Sunday, August 2, 2015

Pause for Effect

I have just checked and it has been over a month since the last post!  That is not a very good track record for a blogger. I must say though I have been a bit busy with my position here at Port Jackson.

The last couple of weeks have been flat out here with major earthworks happening. Firstly to fill in the holes at the end of Muriwai Camp and create a safer slope.

Then Dan and Zowie moved through to between Spinifex and Barrier Camp to replace the existing culvert with a larger one and extend it out to the beachfront.

After a high tide and severe winds, it looks like that one will have to be cleaned regularly.

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Once that was completed they moved up to the day parking area to replace the culvert there was not working well. We discovered that what was planned was not going to work once we put the levels into place and so revisions were made and instead of moving the culvert we scraped the grass off and lifted the ground level to get the water to run the right way and into the culvert. We lengthened the culvert pipe again out to the beachfront and built a retaining wall to protect the pipe.

While this was all happening, I have had visitors…..

An interesting assortment, the ducks congregating on the shore and a single shag trying to hide (badly)….

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The Caspian terns are still here, but are difficult to get a good shot of…

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I have around 3 pairs of NZ Dotterels in their mating plumage up at the north end of the beach….

DSCF9044 (3)You can see why it is so easy to run them over or step on the nest. Very well camouflaged. 

Also have a pair of oystercatchers…noisy folks…

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The gannets have been busy for days…

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and the dolphins have been in a couple of times…

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So it has been a very busy time here at Port Jackson Conservation Campground, I have mown the lawns 5 times now, it takes around 9 hours to mow the entire campground.

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I have been getting a steady flow of campers (averaging 2 vehicles a night) mostly for a single night but some pop in for two or three. An interesting mix of foreign tourists and NZ’ers having a few days off. There are cars, people movers, vans, caravans, motorhomes and house trucks. I cannot seem to predict when people will or will not turn up, weekends are not the busy time and surprisingly Wednesday seems to be a busy night.

I have a post about the Muriwai walk on the way and I might do a reprint of my story in the NZ Motorcaravanner magazine.

Safe travels everyone….

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

It’s a hard life….

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Decided to go fishing this afternoon….

So paddled out towards the western end of Port Jackson Bay, paddled about 15 mins into about 11m of water and then threw a line over, a nice little softbait, (blue fish), saw some fish on the finder, reeled it in and cast again and bang…. ohh thought I, a rather large fish on the end of the line this time, looks like it might be smoked kahwai for dinner thought I, or maybe a small king fish. So after a couple of minutes I see this rather large snapper appear from the depths…. nice I thought. Then it got closer and the adrenalin starts pumping, this is one large fish!

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Once on board I was very careful to string it and put it away very carefully so as not to loose it overboard!

Turns out it was 600mm, the biggest snapper I have caught!

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So fish for dinner.

So the weather has been very kind to us here at Port Jackson over the past couple of days, my sister and her husband have been staying with me here and it has been a great week. They went home today and after doing a bit of work, decided to make the most of the lovely weather as it is due to get foul from tomorrow onwards.

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It really is a lovely place that I am currently working, and lovely days like this help!

We have had some awesome sunsets too, last night for example

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More after I come down from my fishing high….

Safe travels everyone.

Friday, June 5, 2015

Cooking via the interweb thingy.

It is amazing how many idea pass by on Facebook and other social media platforms and you think….mmm should try that, well tonight I have tried two ideas that crossed my Facebook page.

Kumara rosti and poached eggs the tidy way (wrapped in cling film)

So grated kumara, some herbs, a couple of rashers of finely chopped bacon and an egg….put into muffin pans and bake for 25 mins

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That is 2 kumara worth of rosti.

Then while they are cooking, tear off some cling film, put over a cup and push it down a bit

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break in an egg and then wrap up and tie

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Put in a pot of boiling water and poach…I over cooked mine just a little so they were firm not runny (bad boy me!)

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Put some rosti on the plate and top with egg…enjoy. Was super yummy!!!

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Enjoy and thanks to whoever posted them so I could see them.

Some things do work via the internet it is not all just thingy enlargement pills and dating scams!

Safe travels everyone.

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Port Jackson et al

Well it has been a while since I posted on the blog, difficult when I am stationary and busy each day to find the time to write this but I shall get back into the habit.

So far…..

Lawns, edges, weeding, keeping tabs on campers….all great fun.

Before I go any further I will put a bit of a disclaimer here. The summer camp managers, Len and Jenny, do a wonderful job but with the number of campers that come through they are flat out and the larger maintenance bit and pieces do not get done. So what I hope to do is be able to have the camp in a much better position when I hand back over in October so that it is easier for the summer managers to keep on top of it.

Port Jackson is a long thin campsite with four ‘pods’ of campsites.

Ocean View, Barrier, Spinifex Flat and Muriwai. Between Ocean View and Barrier is the office, flat and me! 

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There have been lots of jobs to do and once I managed to get the mowing under control, with the help of John and Joy who were relieving at Fletcher Bay and Tim who is manager at Fletcher Bay, I have managed to move onto other tasks and maintenance issues around the camp.

I have today finally managed to find 95% of the site markers in the pods and expose them back to daylight from their dark underground hidey holes.

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Some were buried deep and some were sitting nicely on top and some were even leaning nonchalantly against tree trunks as if to say “you want me where?”

So it looks like there will be some renumbering and repainting to come as well as lifting and reseating some blocks, replacing the ones that have gone on holiday and didn’t return and realigning and straightening the rows of blocks.

It has been fascinating to see the different sunsets that occur here.

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This is just a small number of the amazing sunsets that occur. Well to be honest there have been 37 so far since I arrived here.

Winter. I was not sure what to expect from the weather here so have been prepared for anything and sure enough we have had gale force winds, torrential rain, high seas and some of the most gorgeous days you could imagine.

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Yes more sunset shots….  Smile

I have had a steady trickle of campers through averaging around 3 vehicles per night until the start of June when I had my first night with no campers in the camp. All alone I was and quite different. Have had a second night last night as well (4th).

A bit of fishing has been done with a couple of nice snapper caught

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Have had a whole day with dolphins in the bay from around 9-5;30

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They were just cruising around and  not doing much. Lazy day for them?

Also had a day where the gannets were diving just offshore. This went on for a good hour.

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There were a couple of boats out there and they caught some lovely kahawai underneath the small stuff, and were amazed at the Kingfish there as well, but none were caught. There have been some lovely kahawai caught from the beach…observe the ingenuity of some young people…

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He waded out to chest deep to cast, had a lovely day but didn’t manage to catch anything.

I have company most days, though I wish I didn’t as they leave their calling cards everywhere…

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So enough of an update tonight, I will endeavour to keep this updated regularly and often.

Safe travels everyone.