Foodie February

Well....February has pretty much come and gone and Mark and I have been doing a bit of local exploring as I have been very busy at school planning and researching a brand new curriculum.

This month Marks been out on the boat researching a lot, checking on his project and enjoying the sun and waves. I've been spending time in the sun too, but usually while on yard duty.

This month, we finally made it up Mount Eden, the dormant volcano that our neighbourhood is named after - another post about that later as we forgot the camera when we went. It was a steep hike but the view was magical. From to he too of Mount Eden you can see the whole city, the harbour, the skyscrapers and the traffic.

Mark and I have been taking in lots of the local food this month. We figure, while we are living in one of the "must eat here" neighbourhoods we should explore the tastes Mount Eden has to offer. Just up the street, on Mount Eden Road there are Indian Restaurants, Chinese Restaurants, cafés, pubs, bars, fish houses, gourmet burger joins, Korean Restaurants and bakeries. This month we visited one place "Circus Circus" for an after dinner coffee and desert and I had the best carrot cake I have had in years! It looks a little over the top from the outside but the food and service was wonderful.

The Circus Circus Cafe 

The lion

The Clown

We also took in the night market, Mark's second visit, and my first. We sampled lots of different foods from vendors all over the world, took in all the market stalls selling fruit, veggies and pet outfits. It was overwhelming with all the colours, people lights and the smells of all of the different types of foods.

Night Market! 

Some of the best food we had all night there - the em-pinatas 

I didn't stop to check this one out...but it could be an interesting combination 

In addition to the coffee date, and night market Mark and I have been scoping out some of the local butchers as there are two on Mount Eden Road that offer fantastic meat at reasonable rates. We have been venturing so far with familiar meats but the butchers offer kangaroo, ostrich, and goat. Who knows what we might try while we are here.

A quick venture to the middle of no where

It has been far too long since our last post. February has been a very busy month, full of field work, marking and planning for Mary-Ellen, and plenty of writing for me. However, there were a few notable activities which I will try to portray at this belated date.

At the beginning of the month, my good friend Jan was looking for a volunteer to go with him to a place called Castle Point to attempt to capture settling lobsters and to conduct a small choice experiment with them while they were still in this non-feeding stage of their life. We only had a few days, less than a week, so we took off at the wonderful hour of four in the morning, with a truck full of crevice collectors and large rebar weights. Well, this drive took forever, going from small town to town, southward until the towns disappeared completely. We continued driving into beautiful yet remote countryside, great gorges with large flowing rivers and limestone weathered down through time. With little time to enjoy the surroundings, we arrived and set up the collectors immediately before the tide came in too far which would leave them high and dry during the low tide overnight. Some food and some sleep ensued, and it would not really be until the next day that we got to enjoy the splendor of Castle Point.

The next day was not a promising day however. The traps had been set a bit too late, leaving many dry on the sand. To make matters worse, the weather was not looking good and could potentially delay or detour the returning lobsters to the settlement area. We only found a single lobster that day, and the nonsensical name of Pete was provided to the half-dead beach-cast larval lobster. Pete did survive to our amazement, and the little mascot brought some hope to our cause.

Without going into too much detail, we spent the next couple days with some decent success, having collected close to 10 larval lobsters, with only a few casualties, however, as our spirits lifted we were given time to pause and look around. Castle Point is a long sandy beach, terminating in a limestone precipice, a mound of limestone rock sheltering bay, and a large lagoon. The limestone was rich with history, having originally been the resting place for countless marine organisms when it was originally below the waves. It was completely riddled with the fossilized shells of molluscs and brachipods, including one particular area filled with the fossilized shells of scallops.

The guardian rock which protects the bay from the crashing waves generated by the enormous expanse of open ocean also houses another guardian, a stoic sentinel casting light to weary sailors, signalling danger and guiding them to safe harbours. A magnificent old lighthouse that although automated today, still casts it's shadow upon the remnants of another time, the old foundations of what made up the home of it's original caretakers.

From atop the hills of ancient seafloor, the best view of all is had. Looking past the lighthouse you can see the lagoon, a reasonably save harbour for small ships, protected by a wall of limestone which is constantly pounded by the waves, washing over into the lagoon, sending enormous spouts of water into the air. With all the water and the sun beating down harshly upon this spray, a cloud of mist blankets the area.

And shadowing over this is the mighty precipice of limestone, adding to the majesty of the area. Castlerock is an appropriate name for such a place, for the regal and wonder of it does indeed remind you of the ancient structures of it's namesake.

After this beautiful hike up to the lighthouse, we also returned to the most brazen gull I have ever encountered. No, it was not take french fries out of someones hand, but instead had parked itself on the roof of the lab truck. The brazen part was that we basically had to open the doors to get the creature to move, standing up after we were about 3 meters away, and flying when we reached the vehicle.

After an exhausting haul of the traps out of the water and packing them away, we were prepared to head home, but with the 10 hour drive ahead of us, we decided to stay one more evening so we would be rested. This gave us one last look of the majestic scenery that morning when we were able to watch the sunrise. This is definitely a place I will be bringing Mary-Ellen too.