Rancho Los Cerritos, Long Beach, California, USA

August 20, 2025

California Heights, where we live, was once part of a massive ranch. In 1784, the King of Spain granted 300,000 acres to a former soldier named Manuel Nieto as a reward for his military service and to encourage Spanish settlement in California. On his death, his children inherited the property and his daughter Manuela Cota received the 27,000 acres known as Rancho Los Cerritos (Ranch of the little hills). In 1842, Manuela’s heirs sold the property to Massachusetts-born John Temple. Temple built a two-story Monterey-style adobe house that still exists and is now a museum. We decided to pay the nearby Rancho a visit.

The inside has been furnished like it was back when the house was first built. On a very hot day it was surprisingly cool inside even with no air conditioning.

We were surprised to see in the library a copy of Peter McIntyre’s West. McIntyre was perhaps New Zealand’s most popular artist of the twentieth century. In the 1960s he produced a number of books of his paintings that were popular in New Zealand including one covering New Zealand and one the Pacific Islands. In 1970, an American publisher produced Peter McIntyre’s West which contained scenes that McIntyre had painted across the western states.

Orange County Fair, Costa Mesa, California, USA

August 13, 2025

The Orange County Fair has been going since 1890. It is now one of the biggest fairs in the world with an attendance of over 1 million visitors during the 23 days it is open each year. There are the traditional farm animals and vegetable competitions.

But the main attractions are the terrifying and nausea producing rides.

Of course, no fair is complete without a giant Ferris wheel.

The other main attraction is the massive variety of junk food. Hint: Save the food until after the rides.

Shotover River, Arthurs Point, Otago, New Zealand

April 27, 2025

We went for a hike along the Shotover River with our brother-in-law, Bill. The river gets its name from one of the early European settlers, William Gilbert Rees, who named it after his business partner’s English estate, Shotover Park. It has a particularly beautiful Maori name, Kimi-akau, which translates as “looking for the coast”. During the New Zealand gold rush in the 1860s, the Shotover was one of the richest gold-bearing rivers in the world. These days, it continues to provide riches but now they are in the form of tourist dollars, paid to the operators of the bright red jetboats that fly up and down the narrow and shallow river. These very fast and agile boats are propelled by a jet of water that is ejected through the back of the boat. Because there are no propellers, the boats can operate in very shallow waters. Fun fact: the first modern jetboat was developed by New Zealand engineer, Sir William Hamilton in the mid 1950s.

Arrowtown, Otago, New Zealand

April 26, 2025

Arrowtown is a historic gold mining town near Queenstown in the Otago region of the of the South Island. Back in the 1860s at the peak of the gold rush, the town had a population of over 7,000, including a large number of Chinese. When we visited, the Autumn Festival and parade looked to draw close to that number in what is normally a sleepy tourist town.

When we lived in New Zealand in the 1980s, we had a Fiat Bambina, similar to the one but without the snazzy blue paint job.

Afterwards, we headed to Queenstown for a drink at the Nest bar and restaurant, with beautiful views of the lake.

Remuera, Auckland, New Zealand

April 14, 2025

We returned to our old neighborhood of Remuera, where we lived for a few years in the eighties. It has grown a lot since then with a lot more fill-in housing. So that has left the suburb with quite a variety of housing, with modern homes often tucked in behind the original homes and accessed down long driveways that are often lined with immaculately groomed hedges.

In fact, we noticed wandering around, that many of the locals seemed particularly fond of their hedges.

Here are some other homes from the neighborhood.

We were impressed by the stylish bus stops.

Kinloch, New Zealand

April 6, 2025

New Zealand’s biggest lake, Taupo, is in the center of New Zealand’s North Island. We thought it would make an ideal midway spot to meet up for a weekend with good friends, Marcus and Vasu, who live in Wellington. We had a great couple of days hanging with them and their dog, Piku. We spent a beautiful day at Kinloch, which sits on the edge of the lake. We started out doing a walk along the Whangamata stream. It was very beautiful and extra interesting because it turns out that the stream is an ideal spot for Brown and Rainbow trout to spawn. Although they are well camouflaged, we were able to spot a few gently swimming against the current and staying in one spot at the edge of the narrow stream making shallow depressions in the gravel to lay and fertilize their eggs. Here are some photos from the walk.

If you look carefully you may be able to make out the well hidden trout in these photos.

We came across this grove full of whimsical bird houses.

Afterwards we headed down to the nearby beach for a swim.

Parnell, Auckland, New Zealand

April 1, 2025

Another day walking around Parnell, passing the usual mix or houses, apartments and light commercial buildings.

Washington DC readers will find the colors of this house rather familiar. All hail the Commanders!

Owners of one of these houses might want to ask their neighbor for the name of their painter.

This house looked like it belonged in the tropics rather than downtown Auckland.

We liked this house’s colorful selection of New Zealand’s national footwear, the jandal (flip flop in America).

Scattered throughout Auckland are little shopping centers like this one. They typically have one of more of the following, a pharmacy (small independent drug store), a fruit and vegetable grocer, a dairy (small shop selling assortment of everyday staples like milk, eggs, newspapers, bread, etc.), a butcher, a fish and chip store, and a cafe. This one had all of the above.

We continue to admire the beautifully painted electrical boxes in the neighborhood.

We passed by a house where Mal lived for a short while in the early eighties. It was abandoned and looked like it was about to be demolished, or at least renovated. To be honest it looked pretty much as it did when Mal lived there.

We ended up at the Parnell Rose Garden, in Dove Myer Robinson Park, named after a beloved Auckland mayor who spent almost 18 years in office from 1959 to 1980. He is one of several Jewish mayors of Auckland, although he was a life long atheist. He was also a rationalist, environmentalist and alternative medicine advocate. In his younger years he rode motorcycles and in 1936 held the World 500cc Speedway title. He also somehow found time to marry four times and have six children.

Mahurangi Regional Park / Puhoi New Zealand

March 29, 2025

Last weekend we visited Scott’s Landing in Mahurangi. This week we crossed the bay and visited the Regional Park in Mahurangi West. The tide was out so we were able to follow the coastline around the point before returning over the headland and through the park.

With a rain storm blowing in from the ocean we decided to head back toward Auckland, but caught this rainbow as we were leaving.

We decided to stop off at the historic village of Puhoi on the way back. European settlement began in Puhoi in 1863 by a group of German-speaking migrants from Bohemia in what is now the Czech Republic. Today, with its General Store and Trading Post you would more easily think that you were in the United States than Bohemia.

The village has a very cute little library.

But, undoubtedly, the village’s main attraction is its pub, which has been serving patrons for almost 150 years.

A teenage band was entertaining the guests with covers from the eighties and nineties.

Unfortunately, the storm that had driven us out of Mahurangi caught up to us in Puhoi, bringing a quick end to the performance and driving the band and guests indoors.

Parnell, Auckland, New Zealand

March 25, 2025

At the end of a street full of commercial buildings, we came across a row of beautiful homes built in 1899 called Dilworth Terrace. It was like suddenly being dropped in England. It is these little surprises that make our urban walks interesting.

This part of Parnell is mainly commercial buildings with some streets of houses interspersed among them.

There were also some state owned apartments.

And Auckland’s own version of London’s brutalist icon, the Barbican.

We liked the prettily painted electrical boxes.