Neighbourhood next door

When you move

south along the main highway at the end of our street, you come to a district where the streets are named for historic ships.

The first is Timandra Street, which takes its name from one of the first six ships to bring settlers from Britain in the 1840s. It was on this ship that Margaret's Barriball ancestors came here; her great-great-grandparents arriving 175 years ago next month. We are planning to celebrate this event with other families from the ship, and the Maori hapu who shared their urupa so a newly born infant from the family could be buried when he died suddenly soon after their arrival.

Off Timandra Street is Tokomaru Street, with its satellite Turi Street, both reminiscent of Maori voyaging canoes of the "Great Fleet".

After a shopping block, we come to Oriental Street, named for another early immigrant ship, which is also commemorated in Oriental Bay in Wellington.

Side-streets to Oriental are Tainui, Aotea and Arawa, more of the first group of waka.

This week I stopped in Timandra Street in light rain to sketch a house we have been studying for its new landscaping.

On another day I was driving through Fitzroy near what was in the 1840s the farm of Margaret's Timandra family. At a high vantage point I stopped to catch the view of the Waiwhakaiho River and the three parallel bridges across it.

The clouds were gathering around the mountain and the rain eventually arrived. We will be relieved when Summer really reaches us!