Random Assortment of pictures from the Diwali Festival and some blossoms at Cornwall Park. Click image below to access photos…

The Diwali Auckland Festival this year was perhaps sightly smaller than in years preceding, though I thought was still certainly worth a visit.

Ended up walking into the Equippers worship service by accident, thinking it was part of the festival.

An afternoon Roadtrip explore up to Awhitu Lighthouse. Click picture below to access the gallery on NUI.NZ

Rebuilt in 2006 using the original plans from 1874. Official site: Manukau Heads Light House

The Road up to the Lighthouse becomes very windy half way up the Awhitu Peninsula. Beware new speed camera about 400m out (north along Awhitu Road) from Waiuku.

It was observed that a seemingly substantial percentage of the real estate was being marketed for sale, particularly the further north you went (e.g Big Bay). However the reason why this was the case remains unknown.

Sunday walk with Auckland Hiking Group doing the Mangatawhiri reservoir loop. Click photo below to access the gallery (NUI.NZ)

Did a rather short “reconditioning” hike in the morning (before heading off to afternoon family activities), photos posted to NUI.NZ (as per usual).

Route by pure chance ended up being almost exactly identical the Swanson Pipeline Waitakere Dam loop I did last year with the Auckland Hiking Group where the dam was perhaps more spectacular then with water going gushing down it. My own photos for that hike have been posted here.

Almost feel like combining the two albums.

Originally posted 28th January 2017, updated 29th March 2017

Eventually ended up acquired the young.kiwi domain name to replace the longer young.kiwi.nz (which I’ve since dropped). I guess as well as representing my last name, the “young” + “kiwi” word combination does have a nice ring to it. The young.nz domain is still in a conflicted state with about 5 different claims on it and it looks unlikely anyone will get it any time soon.

Not quite sure what is going on with dot Kiwi and their domains. Their front page is incorrectly indicating domains which are taken as being available. Additionally, late last year, young.kiwi couldn’t be registered (had some funny lock on it preventing registration), and prior to that, the dot Kiwi registry was trying to hock it off as a premium domain name for a thousand dollars.

There is also a bit of an identity issue with “Kiwi” as a word in itself. Seems everywhere else in the world, the word Kiwi is firmly linked to Kiwifruit (Chinese Gooseberry) as opposed to New Zealand’s Native Bird, or a New Zealander / New Zealand CItizen, or anything about New Zealand as such. Go to Google NCR (“No Country Redirect”) and type in “Kiwi” to see what I’m referring to.

As an aside, how is this for unusual pricing? The young.blog is listed with an asking price of 110,000 USD per year. Not sure who will go for those with the plethora of Top Level domains to choose from these days. Continue reading “Domain names” →

General Snaps from various Auckland CBD locations.

Watched Indiana Jones – “Raiders of the lost ark” + Orchestral performance by the Auckland Philharmonia at the Civic Theatre in town, which was quite a jolly performance. Continue reading “Auckland Arts Festival” →

Returned back to Cowan Stream. It’s a goodie which I’ve done several times in the past. Really enjoy the soak there and the opportunities to jump of rocks into the pools below. Including a friendly Eel at the base of one of the falls.

Small group Explore around Destruction Gully Near Whatipu along the Manukau Harbour.

Fishermen were naturally edgy as we walked along the coast, evidently afraid that we might be fishery officers.

11th February 2017 – Random pictures with a walk around Pukekohe Hill and Waitangi Falls around the former Franklin District.

Waitangi Falls

Waitangi Falls

A paddling of ducks near Waitangi Falls

A paddling of ducks near Waitangi Falls

Pukekohe Hill

Pukekohe Hill

Pukekohe Hill

Pukekohe Hill

Pukekohe Hill

The only real unobstructed view from Pukekohe Hill

I still need to draw down the excessive annual leave racked up and travel overseas, somewhere, anywhere, for say a month.

Grapes overhanging a fence at a friend’s place in Papakura…

Grapes overhang Carl’s fence

Grapes overhang Carl’s fence

Grapes overhang Carl’s fence

30th January 2017 – Wairoa Cosseys Track (one way involving car shuttle) Redux. Fairly easy walk through some pretty lush bush. Due to the ambient temperature of 27°C, still ended up hitting my heat limit a number of times. Hunua Falls upon our arrival was packed with people looking to cool off in the pool at the base of the falls.

Wairoa Cosseys Track, Hunua

Swing bridge at Wairoa Cosseys Track, Hunua

Wairoa Cosseys Track, Hunua

Hunua Falls

Wairoa Cosseys Track

Hunua Falls. Packed like a Zoo

Hunua Falls. Packed like a Zoo

I have since switched mobile provider with the change-over having occurred on Monday 16th January 2017. In short, was enticed by a better plan arrangement at Spark with more being offered at the same price point for my specific individual usage pattern. Continue reading “Changed Mobile Provider” →

In my latest grief with my ASUS N550JV Laptop… Upon returning back home from my tramping (hiking) trip, I received “Display driver igfx stopped responding and has successfully recovered” (Event ID 4101) Over and over and over and over and over while trying to upload the photos from the aforementioned trip to my website.

Yes, the ASUS N550JV was giving me grief yet again. Though thankfully I think I’ve finally nailed this at least for the time being. In the end, it involved several hours of trying out many different drivers off of the Intel website and then testing whether or not the issue went away.

Continue reading “Intel HD Graphics IGFX Display driver crashes” →