April 6th - Rangitoto - Day One

Like I said, we got a lot of reading done today. D.C. finished reading “International Resc-who?”, which is my latest completed story, whereas I proofed (yet again) “Rima” which is the one that I’d been writing for about four years. In fact, to show you how long it’s taken to write, I’d had one of the characters using a PDA – a Personal Digital Assistant. Today I had to change it to a smartphone.

Yesterday I cut my toenails. I’d kind of held off doing that because I know the ants here love them. There’s a line that walks past our door, so we sit on the doorstep and cut our nails. Fingernails the ants ignore. Toenails and it’s a tug of war to see who gets the honour of carting them back the 14+ feet back to the nest. And it’s amazing to watch. The bigger ants just ignored the nails, but the tiny little red ones bench pressed them into the air and staggered away with them! They are amazing creatures.

I also managed to find a laundry bag that I’d lost. I hadn’t seen it in months and was convinced that it was at home somewhere with an old pair of socks in it that I keep at work in case my good ones get wet. Nope, it was at Rangitoto, under my bed, against the wall, and had a pair of bras in it. Goodness knows where the socks are.

We were serenaded by a Tui today. They have an amazing range of sounds from squawks to rattles to trills. We also saw lots of skinks (not sure if they’re the native species or Rainbow Skinks from Aussie. You’re supposed to be able to tell from the diamond on their head, but they never stay still long enough for you to see.) Seeing skinks and hearing Tui:- we wouldn’t have done either prior to the 1990 1080 drop and the Bradificum (sp) drop from about five years ago.

We’ve decided that we’re going to Auckland tomorrow. We have enough food to last, but a friend of ours is in Auckland hospital, so we thought it would be good to take the opportunity to visit her and get some fresh food. So tomorrow we’re back to the city. Yuck.