Gills Scenic Reserve

A little, very short stroll around GIlls Scenic Reserve in Albany.  Pics uploaded to nui.nz

Started from the Lower end of the reserve at GIlls Road entrance and did a figure eight type of loop. There’s a possibility to enter the park at the Carol Lee Place end instead though car park when I walked past seemed to be full, however for some strange reason, I didn’t encounter anyone else in the reserve while I was there.

Apparently there’s some board walk section to this reserve, however, didn’t manage to find it.

Gills Scenic Reserve
Gills Scenic Reservie

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Gills Scenic Reserve

Domain History

History of these domain names (being both peak.nz and nui.nz) is that they were acquired for a personal project to create an online space (Forum, private social network, or other web CMS) for organizing outings and events informally and casually between a small group of friends away from relying on Centralized and Commercialized Networks such as Facebook and Meetup

Part of the prescription was that this new “space” had to be accessible via Mobile, the domain names needed to be easily typed in to a mobile device and in this case, shorter the better. Appears with the .nz domains names not being as recognisable or respected as the .co.nz ones, both of the aforementioned domain names were freely available for registration at the time (and had been for several months after the DNC Preferential Rights of Registration period had ended),

However, the project, apart from setting up multiple props for evaluation, in effect never took off and it was at this stage, the allure of facebook was found / assessed to be nigh impossible to break for the social circle that it was intended for (the same social circle, which originally suggested creating an alternative), and I have since decided to pick up and use these domains myself for my own personal use.

Domain History

Spontaneous Pararaha Stream Day Walk

Did a spontaneous walk along Pararaha… Heck I wasn’t actually going to go all the way, (was going to stop at the log jam then head back) but continued on anyway.  Weather conditions were showery initially while I was walking down Buck Taylor track, but later cleared up once I embarked on the Pararaha Stream (after the Pararaha Campsite)

Grippy footwear really is a must for this.    You will most probably get your feet wet.  Dry bags for your more sensitive gear (e.g. Non-Waterproof electronics) is highly advisable.

Log Jam can be a little daunting, particularly the bit where you get through past the logs and then climb up a moderately sloped rock. Thankfully the rock is fairly grippy

While it is technically possible (after the log jam) to continue directly up the stream, there are 3 (or may be 4 Points) where it may be better to scramble up the side of a cliff for those who wish to avoid a full immersion swim. The cliff routes are failry well worn in, it’s just a matter of finding them… If you find that a section of stream is deeper than chest height, then there’s most probably an alternative cliff trail somewhere.

Regarding Still Gully, (According to the map posted to Auckland Hiking Group meetup, it seems they are planning to go up this). In short, It’s easy to miss, which may not be a bad thing because it’s difficult to go up it.  There’s a small stream and lots of thick bush and according to the Topo Map, it gets quite steep.  Tried for about a 100m then gave up.  There doesn’t appear to be much to see there (except dense vegetation).  I believe you are better to continue up Pararaha stream till you get to intersection of Odins TImber Trail and then turn left on to it to Odens TImber Trail and head back to the car park from there.

Will shortly upload photos to nui.nz

Spontaneous Pararaha Stream Day Walk

Celebrity Worship and The Widening Wealth Gap

The following appeared in NZ Herald’s letter to the editor dated 3rd November 2016

Obscene deal

Wow, this $142 million deal is great for Steven Adams and I congratulate him. I guess he will now be a contender for the Halberg Awards? No doubt there will be in a movie about him one day, too. A script writer’s dream. One of 14 children from at Rotorua to a super star in the US. Not only will this deal do wonders for basketball in this country but it will help put New Zealand on the map in USA perhaps?
Sadly, though, this deal also highlights all that is wrong in the world and especially in America. Let’s be honest and say it like it really is. Is “obscene” the right word or is “absurd” a better description? For any sports person to be paid $820,000 an hour for bouncing a basketball around a court is just ludicrous. To think the top surgeons who are saving people’s lives are getting a fraction of this is the real obscenity. Only in America.

Glen Stanton, Mairangi Bay.

To be brutally blunt, While I echo much of sentiments expressed in this letter (Except the “Only in America” bit), the scenario is perhaps only going to get more pronounced as time goes on.

It’s really our own collective / combined actions (as commoners) that ball games players are getting the figures they do. Aside from the Rags to Riches / Fooled by randomness story. The feeling I get on the street is that the majority are generally hungry for Entertainment, Distractions, Escapism and Vicarious living, while perhaps ignoring  more pressing issues affecting the world in general, and the longer term implications of our actions ultimately on ourselves as individuals in the long run.

Bread and circuses I call it.  Only this time, we’re falling head over heels to pay the entertainment elite (for lack of a better term) to perhaps distract us, and help us escape from the realities of living our otherwise meagre lives and in a perverse kind of way, further deepening the divide.  The rich get richer as a result of the majority’s demand for diversions and we get even more desperate to escape or engage in some vicarious living further entrenching and accelerating the transfer of power from the Ourselves as commoners to the few.

Have to admit, I struggle to understand the level at the public’s fascination and obsession of some Public figures, may be my Celebrity Worship brain circuitry is fried, also gone is my ability to live vicariously. The ability was there when I was young, so not sure when It went, but goes at least some way to explaining why I am having trouble understanding mass psychology and why masses do what they do at times.

I may regard highly, the abilities of a given public figure, but frankly, unable to conjure up any sort of implied relationship (faux or otherwise) with them, unless I’ve met them in person, shook hands and engaged in a conversation with the said person.  Otherwise, it’s this… I don’t know them personally and they don’t know me. Having had a cursory trawl through the Internet, it looks like there is even a test for Celebrity Worship Syndrome [PDF here] to which I confess, I’m very perplexed at the level at which this is occurring at… Have we ceased thinking?

 

Celebrity Worship and The Widening Wealth Gap