They predicted showers, overcast skies, and general miserableness this weekend, instead it was gloriously sunny and warm. I spent Saturday cutting gorse in just the right temperatures, then Sunday, a visit to Anawhata. The house is Keddle House, part of Auckland Council’s Bach Escapes. It has just got a new Marseilles Tile roof, like the one originally there when the house was built in 1931 by Wally and Sally Parker, rather well-off English immigrants who chose this remote spot for their retirement. “Keddle” is the surname of Sally’s son who inherited the place. Sally gardened all round the house, creating terraces on the steep cliffs. Her legacy discernable terraces and tracks around the cliffs, but also that terrible silvery succulent, African pig’s ear, which smothers the cliffs, escaped from her garden. Craw Homestead along Anawhata Road is at long last getting a renovation, one of the last things I got funded before the ARC went out of business. It will make a great bach or backpackers for people who want to get away from it all.

View down into Anawhata, the orange Marseilles tiled roof of Keddle House to the left

Keddle House from the beach, views to die for

Keddle House, new roof, Marseille tiles like the original in 1931

Old manuka, sheared by wind from Tasman Sea

Looking south towards Fisherman’s Rock and the Keyhole