Flowering pohutakawas

I've only had one Christmas away from home. But it was in the Alps, and it was snowy and I was with my family (sadly Santa couldn't make it that time, although he hadn't forgotten us and had visited our Taunton home where he had left me a blue E.T. lunch box).

Not only is this my first Christmas without family and friends, this is also my first Christmas in a climate that is upside down. Instead of snow, we've got hot spring rain. Instead of chill blue skies and scalding tea, we've got muggy grey days and iced coffee. Instead of douglas firs we have gorgeous red-flowering pohutakwas.



Even if I could be a bit bah-humbug about the commercialisation of christmas in London/UK, I must admit to missing out on the sense of festivity and anticipation; they seem to fit hand in glove with wintery weather and snug evenings at home after brisk walks. Christmas in Northland isn't quite the same. There's the odd decoration and there are parties of course, but I suppose I don't know enough people yet to be on the guest lists. The upshot is that I barely notice that this month is any different from the last month or the one before. I can't quite believe it's mid December, less than a week to the longest - or shortest - day.

Our office closes for three weeks (three weeks!!) on Friday. However, my holiday pay would barely cover buying the milk each day, so I am working pretty much full time at Waikokopu Cafe. Neither relaxing nor a money spinner, but hopefully good spirited - it usually is.

So tonight I'll put our christmas cards up on the boat, and make a present corner where the tree ought to be. We have one bauble and a bag of white powder that purportedly makes fake snow...(hmm). I think we'll go sailing on Christmas day. Hopefully some friends - Sophie and Jonny, who are also working through the holiday period - will join us on Undine for an afternoon cruise. May be the sun will shine too. Not so bad hey?




---

But while the Christmas season may be passing without my noticing particularly, I have definitely been aware it's sailing season. I've been out three days in a row on 'performance' boats, mainly acting as ballast and in charge of the jib, constantly out on the wire lying horizontal to the ocean, stretching my torso till I feel about a foot taller, able to drag my hand through the water beneath me and occasionally caught in the face by rolling swell, momentarily losing balance and bouncing on the trapeze, grappling with my toes to find sure footing again. Nearly as good as skiing...I never thought I would say that!

This photo is of Antje's boat, Hot Gossip just before I went out for my first ever sail on a javelin. Antje's a world class sailor; what an opportunity to be her crew!

Cape Reinga

Paihia Ladies Day

At one stage there was a group of kiwi guys sitting under this sign, all looking hellishly glum. I tried to take a picture, but the camera cut out. Nora made up for it later by giving me this great shot.

Dennys, Dairy Queen and Super 8

This photo is for the benefit of Hannah who's in Salt Lake City, and posted some great photos of drive-thru McDs in the snow...

It's taken in Vernon, BC, Canada. We'd been driving through a rain-soaked Okanagan, staying in motels and not really seeing what we'd come for i.e. sun-soaked valleys and beautiful lakes. Anyway, at Vernon we ended up staying at the Super 8 on the main motel drag having arrived too late and being too poor to find alternative. We had dinner in Denny's over the way. I took this photo - as the shutter clicked, the battery died - from the inside of Denny's looking back to our motel (you can just see the sign in the distance). I had just eaten a cheese and ham toastie and was sipping a luke warm glass of white wine. And boy, was I miserable that day.

Scuttling of HMS Canterbury

On Saturday 3rd November, the HMS Canterbury was 'retired' to the bottom of Deep Water Cove to form a new dive site, rivalling the Rainbow Warrior*, which is now scuttled in Matauri Bay, near the Cavalli Islands.

(*another reason why Kiwis hate the French, on top of the 2007 Rugby World Cup)



The Jar - our house on floats - braved the journey into open waters with six passengers on the way out, nine on the return.


Pete shows Pamela and Tatiana the way

It was a 3.5hr journey each way at about 4.2 knots. Not very swift (to compare, we picked up some hardcore hitch-hikers later on who'd come out from Paihia on their home-made plywood boat in about half an hour).


Overtaken by everyone else en route, even Tucker


Pausing for a game on Buzz (my new canoe) - this is Pamela who I work with at Creative Edge

By official scuttling time, 14:00 hrs, there were hundreds of boats in Deep Water Cove - Pete said that in his ten years in the Bay he'd never seen so many boats in one place. Everyone was out, from the smallest yachts and 'tinnies' to super yachts, the commercial motor boats, a car ferry and of course R Tucker Thomson (a real authentic replica who fired the cannon to denote the beginning-of-the-end for the sinking frigate).


Watching the ad hoc fleet grow


There were no other houseboats though, and as we manoeuvred awkwardly through the fleet, we had a mixture of envious stares and mocking smiles at our 'living room' on the fore deck.


The helm

The Canterbury was supposed to have been sunk about three weeks ago. Bad weather meant that it was too risky for the tug to pull the giant hunk of steel past Tarpeka Point - a notorious washing machine - so the sinking was stalled. They eventually positioned the Canterbury in Deep Water Cove three days prior to the scuttling.



The day before she was due to be blown up, she was already taking on too much water (obviously, they'd punched in most of the holes before she left port to make sure she'd go without too much performance) and the commercial boats had been asked not to create too much wake when they took punters past, just in case she disappeared before the big day. She lasted the course, and finally after an extended fairwell from the iwi and the tv cameras, they put her to rest at about 15:30. Needless to say, the on-deck explosives were all for effect (and obliterated almost everyone's view as over half the 'fleet' were downwind of the frigate).

The sinking itself was supposed to take about 10 minutes.

HMS Canterbury exploded, tilted to starboard and slipped underwater with barely a ripple in under two minutes.

First fillet

First experience of filleting a fish. Hmmm.

(sharper knife required)

Sunrise and sunset in spring

Early morning on Waitangi creek



Pete and Layton at the yacht club one Sunday evening after a day's sailing.

Our swallows

Here they are, sitting on Bob in Waitangi.

Vicious Valdora and her motley crew

From left to right, it's Tiptoe Tammy, Slippery Sam and Matchstick Marg. With Pete on the right. Everyone here is hammered on rum and coke...except the photographer, who's drinking a mug of red wine.

Scavenging for citrus fruit

Baby shag and birds in general

Rowing ashore one morning, this baby cormorant was perched on the wharf at Waitangi. It didn't fly off until we were about one metre away in our little dinghy (Bob). The next day it was sat there again with its wings hung out to dry, the way they do. It looked a bit pathetic, like it had lost his mum and was imitating being grown up.



We also have swallows nesting in one of the air flues on the houseboat roof. Although I haven't seen them since we moved from Waitangi creek to Pahia beach - I feel terrible that we might have wrenched a nesting pair from their hideaway!

Bird life is pretty awesome here. Tuis are noisy and boisterous. Their song is beautiful, in an all-over-the-place kind of way. And I can't find any good photos of them. Tui is also a beer, with a reputation for hot chicks in the factory I gather...



Pukeko are dumb birds with long legs, a loping gait and no wings to speak of. They're always wandering along the roads and tend to leap at your windscreen rather than to safety. What is it with New Zealand and flightless birds?!



Other than these guys, there are gorgeous little wagtail things that dart about and of course the kiwi itself (hidden in the undergrowth, never to be seen, virtually extinct - well, at least endangered - what did I say about New Zealand birds that don't fly? Hmmmm). This poor bugger looks well past it:

As the saying goes

Recently, as I go to sleep, I've been writing an update to my blog in my head. Needless to say, by morning the genius has evaporated and I'm left with a blank sheet and no time to do anything about it.

An update, at least then: I'm here in Paihia still. I have no electricity and scant little running water. But there is a hot shower!! Sadly it's dependent on rainfall. At last I have some jobs. I'm a marketing consultant, a waitress and potentially a boat-charter salesperson. I have money in a kiwi bank account that is just about in the three figure zone (it fluctuates, usually in a downward trend). I am learning to sail and occasionally take the wheel of our (our?!) houseboat, which I detest - taking the wheel that is, not the houseboat itself.

Summer's on its way. Sunrise and sunset are sublime from the water. Arm muscles impressive from the rowing.

Another day in paradise...

Self portrait

Red scooter on a gravel road

Today I find myself navigating some of the hillier lanes in and around the Bay of Islands. It's my first day on an under-powered scooter and I thought my asphalt-free days were behind me in Mongolia, but I was wrong. A swift learning curve: scooters and gravel are not well-matched. Still, I've learnt it's possible to transport a beaker of coffee on the footplate without spillage (no, not on the hilly gravelly roads, just up the high street). The scootering is to aid my new job as a freelance, commission-only salesperson for Paihia's only marketing and print company. If I think too hard about the job itself I want to weep (full time since last Thursday, not a penny earned yet) but the means of doing the job is kinda fun - trucking it up to Kerikeri via farms, holiday parks, paintball people and waterfalls; scootering over to Te Haumi under a brilliant blue sky with scarf billowing Isadora Duncan style; pottering through Paihia in the rain (ok, that day wasn't so fun...). I must have spoken to a couple of hundred people by now - there aren't that many of them here, I'll know them all soon.

Officialdom: I have a bank account, I have a job of sorts, I'm waiting on my medical to be ticked off and posted to Auckland (my blood results came back, the receptionist told me brightly "nothing major" .... nothing major?? you can't say that and not tell me anything else!). Then I should receive my visa and start earning money providing I find a proper paying job or get better at the one I'm doing. I'm an official person again, even though I can still fit all my possessions in my minuscule 30-litre day pack and I continue to live on the site of a backpackers (manager, darling, not resident).

Nearly everyday I wonder "what on earth are you doing here?" - I haven't found an answer yet. I miss good journalism, interesting art, my music, my duvet, normal TV, good pubs. God how I miss good pubs! Here I enjoy more sun, good wine, a view of the ocean, beautiful hills. I'm living with a set of scales in my head with weights changing daily; I know I don't have to choose, but it feels like every moment I stay, I'm making a decision that will be harder and harder to un-knit.

Do you ever not see the sky in Mongolia?

Chasing Monks

Art, bricks and mortar

Outside the centre

Do you ever see the sky in China?

Do you ever see the sky in China?

Catching up on me

Crikey, I haven't updated this since Brisbane. That was nearly three months ago and prior to the most exciting/unusual part of my trip. I'll update retrospectively, gradually, as I extract the bits of writing from here and there - things are scribbled in one or other of the numerous notebooks I have been carrying around. Some words are slowly shipping their way from Beijing to New Zealand in a package I posted back in June. Still, I can link to photos...

Brisbane

Brisbane

Leaving New Zealand

I have left New Zealand. I didn't see much of it geographically speaking but eventually made it to the south island to pick up my international flight. It seems a bit of a giveaway that I haven't updated my blog once since I got to the country - I did say to myself on the flight from Canada: "I bet you I only blog when I'm bored or miserable". I was neither bored nor miserable in the Bay of Islands.

I have written some things about my time there but left the hard copy (scribbles on back of envelope style) on the houseboat. I'd better go back sometime soon and retrieve them I suppose...

Bay of Islands

Bay of Islands

A casual backtrack (part 1)

Skunk Cabbage on Bowen Island...wild garlic? Georgia O'Keeffe?

April 17th, Kamloops - Town of the Mystifying Signage

I guess you would call this Canada's equivalent to the Scottish Lowlands; a sweeping wind- and rain-eroded hilly landscape of sage brush and tumbleweed. The major crop here seems to be North American ginseng, the cooling opposite (the yin?) to Asian ginseng's hot-blooded yang.

Kamloops is a strange place of industrial units and functional blocks that disguise the odd area of interest. Though I don't recommend their wildlife park, except for the four yellow-eyed wolves. In this town the north and south Thompson rivers meet in a gentle way. Whilst sitting by the river watching the sun go down, Pat commented that the experience is just like sitting on the shore of the Ganges in Varanasi. I hope not.

...and yes, he was being sarcastic.

April 21st, Jasper

Here I am in the Canadian Rockies enjoying the most awesomely brtual mountains I ever saw and - oh! look at this - it's a notice of intended prosectuion from the Wiltshire police, here's me doing over 70mph on the A303 from London to Devon.

**sigh**

April 21st continued, Columbia Icefields

Who'd've thought the purity of the Columbia Icefield could sustain such blackness? This is what I found out there on the Athabasca Glacier:

April 23rd, Banff - Sulphur Mountain

Neither words nor camera can do justice to the experience of Sulphur Mountain's summit on a clear blue day. Before, I'd been thinking how all these monumental snow-topped lumps of rock made me feel like the Tardis - bigger on the inside - and made me ask "how can this litlle body possibly contain everything it feels inside?". Well, a panoramic view of an unending mountainous landscape did the opposite: it made me feel like a minute, temporal speck sitting on top of the world. Pat quoted the old mama from Mike Leigh's High Hopes: "I feel like I'm on top of the world" she says in broad cockney as she peers over the edge of her son's roof garden down onto Kings Cross' disused gasworks. I know what she means.

April 28th, Osoyoos and home

"Looks like it's been raining for a month here. In fact, it looks like it doesn't know how to do anything else but rain."

Auckland and me

Well, Auckland, I'm sorry to say this but I'm not sure I like you all that much. Granted, your art galleries are good, you have more hostels than you can shake a stick at and mostly the sun shines.

But you are neither metropolitan nor bohemian, neither glamorous nor scuzzy, and your pedestrian lights are a law unto themselves. I haven't found any 'pockets' of anything that have charmed me and to top it off, there's a bloody bungee jumpy cagey thing outside my dorm window (mild dislike for lengths of elastic with people attachments is turning to hatred...oh shit, I'm in the wrong country aren't I?!).

Solution: get out.

I have a bus ticket that takes me way up north tomorrow morning, right up to the resting place of Maori spirits at the tip of the Ninety Mile Beach that is only 64 miles long. This same very useful ticket then takes me everywhere else I could possibly want to go over both the North and South Islands, whenever I like and for however long. Result!

Last port of call in this city is the K Road...

Wherever you go, there you are

And your home towns always find you in one way or another...

Ever heard of "focus", Catherine?

Turbulence

"Turbulence signals unsettledness, turmoil, surprise, rupture and unpredictability. It is both within us, in our psyches, and it is outside us. In turbulent times the feelings of loss, fear, anguish, grief and anger, along with the notions of hope, sustenance, the capacity to dream and find refuge rise to the surface"

"[It's] about the real, imagined, poignant and ambiguous transformations that occur along the way"

The big smoke

And this is my first experience of Auckland: the 'big smoke' in the land of the long white cloud, according to the gospel of Lonely Planet. I arrived at the hostel by 7am, but they wouldn't let me check in until after 10...gah! sleep-deprived, twisted and acutely aware of being alone...not good!! So I went to the highest point I could find so I could loiter awhile. I found clouds mainly, but it beat the hostel lobby easily. This is about 200m up the Sky Tower, New Zealand's tallest building and the 12th highest in the world (hmm, not such an impressive stat, that one).

You can jump off this tower if you want. I don't want, thank you very much.

Chronologically challenged

Not only have I just lost a whole day (May 3rd fell into the ether somewhere over the Pacific between LA and Auckland), I also appear to have mislaid 3 weeks...I did go to Canada, honest. I loved Vancouver. And I really did see miles and miles of untouched mountains that could almost let you forget the man's scars on the world. It's just that I'm not that competent at this digital diary thing, and am still getting to grips with my camera. Anyway, once we've overcome the logistical problem of Canada images being on Pat's mum's desktop on the 21st floor in Vancouver and me being in a full-on Korean internet games room on the other side of the world, something might be posted.

In the meantime, here's Bill Reid's sculpture, which is in the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver: Raven Discovering Mankind in the Clamshell.




The raven finds a clam shell washed up on an island and there seem to be people living inside. He prises the shell open and coaxes the little people out by saying that if they face this world they'll grow tall. The raven is known for being a trickster - he lies, cheats and steals and is my favourite incidentally - so they're probably wise to be cautious. Anyhow, the little people do make an unglamorous escape from their bolthole and I think I'm right in saying that this marked the beginning of the Haida Nation on Queen Charlotte Islands, a nation that is now particularly known for its art.

That's an eagle's head on the raven's backside - the Raven and Eagle clans are affiliated in some way (and now my knowledge runs out) and so everytime one clan is depicted, the other must also be represented. An upside-down eagle on the raven's tail isn't all that complimentary though.

April showers in Vancouver

Pictures from me not forthcoming yet are they?! Camera battery flat, took me ages to find a bloody adaptor (doh, forgot to buy one in uk) and then not the easiest to find somewhere secure where I can charge the damn thing. Anyway, pictures soon I promise!

Vancouver is a great city. I thought it was a bit clean cut at first but needless to say through Pat I've seen the...ummm, how shall I say... alternatively engaging side. And we are gradually working our way through every type of cuisine available (believe me that's a lot).

So I've seen lots of cool stuff in the past week - eagles eating seagulls, amazing totem poles, huge trees, copious amounts of fat brown rain and a whole bunch of mountains.

Easter Sunday

Last walk in the Blackdowns for a while. Vancouver tomorrow.

Devon

A handful of skulls loiter around the back door protecting us from something or other. This is the only one I could find this morning.


50p for half a dozen bantam eggs, 60p for duck eggs. Any empty egg boxes gratefully received.



A rare cooked breakfast - too many eggs, they need eating.



Fiver and Charlie





The story of the red dresser for those who remember...

Lorraine, Naomi and I bought this from the Salvation Army shop on Dumbarton Road, Glasgow in spring 1999. I think we paid £8. We were staying in an enormous ground floor flat on Kersland Street which had neither central heating nor furniture (though it did have its very own double entrance, including storm doors that opened on to the street - quite glamorous really). The idea of painting this red was to help warm up, if only visually, a very chilly household. We carried this coffin-like sideboard the 3/4 of a mile up Byres Road to the strains of the funeral march sang to us by passers by. We recruited a stranger with a hangover to help us along the way.

It had its heyday in our vast and empty hallway was almost 6 years of decline in a barn in Devon (the only £8 piece of furniture to travel the 500 miles from Scotland to the West Country in a van that was hard-pushed to go over 50mph).

Today it has finally found its rightful place in the lambing shed.