tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-146772432024-03-14T16:15:43.612+13:00pohanginapetePete lives in the Pohangina Valley, Aotearoa/New Zealand and writes about travelling and people, mountains and other wild places, photography, Aotearoa-NZ, natural history, strangeness and possibility, wondering, life in general and a swag of other stuff. ('Paw-HUNG-in-uh' is a close enough pronunciation.)pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.comBlogger250125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-47753746506675734602022-06-11T12:30:00.000+12:002022-06-11T12:30:58.214+12:00Tea and animals at dawnAt seven o'clock the blackbird flew in like a small dark missile and landed abruptly on the lawn, yelling quietly as he settled and clucking occasionally as he began his breakfast foraging. The pre-dawn light had just begun to illuminate the birch so its main branches gleamed like white gold; the sky was smudged with hazy clouds suffused with salmon and mauve and grey against the idea of blue. pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-4849763927914516802022-05-20T14:46:00.001+12:002022-05-20T19:35:09.095+12:00Steinbeck, Ricketts, Doyle and the ~algiasI sit on the sofa, gazing out the window at the late
afternoon sunlight sifting through the soft foliage hanging over the driveway,
thinking about The Log From the Sea of Cortez. I’d first read that book
by Steinbeck and Ricketts so long ago it seems like a different life. I’ve read
it several times since, and now I’m partway through yet another reading and I
still think it’s marvellous even pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-8577599739219352332021-06-27T17:24:00.000+12:002021-06-27T17:24:48.802+12:00The weather and Brian DoyleThe weather arrived at a quarter to three as I was reclining on the couch reading Brian Doyle’s excellent collection of Brian Doyle essays, Reading In Bed, with the new electric heated throw wrapped over my body from the waist down and my upper body encased in my best largest puffiest down jacket (the Mont Bell) so if anything had been watching I must have looked like a giant grub or chrysalis, pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-40730021442007626092021-04-01T20:11:00.001+13:002021-04-02T20:09:57.523+13:00That thing about birdsWhat is it that you love about birds? What’s at the root of the thrill you get when something as apparently ordinary as a sparrow sits on your verandah railing, puffed up against the cold, with a spatter of drizzly raindrops sparkling and gleaming diamond-like on the feathers of its back, and it doesn’t bother to fly off when you walk past the window? Or, when you watch a magpie swoop in fast andpohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-51502973298961502342020-10-19T17:40:00.003+13:002020-10-19T17:40:51.464+13:00The Gardener My recollection of her is faint, which is to be expected because it was a long time ago and I haven’t thought about her in years. Possibly decades. I don’t know why I’ve started thinking about her recently. Perhaps it was the dream, a strange one, like all dreams, that I had a while ago, alone in a mountain hut (Why there? I have to ask) and which left me unsettled and also thinking perhaps I pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-65301039575789243302020-09-24T19:33:00.000+12:002020-09-24T19:33:54.441+12:00The magpieI'd been sitting at the kitchen table marking assignments and wearing out my brain, so late in the morning I slung the camera over my shoulder and strolled down the driveway. At the bend I headed towards the letterbox and, as I neared the water trough in the corner of the orchard paddock, a magpie took to the air. It flew awkwardly and I had the impression it was a young bird, although September pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-81446553102813669122020-09-10T08:39:00.000+12:002020-09-10T08:39:20.326+12:00The Hermit MarshesThe day after the deluge, I saw the aftermath — how the rough paddock beside the railway line had turned into a small marsh, the water shining like polished zinc in the quiet morning light, the low rushes reminding me of the places I found so fascinating and wonderful as a child and still do. The small marshy paddock reminded me of places I’ve never seen but want to go — places where wizened pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-29545305060487904532020-08-05T10:18:00.000+12:002020-08-05T10:18:10.045+12:00Verandah thoughts
Towards dusk I sat on the verandah drinking tea and listening to the silence and the drip of rainwater from the evening’s drizzle. The meagre runoff from the roof sounded curiously like an animal cropping grass; so much so, in fact, that I eventually stood and peered over the verandah railing in the illogical attempt to see if I could spot the miniature sheep, the one that didn’t and couldn’tpohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-3038122105361968932020-04-09T15:34:00.002+12:002020-08-05T10:19:31.594+12:00The Birds of Udaipur
Another post from my last journey in India and Nepal. A reminder, perhaps, that life wasn't always about social distancing and being locked down and fearing the sound of a cough. A reminder, too, that one day we may be able to enjoy times like these once more. Stay safe, my friends.
Udaipur, Friday 20 December 2019
No mosquito bites last night. No Bank mynas this morning, either. I’d crossedpohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-13099453140321542372020-02-18T14:13:00.000+13:002020-08-05T10:19:31.391+12:00A Train of Thought
Bundi to Udaipur, Wednesday 18 December 2019
The platform signs at Bundi Railway Station are useless. They don’t say which train’s arriving; they just exhort passengers to travel with the correct ticket. When a train arrives at approximately the right time, I have to assume it’s mine. At least it has a coach labelled S1, and I find seat 44; I also find it’s occupied by a supine pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-37507222507804088792020-01-22T00:29:00.001+13:002020-08-05T10:19:31.664+12:00Bundi
Bharatpur to Bundi, Friday 13 December 2019
During my last night at Bharatpur a storm had blown through: thunder, lightning, heavy rain, gusts of wind. Perhaps that has something to do with the dense mist that so severely restricts the visibility, the world fading out of existence within a few hundred metres, at times less. But there’s still much to catch attention. A jackal in the dim pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-20987179915903806382020-01-07T20:54:00.002+13:002020-08-05T10:19:31.525+12:00The birds of Bharatpur
Bharatpur, Wednesday 11 December 2019
The luck and the kindness continue. After a comfortable two-and-a-half hour train journey in A/C Chair class, I disembarked at Bharatpur and began walking to the exit. The young woman who’d been sitting across the aisle from my seat caught up with me and asked where I was going and where I was from. She lived in Bharatpur and had been attending a wedding pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-69176578197366395992019-12-27T19:29:00.001+13:002020-08-05T10:19:31.733+12:00More conversations (India)
Sunday 8 December 2019
At the Haldwani bus station, I learned there was indeed a Volvo to Delhi at ten. Anxious about misunderstanding the instructions I’d been given, I checked again at another ticket window.
‘Dilli Volvo kahaan hai?’ I said — ‘Where is the Delhi Volvo?’
As usual, I got an answer in Hindi, but when I clearly didn’t understand, the man told me in halting pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-48081276290992638912019-12-17T21:09:00.000+13:002019-12-17T21:09:00.840+13:00The cold at Kausani (India)
Thursday 28 November 2019
Mr Singh sells tea and spices from the Uttam Tea Centre, a little shop at the chowk (junction) in the middle of Main Bazaar. I met him on my first journey in India and have visited him on every journey since. As I approach his shop I see him sitting in the shadows inside; he looks up, recognises me instantly even though I’m still a long way off, and pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-36658280062183836332019-12-11T03:31:00.000+13:002019-12-17T20:01:04.747+13:00Hunting the griffon (India)
Thursday 21 November 2019
The name evokes something mythical, something to inspire awe and perhaps fear: griffon. The griffon we were seeking, however, was far from mythical, although neither Sally nor I doubted its ability to inspire awe. It was her idea to go looking for them, and she had a good idea where to look. The griffon she wanted me to see was the Himalayan griffon, the largest birdpohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-54702554900426310342019-12-01T00:40:00.001+13:002019-12-17T20:01:04.878+13:00Life as an animal (India)
These posts will be thrown together quickly — I don't want to spend my time in India agonising over them. However, I hope they'll give you some idea of what it's like here and will reassure you that I'm still alive and well 🙂
Sunday 17 November 2019
At the Madan Café I sipped strong milk coffee and unashamedly ate a honey pancake. The clientele were mostly as delightfully dissipated as I pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-68135625529201822532019-11-20T18:58:00.000+13:002019-11-20T18:58:33.832+13:00Conversations with former strangers (India)
These posts will be thrown together quickly — I don't want to spend my time in India agonising over them. However, I hope they'll give you some idea of what it's like here and will reassure you that I'm still alive and well 🙂
Friday 15 November 2019
The flight
from Auckland to Kuala Lumpur was awful — bad food and cramped seating — but at least I had an aisle seat and could move aroundpohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-59348824748986295622019-02-12T12:07:00.001+13:002019-02-12T12:20:46.327+13:00The weirdness of memories
At Leon Kinvig hut in the Pohangina headwaters in November 2018. The pen is a Lamy Al-Star with a Fine nib, the ink Noodler's
El Lawrence, the notebook a Moleskine extra-large cahier. This combination works better for me than any other — so far.
It was the middle of the week and early in the morning, yet I almost walked away from Jacko’s café because even at a quarter to nine pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-80102009948563392632018-12-24T13:26:00.001+13:002018-12-24T13:26:51.488+13:00Bending like a reed
At the City library the low afternoon sun was flashing from a sign that hung, swaying in a cool wind, over the footpath. The angle of the reflected light was such that it hit me — and, as far as I could work out, only me — at exactly the right angle to blind me, as if I was being questioned by a military interrogator who was convinced I was a spy or terrorist, or who just liked being a pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-34014231827531804622018-11-22T20:30:00.000+13:002018-11-22T20:30:11.157+13:00Bird skull stories (2)
So you’d like to hear another story about birds and skulls, and maybe bird skulls, would you? I could tell you hundreds of stories about birds — shall we start there? Yes?
Years ago I was walking alone down the headwaters of the Pohangina River in the Ruahine Range, a place of small tough mountains and wildness; a place of snowgrass fields on mountaintops, and whole mountainsides of pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-29315212238825949712017-12-24T12:22:00.000+13:002017-12-24T12:23:20.848+13:00Bird skull stories
‘Tell me a story’, you say, so I think of the first thing that comes to mind and wonder how I can turn it into a story. First, though, you must tell me whether you want a true story or something made up, with fabulous characters that might not even exist, that not even a David Attenborough documentary could show you — creatures even more astonishing than the mantis shrimp or pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-70741947354346402282017-09-13T09:50:00.001+12:002017-12-24T09:58:08.806+13:00New life from old things
A fierce wind was whipping the shrubs around, but only an occasional half-hearted gust swirled into the shelter of Greg's small, glassed-in porch. Each time, the nylon cape he’d fastened around my neck to keep the hair clippings off my clothes floated up, and I had to hold it down. The inconvenience was minor, but the glare from the sun on the white weatherboards dazzled me, forcing mepohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-69681550981053536132017-08-26T19:02:00.000+12:002017-08-26T19:02:26.848+12:00Eating weetbix at the speed of light
You’re not
sure how it happens, but one day you’re assembling your breakfast — bran
flakes, a couple of spoonsful of rolled oats, raisins — and you reach into the
giant packet of Weetbix you’re sure you bought just a week or two ago, all
seventy-two biscuits, which you’ve been crumbling into your bran flakes and
rolled oats and raisins at the rate of just one a day just two or three times a
pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-76637948035297758762017-06-26T15:56:00.000+12:002017-06-26T15:56:35.484+12:00An Indian summer
In November 2016 I flew to India with clear intentions and low expectations. Among the intentions I could list talking to more people and photographing them more, pushing myself harder to do the things that didn’t come easily to me, and — particularly important — doing my utmost not to get crook. The expectations were related and mostly negative: I expected to get crook, and I expected much pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14677243.post-84791065517838649902017-01-27T04:16:00.000+13:002017-07-06T21:46:39.098+12:00Return to India
One of the guide books had warned about making an early start for the border crossing from Mahendranagar to India to avoid spending a night in Banbasa. This was nonsense. The crossing was one of the easiest I’d had on any of my travels, and the only queues I encountered were identical – a Spanish man and a Dutch man just ahead of me at the checkposts. At the Nepalese Immigration office I pohanginapetehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11463792721091291063noreply@blogger.com6