We live in a beautiful city :-)

During the remainder of our Sabbatical Martin and I are hoping to go camping for a week each month, so last Sunday after church we headed off to Ambury Park.  My fitness has definitely improved: the first time we went there it took me 1h13; this time was 58 min cycling time, although a little more than that as we stopped near the park to buy mandarins from a family fundraising for their son's rugby boots.  Quite a treat to have extra fruit when camping - heavy things are always at a premium!

There was hardly anyone in the campsite so we put our tent a bit closer to the amenities area than usual - and right next to a stunning wee glade that stayed remarkably dry when it rained.

On the whole we had fantastic weather, but it was a bit wet on Sunday when we were getting there (and on Friday on the way home, too).  We were using our old tent, which isn't wonderfully waterproof, hence the tarp over the top for extra protection.  The photo above is from Monday morning, and you can see all our wet stuff drying on a long line at the right!

We spent the Monday just resting - and playing with a ball we found :-) Ambury Park campground is often the last place travelers stay before leaving Aotearoa (or the first), and it has a designated place to leave stuff you no longer want.  I don't think we've scored anything interesting from there in the past but this time we found:

• three partial gas cylinders (with maybe 300g gas between them)
• at least a cup of some nice olive oil
• a towel in great condition
• some shoes for Martin
• a near-full packet of one of my standard herbal teas
• a lightweight soccer-sized ball

We left the ball there, but all the rest came home with us - it's surprising how much space you have after you've eaten 5 days' worth of food, lol!  It was a real encouragement to us to find those things.  Currently we're living on savings for the Sabbatical, and we don't really know what will happen when that comes to an end as Martin resigned his job to do this.  Finding so many things there that were so very much things that we use felt like God reminding us that He will provide for us.  I thought of that a lot, too, as I wore a super-soft and incredibly warm long-sleeved merino top - another thing we have recently acquired for free and without effort and that has been 'just right'.

After a rest day on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we went on excursions.  Tuesday we headed along the Watercare Coastal Walkway to Ihumatao.  It was almost all gravel (indeed, would have been 100% on gravel if we hadn't taken a wrong turn and ended up on regular roads for a bit), and I was really pleased with how well I did with that.  My balance, strength and general confidence on the bike have clearly improved!

Lunchtime at a wee beach at the end of the path.  This definitely wasn't where we expected the path to end, but we couldn't work out where we went wrong and we were already a good 10km (on gravel) from the campsite at that point, so we decided to call it a day!

Heading home, with Māngere Mountain in the background.

Check out a bunch more photos of the route on this blog from Bike Auckland.

The following day we headed out on the same path, but turned off at Puketutu Island to see what we could see.  It's connected to the mainland by a causeway and is right by the sewage works.  We discovered that it's actually connected by a pair of causeways (one for cyclists and pedestrians, the other for cars and trucks), with a fresh-water canal between them carrying treated water away from the sewage plant.

We'd hoped it might be possible to circumnavigate the island but the public roads only went a small distance in each direction.  The island also turned out to be way larger than either of us had realised, so circumnavigation would have taken a while!  There's some kind of restoration project going on there, and we also came across a Living Earth composting facility, working sheep farm(s) and at least four houses.

Looking towards Huia and Āwhitu from what we initially assumed was the tip of the island - but was actually just a point partway along

Looking back towards Māngere Mountain along the canal that goes from the mainland to the island.

The water from the canal then goes into this large pond, at the end of which is a pumping station that pumps the water into the Manukau Harbour on the outgoing tide.  Look how still the weather is!

I was amazed how many birds I saw while we were there.  It's a place I used to go bird-watching with my family, but it was incredible how many species I spotted without really trying at all!

 

The whitish patch to the right of the centre of the picture is a flock of spoonbills :-)

 

All in all I saw at least 26 bird species!

• royal spoonbills - I remember when they were incredibly rare when I was a kid, and the first time we spotted some as a family, when I was in my teens.  Now I see them so often in coastal spaces :-)
• banded dotterels - every coastal campsite in the Auckland region seems to be near a dotterel habitat.  They're such fun to watch.
• tūī
• chickens.  So many at the campsite!
• pūkeko - also loads at the campsite
• mallard ducks
• Canada geese - quite a substantial flock on the waterway going out to Puketutu Island
• red-billed gulls
• spur-winged plovers
• sparrows
• goldfinches
• pīwakawaka - one of my all-time favourites :-)
• peacock!  There's one that lives at Ambury Park - presumably the same one we've seen before.  It came super-close while we were having lunch on Thursday.
• oystercatchers - both black and pied versions
• pied stilts - such elegant birds
• songthrush
• welcome swallows - I love the way they swoop
• white-faced herons - they look so like dinosaurs, especially when they walk :-)
• pied shags
• blackbirds
• black-billed gulls
• feral pigeons
• kingfishers - stunning when they fly past and the sun catches their feathers
• black swans
• riroriro/grey warbler - one visited our tent site on Thursday.  I hear them quite often at home, but rarely see them, and this one came really close
• magpie
  

I also think I may have seen a small flock of greenfinches, but they were gone too fast to be sure.  There was also some long-necked black species swimming with the black swans (but less than half their height in the water) - I didn't get a good look at them and initially thought they were coots, but on reflection they didn't look quite right.  I'd love to know what they were.

Ambury Park's resident peacock checking us out at lunch on Thursday :-)

There are also heaps of different farm animals near the park entrance - I was particularly taken with this pig.

It was lovely to see the park so well used.  We saw a number of school groups - kindy kids on a field trip, older primary kids planting trees, teenagers learning to put up tents - as well as heaps of people showing their kids the animals or going for a walk or a bike ride.

The park is surrounded by delightfully wild and woolly coastline :-)

We had some great foggy mornings, followed by gloriously clear days

 

While we were there I managed to finish an embroidered bowl cover I was making for my friend Anna's 50th birthday.

I'm very pleased with how it turned out :-)

All in all a lovely break!  It was extremely low carbon, at about 15kg CO2e for the five nights - about what the planet can absorb from one person in 4-5 days.  We've managed to get our camping food to be no higher carbon than our regular food (hurrah!!) and we got there and back 100% by bike, so the only carbon emissions were from the camping gas and from the campsite itself.  And I was delighted to get home almost as fast as we got there - 1h01 on the bike, and maybe 5-10 minutes of walking up the worst of the hill!