The plan was to do a pub-tramp, a tramp which finished at a pub. Knowing there was a pub at Puhoi I did some searching and found the Dunn’s Bush walk. The track starts at the southern end Tolhopf Rd, beside 703 Ahuroa Rd, Puhoi and end of Remiger Rd, Puhoi.

Val and Arthur Dunn gifted Dunn’s Bush from their farm to QEII National Trust in 1994…. A 3km trail takes visitors through magnificent mature native forest and regenerating bush remnants.

Was a nice walk. A good first tramp after a long winter for me. The bush doesn’t cover a huge area, but still has a lot of bird life. (A sign explained how there are islands of bush around here which make up their habitat.) There are some big trees who escaped the mill including this huge Kahikatea and many young (less than 100 years old) kauri, totara, rimu etc.

Climbing out of the bush we reached rock outcrops (sugarloafs?) and an idyllic scene. I ventured bucolic, but learnt it has connotations of backwardness. Brian explained original meaning of idyllic is what I wanted. (Webster’s: “pleasing or picturesque in natural simplicity”).

Another interesting thing about the Dunn’s Bush walk is it forms a small part of Te Araroa, the “long pathway” stretching the length of New Zealand. Was tempting to follow it to Cape Reinga, but left that for another day.

Puhoi pub was packed out with hundreds of bikes and people all out to enjoy the first fine weekend day in ages. We went on to Orewa and had a beer and lunch at Muldoon’s Irish Bar, named after the former Prime Minister who’s borrow and buy votes “Think Big” policies have become popular in the National Party again.

Was a great day, but failed as a pub-tramp. The track is a long way from the pub. So we’re still searching for pub-tramps. Ideas include tracks around Te Aroha, and far away Arthurs Pass, Mt Cook.

I don’t really want to blog about this stuff. Was avoiding it.

My sister Rebecca is in hospital in Switzerland after a serious fall mountain climbing. She has had an operation to put two pins into her back. She is still in intensive care, but latest news is she should move to a regular ward soon (may have moved already). Suzanne our eldest sister has flown there and is with her now.

I guess having a string of Oliver updates I should also write the conclusion. My cat, Oliver, died early this morning. I gave him his regular 7 units of insulin on Friday evening, but either he hadn’t eaten enough, or I injected it straight into the blood stream or something else went wrong and he went into hypoglycemic shock. I managed to get him to eat a bit, but he still went into seizures and after a lot of that, paralysis. I took him to the after hours vet and we put him down.

I’ve disabled comments on this post. Thanks for your well wishes, but I don’t want to come back to this post.

Went and heard RMS talk on Copyright and DRM at AukUni at lunch today. Super compressed summary is: the copyright laws which were good for society when there was only a few publishers with printing presses are past their usefulness and should be updated for today when anyone can and should be able to make a copy of a work for non-commercial sharing.

He’s going to be on National Radio with Kim Hill at 8.15 so you can hear him then too.