ramblas. It offered all the mod-cons of a classic one-star hotel - sparse rooms, thin walls, a cornflakes continental breakfast - but the interior was highly unique. The building was originally a convent of the Augustine Order, and the rooms were previously monks' cells. All open out into the rather fantastical interior courtyard, with hanging plants, tiled floors, and wrought iron balconies running around each level.
One afternoon, after a morning of wearying but fulfilling touristing, we sat in the empty courtyard drinking a couple of Barcelonan beers, soaking up the peacefulness and planning our next attack on the city.
Staying in a place like this is what I search for in every trip that I make - I want to stay somewhere so completely remarkable that it reiterates the fact I am in a different country, experiencing different things.
In the photo above I am  standing in a small alcove next door to our room, ready for my first day of exploring, Barcelona guidebook loaned out from the library (overdue) in my hand.

These photos are the first batch Kris has sorted through from his digital camera. I am still waiting for the pictures off the roll of film I took. I was rather restrained with camera usage, not wanting a lens to continuously be obstructing my impressions and views of places. I tell myself I didn't come all the way to a foreign city just to photograph it. Some things have to be experienced first hand.

A couple in Barcelona

Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider at La Pedrera, during the filming of 'The Passenger', Michelangelo Antonioni, 1975.
Have just returned from an amazing 4 day sojourn in Barcelona, wandering the streets, cooling off with 'Majorcan Milk', and finally being able to experience Pierre Bismuth's work 'Postscript/ The Passenger (OV)' at Barcelona's Museum of Modern Art. Also mingled with tourists for the chance to be inside Gaudí's 'La Pedrera', trying to do some nonchalant Maria Schneider posing on the rooftop terrace but instead just ended up getting in the way of hardcore German tourists. 50 or so people holding up their cameras in the air simultaneously was rather like watching interpretive dance.


It feels right that one of my first adventures to a different European city should be the one featured in my favourite film. Basically I just wanted to stroll around Barcelona like these two.

Just the usual, thanks



Manly Takeaways is our local fish n' chip shop whenever we are up at the family beach house on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, just north of Auckland. The beach house was built in 1959 I believe, and almost all flat surfaces are covered in Formica, my grandfather was a Formica salesman. (I am not entirely sure about these facts, family members may correct me).
I have been going to the beach house ever since I was a baby, and I therefore assume eating fish n' chips from Manly Takeaways since then too. At the beach house I do the same things I have always done - swim for hours, go boating, eat large amounts of plums from the trees in the garden, do puzzles, read low-brow detective stories and do numerous sketches of Kotanui, the island that lies in the centre of Matakatia Bay, where our house is, always from the same angle. It has a misleading appearance: from the front, it is like a witch's hat settled on the water, but from the side is more like a rather prominent nose protruding from the sea.
Beach house holidays are a time for doing the same things I have always done. The menu boards at Manly Takeaways do nothing but add to the dingy 70's charm of the place, as I always always order the same thing - a fish, a hot dog (in the NZ fashion - a battered sausage on a stick doused in sauce) and a helping of chips. Actually, I think my entire family still all order the same things they did ten, fifteen years ago.

The map is one of two aerial photos which hang in the fish n' chip shop. Here it shows Matakatia Bay around the early 1960's, with the beginnings of the reef which stretches out to the island. Every time we get fisn n' chips, I make a point of spotting the beach house in the photo. Ritualistic, almost, just like everything else about my weeks spent up there.


At Golden Dawn

Kris djing in style in a typically flamboyant shirt at Golden Dawn, Auckland. One of the two occasions he dj-ed there during our trip. The second time also featured a tag-team cameo of Alex and I, recapturing the records in the summertime feeling of living together at Rocky's. Good times all-round.

Blå bilder




Eugene and Chris Carr fishing off the rocks / the queue of people waiting to board the ferry from Rangitoto / Kris surveying the landscape while walking towards Islington Bay, Rangitoto / reclining rods on the wharf near Okahu Bay, Tamaki Drive. Taken with a Konica C35 EF.


After months of dulling grey Malmö skies, which seem to have seeped into my head and clouded my memories of my trip to Auckland like a heavy fog, things are looking up. The Spring equinox has come and gone, officially opening the season, and with daylight savings beginning tomorrow evening and positively balmy temperatures of 14 degrees, blue skies and long light evenings loom ahead of me. And finally, showing some photos of my 6 weeks in New Zealand doesn't feel like looking at Oz from the greyscale of Malmö's Kansas.

Though the actual weather in Auckland left much to be desired (daily surprise rainfall, blustery gales,constant cloud cover) I cannot help but associate the holiday with the colour blue, spending days clambering over rocks of Rangitoto, having 2 hour swims in the sea two times a day, fishing around the rocks at Matakatia and failing to catch anything, following the bays around Tamaki Drive, kayaking on the sailfish built by my uncle and grandfather, or rowing in the dory before it mysteriously vanished from the beach one morning never to be heard of again. Fate to this day, is unknown.
I could never live anywhere that wasn't near the sea. Swimming in the rain is one of the best feelings, and so is swimming in the early morning.

Looking at these is making my feet itch, wanting to take my new Marni for H&M swimsuit down to the beach for a dip. I now have three pairs of togs, and all of them are blue. Must be something subconscious about wanting to blend into my surrounds.

Colour field



Multi-coloured: home-made chorizo pizza on handmade oven towels, and a wooden puzzle of the British Royal family - King George V and Queen Mary of Teck. The puzzle was deceptively hard, as none of the pieces were cut in the same manner - just a series of bizarre splotches of colour. Wonderfully, the maker had deemed it inappropriate that a member of the Royal Family should be subjected to half a face on a puzzle piece, therefore all heads are given their own complete piece, and the rest of the pieces sort of congregate around them. It makes one think that the design for these pieces was most likely done by hand.

Pizza devoured and puzzle completed while staying at my Granny's apartment (note the Focus de Luxe cutlery).
It feels as though my summer holiday pursuits nearly solely consisted of eating delicious food, drinking New Zealand beers, swimming, rowing, reading and puzzling.

Enlarge

click image to enlarge

On Thursday I am flying out of Copenhagen Airport to Dubai International Airport, en route to an idyllic holiday in New Zealand. Dubai International's Terminal 3 building is one of the largest buildings in the world by floor space - and here is how the airport looked in 1965.

Village










































Wandering around the Helgummanen fishing village on Fårö. Small wooden cabins filled with wooden bunks and wool blankets, miscellaneous tin objects, small rocks and pieces of glass, sea shells. I liked the use of driftwood as makeshift wall brackets, and the stones weighing down the lids on the dinghies, which tourists had used to spell out their initials, like I used to do with the rocks in the crater of Mt Eden.

I loved the juxtaposition of natural materials in the grain heavy timber, the different rich shades of varnish each cabin had, and the walls created by layering flat slate rocks on top of each other. The small cluster of sparely but sturdily built shacks reflected the village's sparse rocky surrounds and muted colour palette - greys, browns, greens and blues.

A lighthouse on a grey day



It was the only day which was overcast that we cycled out to Fårö's lighthouse. The road winds through a rather dense forest of tall pines, creating a closeness with the tall trees and the low sky, I think I forgot at some points that I was on my way to see a building which beckons travellers from the vast expanses of the open sea.

We stopped off en route by Fårö's only supermarket, purchasing a carton of milk from Gotland,  a couple of smoked flounder from the smokehouse nextdoor and a selection of freshly baked rolls from the nearby bakery for a small picnic on the beach.

Next to the smokehouse was a small flea market and book stall, in a rundown wooden shed with a dirt floor - piles of unsorted books piled on trestle tables, listing bookshelves and mildew afflicted cardboard banana boxes. I surprisingly found an english copy of Goldfinger amongst the mess, for 5kr.

The lighthouse was surrounded by a low wall and a small outcrop of buildings. One can't go up to the light house as the area inside the wall is private property. The greyness of the sky and sea was reflected in the lighthouse structure itself, as well as the grey rocks below it, but it wasn't that gloomy, depressive grey that low clouds usually bring. The entire scene and atmosphere suited the weather much more so, than the swimming pool blue coloured skies of the days prior.

After lunching we lay in the sand dunes, using our jerseys and cardigans as makeshift pillows, as adventurers are wont to do (or so I like to think), and dozed lightly. After a while I wandered down to the shoreline, and discovered a dead seal. Some sea creature had eaten it's eyes. I didn't take a photo of it.