Manukau harbour entrance

Huia

King Kong hills

Banana tree branch

up the plum tree

view of harbour from the house

extra getting her make up done

extras rehearsing their dance

Saturday 11th Feb. Have just been having a chill week, reading lots, walking the dog, exploring Mirabai's Miss Marples and even went on a run! Today I went to look at Tanya and Toby's property in Huia, with Sylvie and Tanya, which they're just about to sell. Huia is sooooo bushy almost like a rain forest being right in the middle of the Waitakere Ranges. We went to a look out point before going to the house. The hills looked like something out of King Kong, more like mountains. Very pretty though and we looked out on the entrance to the Manukau harbour and over Huia. We then went to the property which had lots of land although its all rain forest and a little waterfall. There were banana, lemon, ugly fruit and plum trees. Sylvie and I climbed the plum tree and eventually gathered a respectable number of plums. Tanya then pulled down a massive banana tree branch with bananas on after some effort. Meanwhile Snowy feasted on a dead bird he found on the drive! We went to the Huia store for some ice cream and fish and chips, the fish and chips was especially good. We then took Snowy on to the beach for a little stroll. Later we went to see Toby on set. He is currently filming in Auckland for a film called The Emperor starring Matthew Fox and Tommy Lee Jones. I was very excited and we arrived at King's College which is a private boys school where they were going to be filming a dance scene. I couldn't wipe the grin off my face. We took the shuttle bus up to the main filming area and went over to see Toby who was planning for the next scene. Tanya introduced me to the director but forgot his name! We then went with Toby into the dinning hall. We had already had dinner but couldn't resist some of the offerings. Everyone was sat at long tables and as they were filming a dance scene there were lots of men and woman in 1940s dress. The costumes were gorgeous and it was so cool looking behind the scenes. We then went outside into a courtyard where Toby and the others had gone off to plan a scene. Toby was really busy but he looked after us so well and assigned an assistant to look after us. He also moved us closer to where they were filming so we could get a better look. We watched Matthew Fox and the lead female actor Enico rehearse their scene. Toby then introduced us to Enico who was very sweet. After they'd finished rehearsing we went into an old hall to watch some of the extras rehearsing their dance. It was really fun to watch them and we sneakily took some photos even though you're not allowed. We left before they started to actually film the scene as it was 11.30 and we were really tired. It was a great experience though and I feel very privileged to have been able to go on set.