Did the Massey and Wairoa-Cosseys Tracks in the Hunua ranges. Took us about 40 mins to drive out to Hunua from Auckland, which is probably a bit longer than the Waitaks. Starting at Hunua Falls, the Massey track is a steep climb up. It includes a nice grove of kauris, then there’s a gentle descent to the dam. Coming back we followed the Cosseys Creek down, although the track perches very high above it. It seems like there must have been some widely read promotion of the Hunua Falls being the place to be for the one fine day of Labour weekend. There were quite a few people on the track and the carpark was full to overflowing. It was good we got out before our exit was blocked off. Enjoyed refreshing ginger beer and code spider drinks (aka float/soda) back at Michelle & Brian’s.

We came second in the pub quiz last night, winning a $30 bar tab. Only a few points behind the first-place-getters.

Sorted out the problem I had before after upgrading to WordPress 2.6.2.  It was to do with my unorthodox wp-config.php file.  When WordPress is installed all the files, code, content and templates, go into /usr/share/wordpress.  A while back I wanted to run multiple blogs on the one system, with different contents and templates, but I wanted them to share the same code.

The solution (which I can’t remember where I found) is all the code files and directories for the blog are symlinks back to /usr/share/wordpress, but the wp-content directory is local for each blog, then an Apache environment variable is set for each blog to point to its config file.   I won’t go into the details because it doesn’t work anymore.  The problem now is the ABSPATH constant is being set in a new file wp-load.php before wp-config.php is loaded where it used to be set. 

ABSPATH points to the base directory for the WordPress files.  I need it to point to the local (per-blog) location, but wp-load.php is forcing it to /usr/share/wordpress.  My new solution is to have the ABSPATH I want stored in a Apache environment file and hack wp-load.php to set ABSPATH to that.  It’s much more ugly because I am now hacking code files instead of just config files, but it works.

In my Apache conf file I have: SetEnv BLOG_ABSPATH "/home/david/www/blog"

My wp-load.php is hacked so that it has: define('ABSPATH', $_SERVER['BLOG_ABSPATH']);

Then the files in /home/david/www/blog are either symlinks to /usr/share/wordpress or real files depending on whether I want them shared for all blogs or just for this one.

Funny thing is I’m no longer running multiple blogs, but I still prefer to have it as an option. And this way means my local stuff lives under /home, while the code still stays in /usr/share/wordpress.

Excellent tramp. Walked up Waiorongomai valley, mostly following old gold tramways. The inclines I thought were just steep sections when I saw them marked on the map turn out to be where the cars were winched up the mountainside. The track then went up over the saddle and up Mt Te Aroha. Visibility was pretty bad from the top, but it cleared a bit while I was up there. Came down the mountain track back into town. Had a beer at the Te Aroha pub ($5/pint), then fell asleep.

Added Moore photos

Arrived in Te Aroha about 4pm.  I’m pretty sure I took a zig-zag route, but got here anyway.  Talked to the manager about tramps and she’s kindly offered to drive me down to Waioronomai Valley so I can walk up Te Aroha and then back down into the other side of town (9am tomorrow).

They have wireless (which I’m using right now) in the motel, but their DNS server is screwed up. I’m guessing they may be favouring WINS over DNS.  I need to contact the Te Aroha LUG. My solution is just to use the Xtra DNS servers (202.27.158.40 and 202.27.156.72).

Went for a walk arount the wetland, then up past the YHA (which I wanted to check out) along another track behind the town and then back down to the domain.  Bought some food for dinner and tomorrow’s lunch at the supermarket and have been just chilling out here.  Another great feature of the motel is the room comes with a cat to keep me company.

Pretty tired.  It’s great how quiet it is, even though the motel is right on the main street.  No screams or sirens or yelling like in Auckland City on a Friday night.  Will probably go to sleep soon.  Still haven’t fixed the blog theme.  Will pack tomorrow, only a day trip so no big deal.  Wish I could find my compass.

Moore photos available over here.