Auckland Skyline from Chatswood Reserve

After our recent move to New Zealand, we ended up in a rented house in the North Shore area of Auckland in the suburb of Birkenhead. We are on Balmain Road, which is a dead end street that goes steeply down a hill and ends up right on the water about 5min walk from our house at a park that overlooks Soldiers Bay. The walk back is more like 15min, because the hill is insanely steep!

Soldiers Bay

Right at the park entrance right now is a Bougainvillea in full bloom. Keep in mind that technically it's still winter in Auckland!

Bougainvillea

The bay is really more of a mangrove swamp, but the water is crystal clear and the dogs have a ball in it!

Molly & Panda in the mangroves

One can walk over the ledge on the left on a path leading through mostly native bush.

Soldiers Bay

Fern

Little flowers with bamboo in background

Fern

Fern

Eventually one gets to a little beach. In the photos the weather is not the best. In fact, it started hosing down shortly after I took them, but the area is really quite nice. Best of all, there are no dog restrictions all year round, while most Auckland beaches in summer allow dogs only in the early morning and late evening hours.

Our Beach

Back at the house is more native fern. This is a kind of hedge toward the neighbors.

Fern Hedge

But right by the mailbox still outside the gate is a huge bed of currently flowering freesias beside some big lavender bushes. The smell of the freesias welcomes us every time we get out of the car.

Freesia and Lavender

Freesia

I would have said this is what made us choose the house - Nicola had freesia as wedding bouquet and decorated the entire church with them. They were also my Mum's favorite flowers and often bought by my dad. But what really sells this house is the view. First with a tele lens (270mm) and then with a wide angle (24mm).

View

One can see the neighbors but they are not a major distraction, and we really enjoy seeing the water in the distance. I believe it is Waitemata Harbour further out than Soldiers Bay, the latter being so close and the hill so steep that we can't see it but are looking over it.

Other features of the garden include camellias. This is just one color. We have many - and have I mentioned it is winter here 😉

Camellia

The tallest rosemary bush I have ever seen.

Rosemary

And it might look like the runt of the litter, but we do have a lemon tree!

Lemon Tree

The garage is covered with an immensely thick layer of ivy, which keeps it nice and damp inside making it unsuitable as a workshop and will probably make the car rust ten times as fast as it would otherwise.

Ivy covered garage

Here Molly is checking out the borage (Boretsch, Borago officinalis), one of those traditional European kitchen herbs my grandma already used and that I could never find in Ohio.

Borage

The 'weeds' growing through the stairs are actually geraniums.

Stairs and geraniums

And Panda is taking a nap.

Panda sunning

In this place the outdoors are never far away - as shown by this window, which is as closed as most NZ windows will ever get!

Insulation not so great

Bird life in the yard is very varied, starting with the fascinating native Tuis, which produce an incredible array of noises and climb around in the trees like squirrels in Ohio. They are also of about that size!

Tui in an Australian bottle brush bush

Another endemic species I am still trying to get a good shot of is the fantail. We have introduced species from Australia, Europe, Asia, and the USA. A colorful Australian bird introduced to Auckland is the eastern rosella.

Eastern Rosella

From Europe there are of course sparrows and some others like blackbirds and thrushes.

Blackbird (Amsel)

Song Trush (Singdrossel)

An example of an introduced Asian bird is the spotted dove.

Spotted Dove

Today these folks walked over the lawn, and I initially had no idea what they were. Google identified them as California Quails.

California Quail

California Quail

California Quail

California Quail

Nicola immediately identified this critter as a weta. I had never heard about wetas. It turns out there are about 70 species of them - all endemic to New Zealand. At any rate, it seemed huge sitting on the wall by the front door when I took out the dogs at night. Coat hooks included for size comparison.

Weta

What have I been up to while Nicola is trying to get into the things at AUT? Well, we have done lots of shopping and have made first attempt to get the house ship-shape. The kitchen has lots of cupboard space and even a very nice pantry, but the place had never been cleaned properly. The kitchen is done now, but the pantry is next week's project.

Kitchen - doors and drawers clean and drying

Nobody had looked under the bottom drawer in a long time, and at some stage the previous homemaker must have missed one of the good silver forks!

Under the bottom drawer

Silver Fork

The old electrical box we had to replace in Ohio would have been hundred times safer than this antique. I think I will have to practice replacing fuse wire one day when there is natural light.

Electrical Box

Fuse Wire

Last but not least, here is my first fish purchase in NZ! A good kiwi drinks tea at all hours of day and night!

Fishy Tea Set