Graduation trip November/December 2018

This much anticipated trip was to be the highlight of the year for us and certainly one of the highlights of a lifetime; to celebrate our daughter becoming a doctor, to thank Ali for her wonderful support, to have dinner with both of our daughters and of course to catch up with Doug.......and our wonderful siblings.

These trips take careful planning; the flights, the rental cars and the accommodation...... and of course what to pack. I even made lists. The time comes to leave...Liz is installed in the house to take care of Coco who is not happy with so many bags on display. Shoes on....soles off (a hazard we have experienced before)....on no the main pillar of my footwear. Flight to KL...uneventful......I must say at this point I never much cared for the upgraded Penang airport......but I hadn’t been to NZ recently....or indeed to Avalon airport. An arm broke of my eye-glasses in KL....oh no....but wait....I had a spare pair.....which were in the hold of some airplane. A maverick strap from my camera bag then managed to bring the x-ray conveyer belt to a grinding holt. Oh well three down .....all mini-disasters done.

We had a restless overnight on AirAsia X to the Gold Coast....picked up the rental car and drove to a mall on the nearby mall to procure some shoes.

We arrived later at Glen and Debbie’s. It was good to catch up with them...we have a rival fast food battle with Nathan working for Burger King and Haley working for McDonalds. We went to Phoebe’s swimming night and what a bonanza that was. In the local school pool 80 kids going through their paces. It is easy to see why Australia produces good swimmers. We caught up next morning with Rebecca and Arjuna who have adopted two Ethiopian boys. Rebecca worked with me in Singapore and taught Dani some Irish dancing.

 The next day we met up with Tania and Bim for lunch in Brisbane. They were good friends of ours in Singapore before going back to a nice spot north of Noosa. Later that evening we had dinner at a restaurant with the family....the only time they were all in one place. Glen is doing very well with his mining consulting business with several colleagues.

The next morning it was off to Auckland. I had nothing to do with the air-bridge sticking to the plane....which delayed our departure by 30 minutes.

You know you have returned to your native country when the Tui sings and the pohutukawas bloom.

Another rental car...this time a Kia Stinger which was the most impressive car we hired but it is still a pretzel car. I really liked the heads-up display. We found our way to David and Lyn’s and later met Dani and her Irish boyfriend, Rob....who was out organising his tent somewhere...Eden park I think. That evening we had a very welcome meal Lyn had prepared. They left to meet Doug next morning....the highlight of anyone’s trip.

In the next few days we walked and talked and made a short trip north to a garden and art display. It was good without being great. I also thrashed Helen in a game of boules there.......by at least a micrometer in the decider. 

I planned to visit the gannets at Muriwai one morning and did so. The day dawned fairly rough as I located the sanctuary about 50 minutes from base. There are less breeding pairs (around 1500) than I had seen at Cape Kidnappers in earlier years but the viewpoints and seascapes were spectacular. The sun tried its best to appear and did so briefly. This was my type of shooting......I shot well over 3000 images. Flight shots and behaviour with the light from behind and what I call light-box light. Too bright and the white of the gannets is hard to handle. I enjoyed myself but not so much the Chinese tourists who were intent on selfies and doing illegal things. I had to curb my scientific and aeronautical impulses that questioned if homo sapiens sinensis can fly as well as Morus serrator.

One evening David and Lyn and Helen and I attended a play about life in a retirement village......for most of the audience and us.....it was too close to the bone. It was good entertainment without threatening box office records.

We met Mike and Sheralyn and family in town as they were catching the train early next morning to Wellington where Caleb was participating in an underwater hockey tournament. Steve and his boys came around for a swim in the afternoon and we caught up with the latest apiarist ventures.

Auckland treated us well with the weather but Tauranga or more specifically Omokoroa and extended environs did not. We were impressed with the new house Doug and Lynette purchased around a year ago. The hospitality as ever was brilliant and although the weather was inclement over the next few days we were treated to the sights and sounds all around.

Omokoroa must have one of the smallest libraries in the world.

 We visited Tirau (noted in a book as one of the shxt towns in NZ because of the penchant for corrugated irons works of art) and the great nature reserve at Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari  and the nearby Blue springs at Te Waihou where little Puke was being fed (the chick was less than a day old).  The sanctuary is a great place for native birds to flourish and long may it be so (link). We also visited the Arapuni dam which is adjacent to one of the many bike trails in NZ. It is also where Doug tried to give his mobile phone away.

 The next day we had a break in the weather and went for a walk around Mount Maunganui and visited Doug and Lynette's lawyer friend and dating guru.

From Tauranga we flew to Auckland and then to Dunedin. Three wonderful airports in one day overloaded the senses. ......or possibly the censors. At Tauranga Airport, which is being refurbished, we had to scoot 100 metres in pouring rain onto the plane.....something that is unacceptable. At least Air Asia would provide umbrellas for the wet traverse.

At Dunedin airport we picked up our rental car and headed for Gore for an overnight stay.

Our main mission before Dunedin was to go to Milford and to drive through the Catlins.

The weather was unsettled and when we were on our way to Te Anau we heard a forecast that said there would be a brief fine window in the middle of the day but the next day would be raining. We decided to drive to Milford after passing through Te Anau where we had booked for 2 nights. It is a great drive to Milford; through the Eglinton Valley, the Homer Tunnel and close to the mountains beyond with so many glacier-carved shapes and plummeting waterfalls. We stopped to take some photographs in the Russell Lupins alongside the Eglinton Stream and met a Malaysian family doing the same thing and whose daughter was graduating as a Dr in the same session as Nikki. Small world indeed.

The clouds had descended, and it was raining when we arrived in Milford. Since it has 200 wet days a year the odds are not good in striking Mediterranean weather. I found the layered clouds around Mitre Peak however to be very moody especially when expressed as a black and white image. On stopping at one scenic spot we were surrounded by bikers.....all around our age and from Finland.

A wet female Paradise Duck was overseeing her substantial brood of large chicks just outside the cafe entrance. (you can see where the expression comes from...... 'water off a duck's back')

We saw some drenched Keas waiting for cars on each side of the Homer Tunnel. They clearly get fed by some motorists. I include a foreign shot of a Kea that was hailed as a great flight shot...... I would like to have seen the face. The book on Bird intelligence that Lynette gave me comes close to ranking the Kea as the most intelligent birds in the world. One up for the Kiwis as the Emu is ranked one of the stupidest, but still features on the Australian coat of arms..

 We drove back to Te Anau and checked into our motel room. The neat town is essentially a manger for all the travelers going to Milford and Doubtful Sound. Restaurant seats were hard to come by so it was takeaway pizza. The next day we explored a bit around Lake Manapouri after going for a morning walk around Lake Te Anau. The last boat to Doubtful sound had left for the day so we offered ourselves to the sandflies while having a coffee. Helen was happy to dine at the ‘Fat Duck’ that night but Heston Blumenthal was not on the premises.

The next day we had partly cloudy weather with an Antarctic gale. A drive through the Catlins with an overnight at Balclutha was the target. We stopped at Invercargill for a coffee and to see the Emperor Penguins waddling along the main street. Invercargill looked like it had seen better days and more paint.

The drive through the Catlins was very good...the forested hillsides and rolling country was very pleasant. Much of the forest seemed to be in bloom...giving it a pinky hue. I tried hard to find what tree was doing the flowering and my suspect was later verified by cousin Barbara as Kamahi. Not one of the best known forest trees it is however the dominant species in NZ native forests.

We stopped at a scenic lookout at Florence Point overlooking Tautuku Bay to have lunch that we had brought with us. The sun came out briefly but the wind threatened to alter the location of any open car doors. 

There were several waterfalls along the way but time and temperature precluded an investigation. Most of them involved a 30-60 minute walk for a view. The wind was still with us too. We stopped for a coffee at Owaka, which was one of Dad’s audited branches when he was based in Dunedin. A fire was a welcome sight in the restaurant.

We had some time up our sleeves when we approached Balclutha so diverted to the coast road to Kaka Point and Nugget Point. The wind was still blowing a gale but the patches of sunlight made for some moody seascapes. The spray from the apex of the heavy rollers was being blown sideways.

Now for the main event. 
After a pleasant night in Balclutha we did some supermarket shopping and picked Nikki and Alison up from the airport after the GPS had initially lead us to a farmer's airstrip. 

We then found the half house we were renting for 3 nights and established ourselves. It was what we required....  a bottle of wine was waiting for us too. Nikki had booked dinner for everyone on Friday night as the restaurants were all booked on Saturday well in advance. Dani and Rob turned up later in the afternoon. They had booked a motel down the hill for a spectacular view of an alleyway. Dinner was in a plain-looking restaurant, but the food was excellent, and it was so good to sit down with our two girls and celebrate.

On Saturday the weather again was inclement with light to medium rain. There was also a large tourist ship at Port Chalmers which added to the burden of the small city. We based ourselves under cover and waited for the pipe band to lead the parade.....which I may say was a bit scruffy....with parents and local bums joining in along the way. We were located up in the Gods in the Town Hall but managed to get a front row seat to record the proceedings. The whole ceremony was a bit over an hour, which suited us fine. There was a short speech that was a little hard to hear in the clouds.  10 to 12 graduates were wearing Maori cloaks and a few chants from the balconies accompanied some of their capping moments. We took photos outside afterwards with the weather kindly relenting for the occasion.

We also went down to the Leith with the University as a background.

In the evening the whole clan gathered at our place for champagne and fish and chips.

Dani and Rob left early on Sunday to drive to Christchurch. Nikki and Ali had a flight in the late afternoon, so we drove out to the end of the Peninsular before lunch. There were seals on the rocks and many Red-billed Seagulls with chicks. We did not have time to visit the Yellow-eyed penguin sanctuary.

 We had lunch with some of our cousins......Barbara and husband Royce as well as Jill and Ian...which was unexpected and pleasant. The former were going on a ship to NZ,s extreme Southern Islands the following Wednesday. Later in the afternoon Elisabeth and her boyfriend came around for an hour before the two Lower Hutt girls were taken to the airport. She is doing fairly well and her art is a major factor in her life. She graduates next year.

Helen and I had Sunday night to ourselves and we in turn were off to the airport on Monday morning on a flight to Auckland......with one of the world’s crappiest airports where you have to walk through carparks and weave around poor trolley pilots to the international air-terminal. It really is a disgrace and high time it was modified past the Flintstone model. We met Dani and Rob at the airport and had a coffee and a chat for half an hour before we were due to catch a flight to Melbourne. It was good to meet Rob and I believe ‘the aunties club’ gave the thumbs up. 

image supplied earlier

We had a meal on the flight to Melbourne where we caught our third and final flight of the day to Adelaide. This was the best flight of the three weeks. We were at the back of the plane and the staff were very friendly. They somewhat surprisingly gave us a meal. Gary, the jovial flight attendant, decided for the folks at the back it was ‘two wines Monday’ and it was a happy place. Chocolates were then served and the female attendant was asked if it was ‘two chocolate Monday’ after which a repeat dose was given. We were met at Adelaide airport by our friend Len and taken to their flat near Brighton Beach.

The next two mornings were great. Nice weather and the long, sandy beach was busy with many activities including a lot of active dogs...so good to see.

That evening we had some old friends around for drinks and then we walked down to a local restaurant. It was so great to talk with everyone even though the medical roll-call did not make good reading. Years ago in such a gathering some of the boys would be demonstrating cricket strokes or rugby passes and now it was the stances you take up for prostate exams.

On our last day in Adelaide the girls decided to go shopping in Adelaide city while Len and I went to the Blackwood Bowling club where Kari was playing a Wednesday pennants inter-club match. It was warm with a fickle wind. Interestingly the Blackwood Club was my first bowling club.....some 38 years ago!!!! Kari won his pairs match but his team, unbeaten in the season, lost overall.

A storm came in the night before Helen and I picked up a rental car and headed for Melbourne. It was a wet and windy journey. Our first pit-stop was in Tailem Bend. Everything there seemed deserted. They had their power knocked out in the storm. We had a cold coffee before proceeding to Mount Gambier. The countryside was not the most entertaining but looked more interesting towards the end of that leg. 

For novelty value we had booked for a night in the Old Mount Gambier jail. The proprietor was very entertaining and regaled us of stories about how he refurbished the then run-down establishment. It was raining and cold most of the time we were there. We were in a cell that was used to incarcerate two women. We had a double bed and an en-suite toilet instead of bunk beds and a bucket. The shower next door was shared. I read that there were three hangings in the jail and by law the bodies had to be buried on the prison grounds. They were apparently in unmarked graves outside our toilet window. We had a nice pub-meal in the township about a mile away. Mount Gambier has some interesting features but the weather next morning precluded any viewings.

The Great Ocean road journey was a difficult one. The rain was heavy and the visibility was poor. When we arrived at the 12 Apostles the sky got a little brighter and the rain stopped. The other half of the Chinese sub-continent was also here. There is a large parking lot and the observation areas are well located. Only 8 of the 12 ‘apostles’ remain and the viewing platform splits them. We spent perhaps 90 minutes there because the clouds looked for a while that they may be lifting. I got some moody shots that expressed the conditions.

 When we returned to the car this little guy ...a male Superb Fairy-wren popped out of a nearby bush.

After the Apostles the weather got worse. We were slightly elevated for a lot of the journey and mostly were in the low-hanging clouds. You had to strain your eyes to see. The latter half was along the coast and the sea was angry. We stopped for a break in Lorne before proceeding to our motel in Geelong. The motel was comfortable and we purchased a nice pizza and a bottle of wine.......and again Helen insisted on watching the cricket from Perth.
We listened to the local radio on the journey. One farmer said the week before he was trucking water to his stock and two days later he was trucking his stock away from water. It was record rainfall for Victoria and caused chaos in Melbourne.

The next morning we located Avalon airport and returned the car. The queues for our flight were long and VERY slow. We had to wait 90 minutes in a check-in queue. The bag belts had also ceased functioning. We had time for a brief coffee before we had to board...which was also slow. 

The 8 hour flight was OK but the staff were cold. We were half an hour late leaving which cut into our marginal time at KL. The KL budget terminal is large and we had to walk a mile to get to immigration which was also very slow. You are then channeled through all the check-in queues before boarding after being screened about 3 times. I gulped to see them weighing carry-on bags because mine was about 4 kg over. Inexplicably the Malay woman on one screening counter waved me through.

The flight to Penang was also late taking off and after we landed it took ages for the bags to appear. It took even longer for ours as they did not appear until around 10am the following morning. It was a fraught day but one little dog was so glad to see us.

The weather was up and down but it was a totally enjoyable trip with many highlights.