Monday 28 February 2011

27.2.11 – No Kangaroos yet, or other Australians either


Gum trees frame the view

The flight was on time from Christchurch, which was impressive given the situation.  I sat beside a returning rescuer from a Trauma Team from Brisbane.   Two weeks ago, he’d been helping his mother sort out the flooded wreckage of her house in Queensland, and then he was suddenly in Christchurch.  I wished him an uneventful, good long rest, we disembarked into Sydney, and there was George, in shorts and T-shirt, waiting in the Australian heat.  Loaded into his silver 4*4, we were soon racing out the highways, gum trees on both sides, and catching up with family news on the way.  George is Bill’s mother’s sister’s son, and he and his wife Moira are therefore our cousins.   After about an hour, as the sun set in molten gold along the tree-lined horizon, we arrived at George and Moira’s beautiful home.  Situated on a hilltop in an area of vineyards, it has a wonderful open view to distant hills.  

The house itself, which George and Moira designed, is extremely spacious and comfortable, with its own billiard room and cinema, a kitchen to die for, and a lovely garden overflowing with fruits, flowers and vegetables. 
George and Moira's home in Picton

Unexpected water feature
In the morning, we woke to the orchestral efforts of a whole host of birds in the eucalyptus grove beside our window.  It was led by the Bell Birds, who, as you can probably guess, have a clear, bell-like call.  Then we went to get a shower, only to discover there was no water.  It was also raining.  What on earth is the infection that seems to trail in our wake?  No-one will ever invite us back to visit a second time.  We bring plague (‘flu in Porirua), earthquake and drought wherever we place our feet.  It turned out that the water meters here protrude from the ground at the end of the drive, and last night someone had run into it, resulting in a most impressive fountain at the edge of the pavement.  This was soon repaired by two water company men, one of whom commented that it made a very nice garden feature and perhaps should be left that way.

Church turned out to be a friendly little fellowship in the next township.  I was invited to speak about the Christchurch situation, and I was actually grateful to do this as we had been feeling really disempowered in that we had been so completely unable to help.  At least now I could inform people and ask them to pray.




It was slightly surreal to sit in church listening to a preacher who hailed from Paisley, and then go home with two friends of George and Moira’s who were originally from Dumbarton and Springburn.  Are there any Australian’s in this country or are they all back in Glasgow?

Saturday 26 February 2011

26.2.11 – Farewell, fond memories and sincere sympathy, New Zealand

We left Dunedin in the dark, allowing plenty of time to encounter goodness knows what chaos in Christchurch.  In fact, we had no problems whatsoever. 

The car is automatic, as are most cars here.  This was a new departure for me, and at first I was inclined to panic when I had to manoeuvre, banging my foot on the brake pedal in search for the clutch and grabbing any lever available that might be a substitute for the gear stick.  Then I solved it!  If you can play air guitar, you can also use an air gear stick!  Thereafter I invented an imaginary clutch and stick, and on feeling the urge to change up or down, just used these.  Bill stopped laughing at this quite soon as the technique avoided me spread-eagling him on the dashboard at regular intervals.

It is almost embarrassing that our holiday is running completely to schedule when such death and devastation engulfs that beautiful city, so close at hand.  We have heard that Laurie and Mary have been evacuated from their much -loved house, as the cliffs into which it is built have become unstable.  The hire car lady – an effervescent and laughing New Zealander, drove us to the airport.  Opposite her depot is a mound of rubble which was once the bank.  She had helped try to rescue a lady crushed by debris, but found her dead.  Her colleague’s house is ruined.  Her firm is moving its headquarters to Auckland.  ‘People are really down.  We thought it was all over after September.  But we’ll get through it’, she says, and hugs us tight.  She described the airport over the last few days – a torrent of people and equipment arriving from all over the world to help.  13,000 local residents leaving.  Two large military planes offering free flights to Auckland for Christchurch ‘refugees’. We can see an obese dark grey American transport plane, still straddling the tarmac at the terminal.  Inside, everything seems much as normal.  But I notice one young woman, weeping and staring blankly ahead in abject misery and disbelief.  She looks as if she’s been crying for days.  She probably has.

What are our brief impressions of New Zealand?  They are of warm and welcoming relatives and friends, of a breathtakingly beautiful country of blue mountains, turquoise seas, rich green pastures.  Little wooden houses, with carved porticoes, many of which in Dunedin, looked as if they might have been built quite soon after the first Scots arrived.  Tall blue and white Agapanthus flowers, edging the roads, sometimes punctuated by Eucalyptus trees and Red Hot Poker plants.  Friendly people, beautiful cities.  But we will also never forget how the sunkissed and lovely Christchurch we roamed in so happily on Monday was gone forever by Tuesday.  In the airport, I came across a tiny glass ornament representing one of the little, flower covered trams from which we viewed the grey and white cathedral, the blossom laden Botanic Gardens, the quiet River Avon.  I bought it for Bill, and as we sat in the airport terminal, it was difficult to keep the tears back as we looked at it.

25.1.11 – Birds, alive and dead

First of all there was the Moa – huge flightless bird, with a long neck and tiny head – not much brains methinks.  He roamed with his smaller relatives until 500 years ago. We first met him outside the museum cafe – he must have been feeling peckish (Ouch!).  The museum covers Pacific cultures and wildlife.  A huge whale skeleton, stretching from end to end of the gallery, numerous carved items, many pretty fierce and usually with staring eyes and tongues stuck out.  Sometimes the tongue was so long it reached to the forehead.  They reckon first wave of immigration to these islands was in 1200AD.  The Maoris arrived about 1500, the Europeans in the 1900’s.  So it is a country of immigrants and this is how it is officially portrayed in the history and publicity.  A magnificent polished wood ceremonial canoe alongside pictures of sailing ships drove this concept home. 

Next up was the Albatross.  Emma had booked a fantastic trip for us, up to the tip of the peninsula which forms one side of the long sea loch leading to Dunedin.  This is where the world’s only breeding colony of albatrosses on a mainland country is to be found – all the rest breed on deserted islands well out to sea.  And they are absolutely huge.  Their wingspan is over 9 feet from tip to black tip.  Their heavy bodies are snow white, their beaks pink.  They mate for life, and raise one chick every two years.  We watched from an observation platform as one partner landed to take over child minding duties.  After much beak rubbing, the other at last took off soaring lazily into the sky.  S/he will be gone for one or two days, cruising the Pacific rollers in search of squid.

And now for the penguins.  We moved to another building even further up the precarious hill.  Garbed in green waterproof coats, we packed ourselves into small buggies, and set off through pot holes, boulders and up and down more or less perpendicular mud holes and slippery slopes.  First, we stopped at a New Zealand fur seal colony.  They are a little larger than our seal, are clad in cosy chocolate brown fur coats, and walk like sea lions (to whom they’re related) rather than the belly flops of our own Grey Seals.  The babies played wild rough and tumble games in a surf filled pool, occasionally told off by a parent, which didn’t stop them for long.  And then the Golden Eyed penguins - very rare, and just visible on a deserted beach on which no humans have been allowed to walk for over 11 years.  And again the tiny Blue Penguins, hiding in little rock caves at the side of the path, sharp little black beaks just visible.

Then back to take Emma, her friends Carol and Rowan out for dinner.  No more birds there as we all had fish, lamb or beef.  And this is farewell to our friend Emma, whom we met in Millport when she was on a one year visit, and who helped us establish Craft Club I used to run for the children living on or visiting our island.  I also well remember her running spinning demonstrations which fascinated the tourists in what is now the Cumbrae Laundry.  Fond farwells and packing marked the end of this phase of our adventures.

Thursday 24 February 2011

24.2.11 – Gardens and Settlers (Dunedin, New Zealand)

 24.2.11 – Gardens and Settlers (Dunedin, New Zealand)

Back to typical tourism, although it feels a bit strange as the TV, newspapers and everyone you meet can only talk about one thing – the quake.  We drive into Dunedin, and stop at the Settlers Museum.  Dunedin was founded in 1848, by Scottish entrepreneurs, churchmen and ordinary folk, from Edinburgh, Glasgow, and all airts and pairts in between.  A picture shows the town in the 1850’s – a ruckle of wooden houses beside the bay.  And streets named Princes Street, High Street, George Street.  These folk had a big vision of what this city would become and it has come true.

Chinese Garden
We move on to the Chinese Garden.  Why a Chinese Garden?  Dunedin is also a gold town, and Chinese people came here to mine.  They experienced discrimination and incredible hardship but many stayed and became New Zealanders, and now this garden recognises their struggle.  Crafted in China, and built here by Chinese skill, the garden is a pool of serenity in the middle of the city.  Tall polished wooden columns, sleek and smooth to the touch; grey hand made tiles sweeping in elegant curves, green water through which goldfish gleam, diaphanous tails slowly swaying; a little curved bridge, geometrically patterned screens at the windows.

Dunedin Station
A quick glance into the Station building, a festival of Victorian ceramic tiles and mosaic floors.  Then to the Botanic Gardens for lunch – verdant with roses, huge shady trees and ducks everywhere.  Most of them are Mallards, but two are larger, chocolate brown with black tales and one with a black head and one with a white one. 


Signal Hill

Then up to a viewpoint on the hill.  From here, Dunedin is stretched out below, covering the hills opposite, hugging the coastline of its sheltered bay.  The memorial here commemorates the centenary of Dunedin, and the view brings it home just what those settlers achieved in only 169 years.  We then met some of those settlers, although they were a bit reticent as they were residing in the graveyard.  Folks from Glasgow, Edinburgh, Islay, Renfrew.  A Baptist Minister from Wales ‘He made bad men good, and good men better.  He was loved by men and used by God’.  Another gravestone remembered a young dad, left buried in Larbert, Stirlingshire, and a mum, his wife, died at a good old age in Dunedin.  Visualise the son, persuading his mother to emigrate and make a new life to overcome her tragic loss.

And then home to Emma's house, via a long golden beach, washed by green Pacific rollers, peppered by surfers of various levels of skill.  Emma's grandmother and her parents came to New Zealand in 1869 and travelled inland following the wagons.  So she is a settler.  And she is also has a garden, from which we ate crunchy lettuce, cucumber and beetroot.  Settlers and gardens, all day.

And then back to the TV and the unfolding tradgedy that we were a tiny part of only two days ago.

Wednesday 23 February 2011

23.2.11 – Goodbye, poor Christchurch, Hallo Dunedin

Morning – still no power, water or sewerage.  The car radio tells us no-one is to go to work today and schools are all closed.  They want people to leave the city if at all possible.  In fact, we’d pre-booked a hire car, and the plan had been to collect it last night, and drive to Dunedin this morning.  Of course, events ensured that we never got to the garage to get it and maybe the garage is now shut.  Bill calls and the most helpful and laughing lady we’d met the other day is indeed there and the car is ready for us.  Ronnie and Ethel are planning to leave too, and drive us to the garage where the lady, still laughing, gives us the keys to a neat sky blue car, covered in bubbled raindrops from last night’s downpour.  As we stand saying goodbye to Ethel and Ronnie on the forecourt, the earth bucks and wobbles again under our feet.  ‘Let’s get out of here!’ says Ronnie and we hug and drive off.

The road is not busy and the area we travel through seems largely unaffected.  Soon we are out among  rolling green fields and poplar trees.  It somehow seems wrong to be leaving the city’s agony and just carry on with our holiday.  But they are telling us to go, there’s nothing we can do, and wandering tourists are only a liability at the moment. 

After about an hour, we stop for coffee.  What a relief to encounter a functional toilet!  On the table in the cafe there is a newspaper, and we look through it as we sip strawberry milkshake and iced coffee.  And what a shock.  The lack of electricity means that we along with most folk in Christchurch, had not yet seen the pictures of the city centre, which most of the rest of the world was by now familiar with.  There in that cafe we saw what had happened to the peaceful, sunny, happy city we had roamed throughout less than 24 hours before the quake.  In 20 seconds it had been destroyed.  That lovely Cathedral, in which we had worshipped, now without its tower.  22 people are trapped within, many suspected dead.  The shallow glittering river I trailed my fingers in is a mud filled oozing torrent.  The gently flowing willow trees have fallen, their green shade gone forever.  The damaged church supported by blue girders where the dummy cyclist and canoeist demonstrated humour triumphing over adversity, are now a jumble of boulders and twisted metal, the figures protruding bent and broken.  The hill we drove down to Somner is covered in tumbled boulders the size of cars, the cliff we passed not 10 seconds before the quake has collapsed onto a house and car – they’re still trying to retrieve the dead.



New Zealand fur seal

Take care!  Penguins!

We drive on, thoughtful, through rich farming land, the sea occasionally appearing to our left, distant mountains to our right.  We stop at a penguin colony and are taken out to see them in their nests.  Very smelly but very sweet – little fluffy balls.  There is a fur seal sleeping on the path and pretty fed up about tourists constantly waking him up. 

The lady in teh centre tells us about them but when we say we’ve come from Christchurch, that’s what she wants to talk about.  Everywhere we stop – a lunch, for coffee – everyone is talking about only one thing. 

On we drive again.  I fall asleep and wake up in Dunedin, quaint wooden houses and a massive harbour and station (only for rail freight).  We phone Emma in Mosgeil and she gives us directions to a quiet street and her house, a white bungalow almost buried in roses.  Dinner and talk and then we watch television and again are dumbstruck at the footage of the places we walked and laughed so recently, now and international natural disaster site, 75 dead and counting.  And I realise I’m very, very tired.

22.2.11 – Christchurch Earthquake (Christchurch, New Zealand)

22.2.11 – Christchurch Earthquake (Christchurch, New Zealand)

Governor's Bay

Woke to a grey morning with gentle rain.   The plan is to visit Ronnie and Ethel’s daughters and then go up the hills behind Christchurch to take in the view.  Melanie lives in a beautiful, large, immaculate house in substantial grounds, and Susan soon arrives.  Coffee and a chat and then we are off to the hills, which are disobligingly shrouded in cloud.  We catch what we can of the view of Governor’s Bay far below, before it’s snatched from our view by fronds of mist, then we drive round the zig zag of road into Somner, a pretty little seaside town, in the hope of getting lunch. It’s nearly one o’clock.


The Pizza Parlour after the quake

Boulders at Somner
As we enter, suddenly the car hits a cattle grid.  It’s a big one.  The car rocks and bounces violently.  It must be a very long grid, I think, as the bouncing goes on and on.  My eye catches sight of a building to our left – a red brick two storey Pizza Parlour.  As I watch, slowly the top corner of the building peels off and crashes to the ground, shattering in a pile of huge masonary chunks at the feet of an elderly lady.  This is no cattle grid.  This is an earthquake!  The wild shaking finally stops.  A vast billowing cloud of orange dust rises behind us.  Part of the cliff has given way, on the road we passed seconds before.   We decide to drive round the town to find a place to park, well away from the buildings.  The tarmac is twisted and buckled.  People are emerging from buildings and standing in dazed huddles.  A young woman helps an elderly lady.  A man stands crying.  A solitary dog scampers down the road, tail between legs. 

House in Somner immediately after the earthquake
We stop outside a restaurant.  The owner comes out – ‘You can’t go in.  It’s finished in there, finished’.  Every bottle in his bar is broken.  A man has a device in his hand, and announces ‘It was a 6.3’.  We walk on.  I notice a picture window above us, split diagonally, an immense shard of glass hanging over the road.  I call to Bill who’s walking a bit behind, to go into the road in case it falls.  As he does so, the first after-shock hits and the road wobbles and bounces accompanied by a thunderous roar.  Several shocks follow in quick succession.  In between the ground has a strange insecure feel, a bit like being on the deck of a ship.  A lady dressed in a crisp blue overall stands bewildered.  In twenty seconds, her little convenience shop has been wrecked.  All her stock has crashed off the shelves and lies in a chaotic jumble on the floor.  She doesn’t know what to do.  We wish her good luck and walk down to the shore, stepping over bricks in the road.  A house stands without a side wall.  Roofs look as if someone has drawn huge fingers through the tiles, ripping them up.  There’s a white car, windscreen and roof dented by several huge girders which have fallen from the roof on the building above. 

We decide to move off and to switch on the car’s radio to find out what’s going on.  But there’s no channel broadcasting.  A man tells us the Ferrymead Bridge is down, so we can’t go that way.  We set off, creeping round the cliffs, several of which have avalanched huge boulders onto the road. 

Ronnie is worried about his brother –in-law Laurie, who lives in the next town, Redcliff.  Rivers of grey water are bubbling up from underground, little fountains bringing mounds of grey mud with them, all over the road, people’s gardens, the pavements.  This is called liquefaction, I’m told.  We sweep up a steep road past worsening damage.  Laurie’s house is a large modern square building, built into the hillside with large pillars at the front.  Initially it looks ok, although the house behind is wrecked, and the house next door has no wall.  Laurie appears and we enter gingerly.  We pick our way upstairs, over a smashed glass light fitting.  His large open plan kitchen/diner/living room has immense picture windows staring out to sea.  But inside the mess is dramatic.  A noxious cocktail of wine and spirits floods the floor where his bottles have tipped out of the bottle rack.  Some of the bottles are intact.  Laurie, who has not lost his Glaswegian sense of humour even in this disaster, comments that he may well need those bottles before the night is out.  Flowers straggle forlornly on the polished table, spilt from an elegant vase.  The microwave has been flung from its perch half way up the wall, smashing the cooker door on the way to the floor.  All the glasses from the cabinet lie in mounds of crushed glass on the cream tiles.  The precious collection of porcelain is just a jumble of shards.  The bedroom cabinets have rocked out from the walls, emptying the drawers, the wardrobe has disgorged its contents everywhere, the coals have bounced out of the gas fire onto the carpet over the twisted remnants of the frame.  We grab brushes, shovels and mops and begin to sweep, crunching everywhere over broken glass.  Every so often, we have to pause as after shocks vibrate the floor and rattle the whole house.  Some are so severe I have to stand feet apart as on a ship in rough weather.  As the mess gradually recedes, we see more sinister sights – a long crack in the wall, both inside and out... The tops of the supporting pillars are cracked at floor level...  The garden has dropped about six inches at the edge....

A young woman appears in the driveway, a child wrapped in a blanket in her arms, two others clinging onto her skirts.  She is Laurie’s neighbour, whose house now has no wall.  She is dazed and quiet.  She says that her South African husband has decided that this is enough, he’s leaving New Zealand. 

Ronnie and Ethel are anxious to get home to assess the damage there, so we leave Laurie.  Laurie thanks us for our help. ‘Remember, whenever you have an earthquake or a tsunami in Scotland, I’ll be right there to help’.

Car immersed in liquefaction
Now we have to tackle the journey home.  In normal circumstances, it should take about half an hour.  The radio is working now and we learn of the devastation which dominates the peaceful, happy, sunlit town we enjoyed only yesterday.  The Cathedral tower is down, people are dead, people are trapped, teams are coming from around the world to help.  It’s unbelievable.  Can’t be true.   Ethel manages at last to contact Melanie and Susan.  Melanie’s immaculate house that we visited only a few hours ago is in chaos.  She got locked in the garage when the quake struck and was terrified as she was to collect the boys from school.  With advice from her brother in Australia (thank goodness for mobile phones), she at last got out.  Susan’s sons refuse to sleep in the house, and they are camping in the garden tonight.  And heavy rain is forecast.

There are more and more people walking aimlessly or standing in huddles staring.  People are afraid to go back into their houses.  Boulders, huge grey puddles and triangular mounds of grey mud are everywhere.  We reach the bridge which is indeed impassable, and follow a narrow road into the outskirts of the city.  Now we meet more and more traffic and soon we are travelling at walking pace or slower.  Everyone is trying to get home.  Lots of roads are impassable and Ronnie has to change his planned route time and again.  There are huge splits in the road and in one, a car lies tipped forward as if it was trying to drive down a tunnel.  It’s now welded in place by the ubiquitous grey mud.

More and more cars, travelling, and abandoned by the roadside.  More and more people, walking, walking, several barefoot, their feet and legs coated in sticky mud.  There are cars stuck in the mud, one being towed out, another being dug out by two barefoot youths.  A young couple pass, pushing a barefoot girl in a shopping trolley.  A young man, still in his chef’s outfit of checked trousers and double breasted white jacket is walking down the central reservation, a blank look on his face.  A man in blue overalls walks determinedly, a large bandage round his head and blood all over his face.  Down the long straight avenues that lead to the heart of the city, I can see tall buildings shrouded in smoke and dust.  There are few officials to be seen out here in the suburbs.  Traffic control has fallen to people who were digging roads or repairing buildings before the quake struck.  Virtually every house is damaged – garden walls fallen, large holes in roofs, windows broken, mud blocking drives, water lapping into doorways.

We come at last to a bridge that is passable.  It really shouldn’t be passable but there’s no-one here to say no and an awful lot of people desperate to get home.  The bridge has been pushed up in the middle so that there is a precarious ramp of twisted tarmac at both sides.  Slowly, Ronnie takes the car up it, scraping our exhaust on the ragged edge.  The Avon River beneath, so peaceful and shallow yesterday, has become a surging torrent of dark grey angry water, pushing almost against the bridge.  Then off the other side, a grinding noise from some unidentified part under the car.  Almost at once we come to a busy roundabout.  The tarmac billows up all around and immense trenches force Ronnie and the all the other drivers to slalom slowly around.  In one place, a road sign has been flung from the grassy centre of the roundabout into a huge trench in the middle of one of the lanes.

And then the road suddenly becomes less busy and less rough.  And so we arrive home, just less than three hours after we left Laurie.

The house does not seem damaged, although pictures and ornaments have been flung about.  We clear these up as Ronnie cooks sausages on the gas barbecue in the garden – there is no electricity, water or sewerage.  Military aircraft and helicopters pass overhead bringing supplies and search and rescue teams to the nearby airport, which is closed to domestic traffic, we learn from the car radio.


Candlelight in Christchurch   

We pass the evening surprisingly pleasantly, talking by candlelight. It’s a strange feeling to find ourselves at the centre of such a major event.  After all, earthquakes happen to other people, don’t they?  But the constant after-shocks - like an immense locomotive under the floor, making the house creak, the crockery rattle, waking us up in the night as the bed sways and creaks - assure us this one is for us.

Tuesday 22 February 2011

Monday 21st. Kiwis at last

<>
Christchurch Cathedral
Today was explore Christchurch day.  On her way to work, Ethel dropped us in town, having supplied us with maps, brochures and advice on how to enjoy the city.  The hub is Cathedral Square, dominated not surprisingly by the grey and white stone Cathedral.  Having not made it to church yesterday, we grabbed the chance to take communion there in a tiny side chapel, beneath a stained glass window now boarded up as a result of the recent earthquakes.  This theme will recur in today’s blog. 

Across the square, past a monocycle rider with a wicked line of patter, an older, slightly scruffy gent playing classical music on what looked like a carved bone, and a few market stalls selling warm woolly hats (it’s about 27 degrees today), we ate sandwiches in the shade of a wide spreading tree, as a man read the Bible to anyone who would listen.  And then into an exhibition of sealife and – yes – kiwis!  Real ones!  They are nocturnal, so their enclosure was largely dark, but it was possible to see them – two, a male and a female.  Imagine a round, brown fluffy football, with two legs at one end and a ping pong ball sized head at the other, from which a pair of knitting needles protrude.  They don’t look as if they could balance at all but they do.  They even balanced well enough to engage in a short marital row, one pecking the other and then a wild chase over the logs.  They are not doing so well in the wild at the moment.  Apparently dogs and cats find them tasty and as they are quite smelly they are all too easy for predators to find.


Tower on the pavement as a result of Spetember's quake
Tourist Tram
Getting around Christchurch was via a tourist tram, covered in flowers everywhere including the conductor’s hat.  It trundled slowly along, past all the sights, some of which were empty patches of ground where buildings used to be until the earthquakes.  Other buildings were shored up or scaffolded and wrapped in blue fabric.  One small church was in a bad way.  A crack ran down one side from top to bottom, heavy stone blocks having fallen out and crashed to the ground.  At the front, it had two immense blue girders angled at 45% to prop it up.  But the gentle New Zealand humour we’ve experienced ever since the boots-at-airport incident had risen to the occasion.  Life sized beige coloured dummies were climbing all over the structure – one cycling up one girder, while another canoed down the other.  At the top a mountaineer appeared to be trying to make it to the roof.  A bit further on, the top section of a church spire was positioned neatly on the pavement until the tower could be stabilised.  Some have expressed the view that it looks better there and should be left where it is.

The punt on the Avon
Interesting historical fact – New Zealand was the first self-governing country in the world to give women the vote – a memorial near the River Avon announced that this occurred in 1898 – a good 20+ years before the UK got round to it.  This River Avon is in fact named after a tributary of our own River Clyde, not Shakespears’s Stratford one.  And you can buy a cruise on a punt.  Which we did.  Shiny varnished shallow boats, with little settee-like seats, glided peacefully up and down the shallow river, a tall lad in white trousers, straw boater and green and white striped tie, poling from the stern.  We had the front seats, and I trailed my hand in the water as we drifted past immense weeping willows, grassy banks, and ducks that took our appearance so totally for granted that one collided with us and got such a shock that it’s suddenly beating wings threw cascades of water into the boat.  The river was so clear and shallow and the birds so tame that it was possible to see them swimming and foraging under the water, bubbles gleaming in their feathers.

Ethel and Ronnie's bungalow
The bus wended its way home to Ethel and Ronnie’s bungalow, which is surrounded with the prettiest garden in the area – and that’s official, because they have just won a prize for it. The house, of cream bricks, is spacious and comfortable and has a crack in the floor as a result of the earthquake.  The door to our room does not quite fit as a result.  This earthquake casts a long shadow.  Ethel is Bill’s mother’s younger sister’s daughter and so is our cousin.  She and Ronnie have been here, with a couple of gaps, sin
ce shortly after they married in 1969.  They are great fun and very easy to be with.  Ronnie barbecued Ethel’s home made hamburgers which we had with salad.  Yum.  And then family photographs and reminiscences.  We really are lucky to have such interesting and friendly cousins in both Porirua and Christchurch.


Sunday 20 February 2011

Sunday, 20.2.11 – Ferry to family (Wellington to Christchurch, New Zealand)

Sunday, 20.2.11 – Ferry to family (Wellington to Christchurch, New Zealand)

View from Robin and Sue's balcony
The dawn trailed its pink fingers across the sky as we drank tea on Sue and Robin’s balcony, gazing down with some relief at a calm sea. Then goodbye to Robin and the dogs, as Sue drove us to Wellington Harbour. Sad to leave them, but hopes of another family reunion in the future, destination as yet to be arranged, made it easier.

The Interislander ferry slipped elegantly out of the immense Wellington Harbour basin, past the islands and the airport. There are advantages in living in an earthquake zone, according to a story we heard. Wellington needed an airport. The land all slopes down steeply into the sea, so where to put it? Then earthquake, and behold! Up pops a nice, level bit of land, just outside the city. Hey presto, problem solved.

It takes three hours to sail between the islands, but only about an hour is in the open sea. The last section
Sailing towards Picton
cruises an amazing tangle of sea lochs, towering mountains, glassy inlets, and forested islands, with the occasional lonely house or jetty. Seagulls chase each other across the cliff faces, seaweed twists in the turquoise water. Picton is a pretty little seaside town, dominated by its harbour complex and station. It’s a tourist drop off and pick up point, and there are all sorts here. Plump elderly Americans in baseball hats; a young Australian dad in a wide brimmed hat, cradling a bundle from which his tiny daughter’s waving fists and furious screams indicate she’s fed up with travelling; backpackers with towering rucksacks; an energetic youth in shorts and vest doing his exercises at the bus stop. Passing cars loaded with multicoloured

canoes, shops with wetsuits hanging outside, and adverts for whale watching cruises, we make it to a wide grassy sward overlooking the little beach to eat our packed lunch. Carpets of familiar geraniums, busy lizzies and marigolds surround chunky palm trees. Then back to the station now a scene of some chaos. Crowds of tourists throng the tiny wooden office. The two railway staff are flustered. ‘Nobody told us there was no train today. We didn’t know they were sending a bus!’ This is intriguing, as, one bitter winter’s night thousands of miles away in Millport two months ago, while the fire roared in the grate and snow lay outside, the wonders of the internet informed us that sleepers were being replaced on South Island, and buses would be supplied on this exact date. Seems someone forgot to inform the station. Duly the buses arrive and the harassed staff manage to get rid of the muddled looking tourists.

Approaching Christchurch
If the scenery could get anymore spectacular, it did. From green gardens full of flowers, to dry brown hills rising range after range to skyscraping blue volcanic cones, laced with white clouds. Then row upon row of grapevines, each of their regimental lines each ending with a rose bush frothed with pink and white blossom. More yellow mountains, and then in the distance rectangles of brilliant lilac and orange. This is Lake Grassmere and these are salt pans which supply all of New Zealand’s salt requirements. And then the sea, a startling blue-green edged with brilliant white breakers. Long grey sand beaches, empty of people but full of logs whitened by the sea. A traffic sign warning of the possibility of seals on the road.

The bus reaches the station and we transfer to the little train. It twists along tight to the beach, dodging into tunnel after tunnel, but always returning to the sea. A clutch of tiny penguins wade in the breakers. Kelp twists in the sun like the shining locks of a million brunette mermaids. At last the houses appear, and Christchurch Station. Cases have to be collected from a conveyor belt which simply ends and bags fall off into a jumbled heap. I grab mine and drop it on a girl’s foot. She says it’s OK but hobbles off maimed for life.

And there’s Ethel, Bill’s cousin. Again, family warmth triumphs over thousands of miles and decades of years apart. Back to their lovely bungalow and supper. The nomadic life is not at all bad.

Saturday 19 February 2011

19.2.11 – Water pistols and earthquakes



Emma, Luke and Tommy on the attack
The sound of bouncing grandchildren upstairs announced the arrival of another sunny day.  Meg, having managed to drag herself away from death’s door, became part of a family event, which involved Luke, Tommy and older sister Emma (8) filling immense water pistols in the paddling pool and firing them at the open balcony windows on the floor above, where grandparents, indigenous and visiting, were hiding.  The trick was to shut the windows just in time, or to throw buckets of water out onto the kids below.  Hard to say who won, but the children were certainly wetter than the adults.  Nothing daunted, they set off with mum and dad to a mud-sliding party.  The mind boggles.
Sue, Robin and family

Then a trip to Wellington – another large enclosed bay, with a huge harbour in which visiting cruise ship the Queen Elizabeth towered over every other vessel.  Wellington is the capital of New Zealand, with a mixture of rectangular glass fronted multi-blocks and earlier, art deco style buildings.  The parliament building is round, and was designed by the same architect as Coventry Cathedral, which is one of the most impressive buildings I have ever seen.  On the harbour front was the massive modern National Museum.  We went in, and studied exhibits on earthquakes.  New Zealand is on the Pacific Ring of Fire, and as such is prone to earthquakes, the last major one being in September 2010, in Christchurch, which is our next destination....  A computer game invited you to test your skills at protecting your house from excessive damage in a quake.  We achieved 2 out of a possible 7, so let us hope the fault lines remain intact till we have gone.
Studying New Zealand Tourist magazines is nothing if not illuminating.  One advertises a local beauty spot in the following terms ‘One of the most popular tours ..... (is to) Fossil Point, where old fossils expose themselves among the rocks’.  Old Fossil Bill is not planning to join them.

And so tomorrow it’s off on the Interislander ferry to South Island and then the train to Christchurch to join Bill’s cousin Ethel and husband Ronnie.  We’ll miss Sue, Robin and family though.

Friday 18 February 2011

18.2.11 Porirua, near Wellington, NZ


Susan and Robin live in a two level bungalow, perched high on a hill above the sea.  Last night, as the sun set on the peaks of South Island, and the cicadas chirruped amongst the tumble of flowers in the garden, we ate salad and compared notes on family history.  Susan’s father was the older of my mother’s two little brothers, so she is my cousin.  It’s uncanny how easy it is to feel at home with relatives that you have only met briefly before.  Susan and Robin are also very hospitable, warm people.  Susan’s father, my uncle, emigrated to Canada and she grew up there, returning to England to train as a nurse, then meeting Robin and eventually emigrating to New Zealand via Dubai (the town, not the airport).  Retired now, Sue is a key person in the New Zealand Search and Rescue Team, and Robin is heavily involved in restoring wetlands near Porirua. 

As our bioclocks haven’t quite sorted out the 13 hour time shift yet, much of the night was spent reading and admiring spectacular moonlight.  Also a little disconcertingly, the constellations were all upside down – Orion was standing on this head.  Morning dawned hot and sunny.  We had breakfast in the garden which slopes up steeply, full to bursting with flowers and shrubs.  The cicadas kept up their chorus.  The house, a cream, shallow-roofed building, is built into the hillside, two storeys at the front, one at the back, such that the front garden is well below the house, and the back one well above.  After breakfast, Robin took us up the winding path through the flowers, past the swing, and on to the vegetable garden.  Vegetables are not easy to grow, he said, as although there is plenty of rain in winter, summer is dry so watering has to be constant.  Also, plants are inclined to bolt.  So if you go away for a few days, what has not shrivelled up has bolted.

Porirua is built around what we would call a sea loch – a narrow inlet lets the sea into a huge roundish basin, full of brilliant turquoise water.  We walked round this during the morning, past brightly coloured beach houses with steps leading down into the water and boats drawn up beside some of them. One of these boats, full of shells, looked as if it was permanently out of the water.  We sat on the deck of a former water ski school and looked out across the brilliant blue sea to where a group of children were learning to sail, their clutch of little sailing boats bobbing and colliding while anxiously watched by their parents, hands shading their eyes.

We went on to the wetland reserve further round the estuary, where Robin and Sue along with others have worked to restore and conserve the area for wildlife as well as for visitors.  After short explore we had our coffee and biscuits in the sun at one of the picnic tables in the BBQ area which includes a huge push button electric barbecue.

We headed back to the house for lunch and Meg retired to bed, suffering from the combined effects of a flu and time slip.  There she remained for the rest of the day.  A lazy afternoon ensued as Meg slept and sneezed, Sue and Bill went out to shop and to give the dog a swim in the sea, and Robin pottered around the garden and prepared the evening meal.  In the evening Robin and Sue’s red headed daughter Nikki dropped her 2 boys, Luke (5) and Thomas (2), round for a sleepover with grandparents.  A couple of handsome young fellows they are too.

Thursday 17 February 2011

17.2.11 The Train


Auckland Station

Bill on the Overlander


We had chosen our hotel to be so near the station that we could roll out of bed and into the train, and that is very much what happened.  6.50am saw us cosily settled on the Overlander, due to be our home for twelve hours as we traversed North Island from top to bottom.  The train, an elegant pale blue narrow gauge with veteran but comfortable rolling stock, had a panoramic observation lounge to the rear and a small open viewing platform near the front.  It also had a tendency to rock and roll at awkward moments, necessitating care in order to avoid cannoning headfirst into the laps of our multinational fellow passengers. Or headfirst down the toilet – narrow escape there.  The reason for this became apparent when we stopped for lunch and were able to observe from close quarters the wooden railway sleepers decoratively serrated into small slivers to which the bolts clung with more determination than certainty.
National Park

The first impression of New Zealand’s landscape is that it is very green.  The second is that there’s hardly anybody here.  It’s very obvious that these islands, roughly the size of Britain, have a population, at 4 million, which only represents about 80% of Scotland’s.  There is no doubt it is beautiful – rolling green swards, occasional clusters of cream wooden board houses - a bit like those we saw in Virginia, but usually single storey.  Interestingly, many were built on stilts, of metal, wood or in one case, teetering on haphazard piles of breeze blocks.  And then the mountains, sweeping up green and tree covered at first, giving way to the blue, cloud-wrapped volcanic peaks of the National Park.  Curving viaducts across dizzy heights, chalk cliffs carved by a twisting, white water river, sheep, goats, sleek cattle, clouds of white butterflies, black swans, thin necked herons.  Pine trees, palm trees, eucalyptus, their silver leaves trembling, tall poplars marching in neat formation over soft folds of green landscape, gorse, nodding purple buddleia, convolvulus twining down the embankments, starred with pink blossom.  And pampas grass.  An awful lot of pampas grass.  Narrow gorges crammed jungle-style with vegetation of every type, wide empty grassy planes stretching into the distance, domed by blue skies punctuated with small puffy clouds.  As we got nearer the south, there was more evidence of habitation – tree-lined streets in townships, one called Bunnythorpe.  If you ever go to there, next to Danny’s Diner painted in eye-popping scarlet and black, you will find the Bunnythorpe Tavern (images of Playboy float through the mind) and then Bunnythorpe Auto Wrecking Services (visions of pink ninja bunnies hard at work). 

Nearing Wellington
 More mountains, some tunnels, and then suddenly Kapiti Island floating in the glittering Tasman Sea, and South Island shimmers blue and hazy in the distance.  Then the bustle of Wellington, a crowded station platform, and my cousin Susan waiting, a familiar face and a warm welcome.

16.1.11 Arrival in New Zealand- Boots, buses, boats

New Zealanders are very hospitable – you have to take your hat off to them for that, or in our case, your boots.  No sooner had we stepped off the plane (with considerable relief) than we had our hiking boots cleaned for us courtesy of the Government.  Part of the biosecurity system here apparently, provided by a jovial Kiwi (man, not bird) who referred to us as ‘Team’ throughout – ‘How are we today then, Team?’  as we delved into the depths of our cases to retrieve said hiking boots, embarrassingly crammed with knickers and socks.  ‘These won’t do, Team!’ as he inspected the collection of Speyside mud and grass adhering to them. ‘Don’t worry, Team, I’ll sort it!’ and he returned minutes later with two pairs of immaculate but dripping boots, knickers still inside.  And so we entered New Zealand.

We located the bus easily, got on, and asked whether we counted as Seniors.  ‘You don’t look like seniors to me.  I think your suckering me!’ said yet another jovial Kiwi, promptly providing two seniors tickets, presumably because we actually resembled the living dead rather than seniors.  He gave us an impromptu commentary as we travelled into downtown Auckland – a very verdant city, the shallow roofs of bungalows peeping out amidst the vegetation.  Our hotel – large, modern, bright – provided a room on the tenth floor with a spectacular view across the bay and harbour. 
As darkness fell, we wandered the harbour, pointed to yachts chasing each other across the bay, watched the ferry to the islands leave as we ate ice creams in a waterside cafe.  Then back the hotel.  Bill set about repacking the cases while I went in search of broadband.  Returning shortly thereafter I beheld him slumped fast asleep on the bed amidst an explosion of underwear, bathing costumes  and the now famous boots.

And so to bed.


Wednesday 16 February 2011

15.2.11 One Airport is much like another.....


Eventually landed in Dubai, six hours late.  As we approached the airport, the night was illuminated by flares from hosts of oil wells, as far as the eye could see.  Disembarqued into the warm, dark, humid air.  This arrival time has deprived us of a free night in a Dubai Hotel, and instead we are to be sleepless for 48 hours.  Well, so be it.  As long as this airport does not take a liking to me as well, I will settle peacefully on this shiny red chair, alongside the shiny chrome moving pavement, upon the shiny marble floor and wait to be called through the shiny glass doorway to the plane.  There are huge triangular windows covered with geometric patterns – very Arabic but not very easy to see through - which allow the dawn light to filter in.  Day has dawned surprisingly quickly, revealing a landscape of square concrete multiblocks, tall concrete towers, curvaceous concrete flyovers, and a little copse of palm trees, looking a bit awkward, as if they have somehow found themselves at the wrong party.  Airports are festivals of multinationalism, sprinkled with glittery bling and scented with powerful, expensive perfumes.  Here a slim girl in a soft cream Indian outfit of dress/trousers decorated with brilliants and hands covered in winding exotic patterns; there a tall Arab gentleman in a flowing white robe and red and white checked head dress; Chinese, Indian, Arab faces, and a lot of exhausted Scottish ones.  The sun is now fully out, and the tallest building in the world stabs its jagged finger skywards, a mosque with two minarets sits to one side of it, and in the distance, the sail-shaped hotel reflects the sun.  And endlessly the fat white Emirates planes trundle past.

And now Kuala Lumpur.  Night again, another shiny glass and chromium airport, but surprisingly sporting a smart red carpet – unusual at 37 degrees.  An hour or so here, and then off to Melbourne.

And Melbourne.  Trees and gentle hills, a cloudy sky, looks very like home actually.

And at last!  Auckland.  More of this tomorrow when I can keep my eyes open...