Gibbs Sculpture Farm

And the final blog from out Northland travels. Click on the photos to enlarge. 

You'll recall I was offered a free ticket to an open day at Gibbs Sculpture Farm by our neighbours at the Muriwai Holiday Park. They'd bought tickets for two days just in case the weather wasn't great on the first day. 

Gibbs Farm, Kaipara Harbour

They headed off on a lovely sunny day, the next day- my day- wasn't so good; overcast, grey & threatening rain but I hardly noticed. I was out the door early & one of first in the car queue through into a top paddock carpark (no surprises there). 

Rakaia 1996/1997. Peter Nicholls

Gibbs Farm is an expansive open-air sculpture park on the edge of the Kaipara Harbour, north of Auckland. It has the greatest collection of large-scale outdoor sculptures in the country with works by some of the world's most renowned artists. The sculpture park took 24 years to create & employs over 28 people.

‘Horizons’ (1994), Neil Dawson

I once heard Neil Dawson, the artist of  Horizons talking about his work. He said it like a curved piece of corrugated iron, from an old farm tank, that has sprung loose and blown in the wind to settle on the hilltop. And it sure looked like that. Added to the surreal scene, yaks & rare breeds of horned sheep grazed on the slopes below the sculpture.  Dawson is also famous for The Chalice in Cathedral Square, Christchurch.

‘Te Tuhirangi Contour’ (1999-2001), Richard Serra

Gibbs Farm, Kaipara Harbour

The park is only open to the public a few days each year and the owner Alan Gibbs (entrepreneur, businessman & art collector) generously allows local charities to run the open days & fundraise selling tickets.

Red Cloud Confrontation in Landscape 1996. Leon van den Eijkel

Pyramid (Keystone NZ) 1997. Sol

It was great to get there early to take photos before there were too many people swarming in, around & over some of the more popular sculptures. Although a few hundred people soon disappear in the landscape.

Tickets Please- Otis the Ostrich 2019 (I named him)

By far the most popular exhibit, going by the strung out rows of tiny ant like people making a beeline for it, was 'Dismemberment', looking like a gigantic red megaphone high up on a hill.

‘Dismemberment, Site 1’ (2009). Anish Kapoor.

The farm covers over 400 hectares of rolling hills & a good level of fitness and sturdy footwear are required if you want to get up close & personal with the sculptures.

‘Dismemberment, Site 1’ (2009), Anish Kapoor.

I wonder how many people noticed the art work 'Green & White Fence (1999-2001), Daniel Buren', it contains fence posts painted, well, green & white, & placed at 4 metre intervals and is 3.2km long. I found it pretty hard capturing the whole sculpture but you can see it in the two photos below! 😁

At the top of the hill- Sea/Sky Kaipara (1994) Graham Bennett

Sculptures are located high on hilltops, down on slopes, tucked into gullies and in paddocks beside the harbour. 

A Fold in the Field (2013) Maya Lin (yes, it's those mounds in the paddock)

There is no public entry to this part of the farm but it looks like there's a fair bit going on down there. I wonder if that is where the private full-scale wild west farm complete with saloon is located. Although it looks more like a island resort to me. Someone will know.

And there's that fence again.

It is a large farm and it takes at least four hours to follow the sculpture trail.

‘88.5° ARC x 8’ (2012), Bernar Venet

There are even a few sculptures located out on the Kaipara harbour mudflats that can be viewed from a few locations along the walk- I didn't manage to see any. 

Gibbs Farm, Kaipara Harbour

‘Te Tuhirangi Contour’ (1999-2001), Richard Serra.

The farm also includes quite a surprising number of exotic animals such as zebra, bison, buffalo, yaks, giraffe & an assortment of rare & unusual breeds of cattle, sheep & goats.

Buffalo- Mumma & her son

One of us is not like the other- Jeff the Giraffe gets a lick from the Gibbs Farm dominant real life male giraffe (salt forms on the sculpture from the salt laden Kaipara Harbour air). There are 3 male giraffes, they are big animals and very tall, it's just that Jeff is much taller!

Giraffe (2011-2012), Jeff Thomson

The giraffe are the only remaining Rothschild giraffe in New Zealand and Gibbs Farm is a registered zoo with suitably qualified staff taking care of all the animals.

I'm sure the animals hate open days- they are contained in smaller paddocks & yards

The ponds have fish in them and various types of waterfowl congregating lakeside. 

Easy K (2005) Kenneth Snelson & Red Square (1994), Richard Thompson

I had a fantastic time exploring the farm, visiting most of the sculptures and saying hello to some of the more friendly animals...

Umbrella Ostrich 2019

Towards the end I wanted to reverse my route & revisit some of the sculptures again, see them in a different light, capture them at a different angle but sadly time was up and groups of tired, bedraggled people dragging their feet (it had rained on & off), slowly made their way back up the hill to the top carpark. Those that were in the bottom carpark had already climbed to the top in the morning. 

‘Dismemberment, Site 1’ (2009). Anish Kapoor.

If you ever get the chance I'd highly recommend a visit to Gibbs Farm. The farm & artworks might be privately owned by a very wealthy businessman but he very generously shares this magnificent landscape with visitors through the open days. You won't be disappointed. 

And a huge thankyou to the lovely visiting Dutch couple who gave me one of their tickets, it was very much appreciated & enjoyed. 

‘Dismemberment, Site 1’ (2009). Anish Kapoor.

‘Jacob’s Ladder’ (2017), Gerry Judah.

Floating Island of Immortals (2006), Zhan Wang

What do you think? Did I managed to capture 3.2km of THAT fence?

‘88.5° ARC x 8’ (2012), Bernar Venet

Tapora & Big Sand Island

Continuing on with my Northland blogs from February, 2019

From Port Albert we headed further west to our next destination. Over hills and down dales, along dusty back country roads & weaving past tinder dry farmland through the Rodney District...

 ...until we finally reached our next camp site, Te Puni Campground at Tapora. Tapora is a small settlement at the top of the Okahukura Peninsula a large body of land that juts out into the Kaipara Harbour separating the north from the south branches of the harbour. The top of the peninsula sits right in the centre of the harbour entrance & acts as a natural barrier to incoming weather events.

The campground, which is right beside the Tapora Golf Club, is owned and run by a local farming couple who were excellent hosts. There are cabins available & a great amenities building with lovely sheltered deck for sitting on. We found a level spot on the undulating ground where the powered sites were located watched on by a curious herd of cows. 

We had come to Tapora to do some bird spotting on Big Sand Island (more on that later) and when our host heard this he was quick to point out that he often spooked Bittern/Matuku-Hurepo as he moved about the farm & the golf course. 

David checking to see where the flushed bittern was feeding

Bittern are extremely cryptic (camouflaged) and rarely seen. We have seen several on our travels, most of them have been flushed out of their cover by us being clumsy & not knowing they were about & we also had a couple fly across the road in front of the ute as we've travelled back roads. We've also seen one in freeze mode 'pointing' in a roadside ditch but it was gone by the time we re-traced out tracks. Now we were keen to see if we could finally find a bittern in a wetland up close. We thought we'd try the golf course first.

And sure enough we found one. And once again we were clumsy! We'd only just crept along the fence line down to the swamp when a bittern flew out without warning, right in front of us on the edge of the reeds where it must have been foraging. Bugger. Although luckily I had my camera ready to go but unluckily I didn't have it focused for a bird in flight.

The next day we crept to the top of the hill & lay on our bellies with binoculars scanning the wetland below but I thought we'd probably spooked yesterday's bird & it had gone deeper into the swamp or flown to one of the other wet areas on the course. I left David and moved onto a smaller area I'd seen the previous day.

And as I walked along the fence looking for a place to climb over I couldn't believe my eyes when I spotted a bird 'pointing' in the thick reeds. 

I stopped in my tracks and crouched down carefully photographing the bittern as I willed David to come over the hill. It wasn't until I processed the photos that I could see that the bird's eyes were totally fixed on me. Bitterns freeze like this to blend into their surroundings although this one was a little easier to spot against the surrounding green reeds. 

Check the eyes- click on the photo to enlarge

As I cautiously approached it flattened it's chest to the ground and turned it head slightly still keeping one beady eye on me. I stopped and backed off a little hoping to keep it there until David came looking for me.

But then just as I turned my head to check for David it grabbed it's chance to escape. And of course I didn't have my camera ready so once again I have another blurry photo to add to several others. 

And again, it wasn't until I processed the photos, that I spotted that the bird had a really weird leg & foot. It looks like it's missing a foot in the photo above but when you check the photo below, the foot is folded back up the bird's back. Perhaps that's why it sat tight for quite some time. David finally made it over the hill but all I had were photos to show him.

And again the next day we had another look in both areas but didn't manage to flush anymore bitterns. It's back to the drawing board.  

We walked around the course checking out a few other wet areas but the bitterns had moved on. After seeing large areas of new avocado orchards further up north we thought this planting beside the golf course was another avocado orchard but once up close I could see that this was in fact a pomegranate orchard. The wind breaks are a tall plant with flowing leaves a bit like bamboo (but it's not) I've seen this plant growing in my sister's garden in Whangarei.

Just up the road from our Tapora camp was the entrance to Big Sand Island/Manukapua & the Manukapua Wildlife Refuge where we were hoping to see some wading birds. 

The island is in fact joined to the peninsula by a large expanse of sand which looks to only be covered in sea water at extremely high or spring tides. The island itself is a series of large sand dunes sparsely covered in dune grasses & scrub, it's front the first barrier at the entrance to the harbour. 

We made it across a sandy track & into the dunes before our progress is stopped by deep soft sand. The last thing we wanted was to get bogged down in the dunes without another soul in sight. I carried on, on foot, following the track over the last few dunes until I reached the spectacular view out the harbour entrance; Pouto Point is on the right, the north side accessed from Dargaville and South Head on the left.

Once I was back at the ute we drove around to the south side of the island across massive expanses of solid sand. David did a bit of bird spotting but with the tide well out it was pretty hard to see any waders.

Our host also sent us up another access track across his farm to the north side of the harbour just east of Big Sand Island, to the Okahukura Conservation area. 

This section was prime real estate for many of our less well known & rarely seen birds such as Marsh Crakes, Spotted Crakes, Banded Rail & Fernbirds along with Bitterns. 

We hadn't planned our visit to Tapora too well, the tide didn't suit here either and we also did our walks during the heat of the day. I think a dedicated bird spotting trip would need to planned to have any luck, and it would be best early morning. Still it was a great day for a walk.

I had to zoom in on this 'dinosaur' and take a photo to identify it, it certainly looked like a boat hull from our location, hundreds of metres away. And there are all the waders in front of it. 

We had one more place to check out, the aptly named Birds Beach on another point of the peninsula but we'd lost a bit of our enthusiasm in the intense summer heat so instead we parked on the foreshore and had lunch sitting on the tailgate in as much shade as we could find while watching holidaying locals carry buckets of cockles back from the mud flats. 

I can't quite decide if this would be a cool address to have or not.....

With our bird spotting adventures over I did a little exploring back up the road to the top of the hills behind Tapora. This is looking back towards the Kaipara Harbour entrance with the two points on the horizon.

I had also planned to add another church to my photo collection, the very picturesque Minniesdale Chapel which is not far off the main road but not suitable for a 14metre rig to drive down to, so I had to shoot it before we left the area. 

The tiny & cute Minniesdale Chapel has been open since 1867 & in continuous use ever since.

Many of the early Albertland settlers are buried in the old cemetery beside the church. One of the headstones looks to be wooden with a huge crack through it & the base rotting away. I've not come across a wooden headstone before so I hope it doesn't disappear altogether. No wait there was one, Somebody's Darling headstone at the Lonely Graves but it was inside a protective case. And I wonder what a headstone is called when it's wood? A headwood? I don't think so. 

I also drove into the Atiu Creek Regional Park, one of the many fabulous parks located around the outer Auckland area and run by the Auckland Council. 

The park is a working farm but also includes many walking tracks, mountain bike & horse trails and a couple of camp sites although the top carpark is the only one for RVs. Unfortunately I didn't have time to explore any of the tracks but it's a place I'd like to return to one day.

I was sad to find dozens of dead stick insects on the concrete path beside the toilet block. I suspect that the building had recently been sprayed for spiders & these were unfortunate victims too. I collected them all up and buried them under a pile of leaves.

Back on the road and on our way further south it was a surprise to round a corner in the highway & see a famous sculpture off in the distance. A quick snap through the window was all I managed...

Little did I know this was not the last I would see of the Gibbs Sculpture Farm...