The Belgian Bloke Goes Boating in New Zealand

We honestly never really knew what each day would bring in my beautiful New Zealand. 

Yesterday, prior to our 1am flight from Auckland, you would have found us out in Mercury Bay with Peter, Christine and Michael Kirker.  They put him in the  driver's seat as we wandered all over the bay, pausing at the famous Cathedral Cave before bouncing off across a most stunning sea.

My Jade Pendant, Created by Jayme Anderson

Hei Matau is a jade carving in the shape of a highly stylised fish hook typical of the Māori people of New Zealand. They represent strength, good luck and safe travel across water..

It took a long time to find the jade pendant I loved enough to take home with me this time but I have it now ... a small piece of New Zealand to take away with me.

Jayme Anderson's work can be purchased online at the Hokitika Craft Gallery.  Although it's better if you can just pop in and just get a feel for the piece that is yours.

Gert gifted me this exquisite piece of Marsden jade. 

Christmas Day in the Land DownUnder...

Christmas Day has already arrived here in New Zealand, 12 hours ahead of our Belgian world ... and day has dawned the deepest blue, down here in Dunedin.

Some exquisite gifts have been exchanged and as I sit here writing, the delightful chaos of Christmas Day preparations is going on around me.

A Granita dessert has been made by Katie, Sandra has peeled the new potatoes, Gert is putting together the Salade Paysanne too.  The Pasta salad was whipped up last night by Sandra, and she's throwing the Turkey roast into the oven just now.  Tim has cut up plates of cold ham and a chicken will be roasted later.  

I was the pavlova girl but an evening out on one of the many hills around Dunedin, with two of my oldest friends in Fiona's beautiful house, means I'm moving a little more slowly than usual this morning.  It was an evening that requires an entire blog post really ... so special it was.

I need to peel carrots but wanted to wish you the loveliest of Christmas days

Till later.

My Little Sister and I ... today

My little sister, Sandra, suffers being photographed while I mostly avoid it by being photographer however ... today, in the midst of photographing my sister's family, Katie-niece decided that there had to be photographs taken of the sisters who hadn't seen each other in so long.

We survived it together.

The Road ...

I woke early ... as always while back in New Zealand it seems ... and slipped out into the day before anyone else was awake.  It's one of those things I used to do before leaving behind driving and beloved roads to known places.

There is no other road for me on a  Dunedin blue-sky-summer-morning, it has to be the Otago Peninsula road and so I  turned right and disappeared for a while.

It was bliss out there.  The harbour was calm but the tide was out and so there was only one rowboat reflection.  I'll have to go back before we leave ... I need one for the Belgian walls.

The weather folk tell me it was 17 celsius out there and I had taken a jersey but it didn't last and by the time I reached the Albatross Colony, I was all summer clothes and barefeet.

It's good to be back ... so good.

Home ... ?

I woke from an anguished dream about working as a wedding photographer for a friend and experiencing complete and utter gear failure.  My camera batteries ran out, the flash wasn't attached  correctly, I had no memory card ... it was a horror of a nightmare and I woke in a terrible panic that I had missed everything important of the wedding.

I briefly caught up with family and friends in Belgium via Skype then ran out the door to the Botannical Gardens here in Dunedin.  I was meeting with Nikki's exceptionally lovely family for a quick photography session.  She's a much-loved friend of my sister's and so I knew it was going to be a pleasure to take some photographs, just for fun.

But this morning I realised that for all the lightness and joy in my posts about coming home there is the growing awareness that it's almost time to leave this country I love. Driving familiar city streets this morning left me wondering what it is that I want from my life ... maybe the weight of the nightmare was still there in my mind because it seemed like a heavy thought on such a beautiful morning.

You see I have devoured the air as we have wandered the South Island, overjoyed to be smelling the yellow lupin and the cabbage tree flowers, sniffing out and identifying the wet stone-scent of Fiordland, the intense forest-bouquet on the West Coast.

I have loved the food, I have loved the people, I am loving summer in this place that I know so exceptionally well.  And is that the lure ... the seduction? The familiarity, after 10 years away from all that is known to me.

Driving the city streets today, I was wondering if Icould return to New Zealand ... the little island-continent out here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean at the bottom of the world? 

I think I need to go back to Europe now, revisit Genova because it gives me so much of what I require, check out Antwerp because I have this Belgian bloke who loves that city, maybe visit Paris on a day-trip once we recover financially ... just to explore what I need.  And to try to understand what I would do if there were choices ... you know?

Meanwhile, my beautiful Katie-niece sat next to me as I sat here writing and downloading today's photoshoot.  She photographed me at work ...  so there you have it, a real-time photograph of the Di Creature.

Today in Dunedin...

The Southern Royal Albatross (Diomedea epomophora) is a large seabird from the albatross family. At an average wingspan of around 3 m (9.8 ft), it is the second largest albatross, behind the Wandering Albatross.

Today was all about catching up on an old friend from more than 26 years ago ... about wandering out on Otago Peninsula to visit the Albatross Colony ... about Allen's Beach, and about sunburn.

But we were so lucky, the albatross were out and about, and there is nothing quite like one of those enormously graceful creatures flying overhead.  Even better, they were flying free out at Taioroa Head.

Tonight I've been unpacking, organising and repacking a lifetime of memories, trying to downsize it all down to an affordable small crate for Belgium.  I am so very tired.  It's been a huge and beautiful day.

Everywhere ...

We've been everywhere and 'all over' and now we're back from our South Island touring, without having seen all that I wanted us to see, without visiting every person I wanted to visit but back ... at my lovely little sister's house here in Dunedin.

And the little red car has done all we asked it to do, more than I expected it to, so I'm stunned and delighted.  In its everyday red-car life it's a farm car but how it has impressed me.  It took us out onto the West Coast via the Haast Pass, up over Arthurs Pass - a fact that still stuns me, then all over the Lindis Pass ...

Serious roads, each of them, but it got us back to Dunedin again and without one single complaint.

I have been tireder than I expected to be, driving all of these kilometres.  Perhaps I haven't quite made the hemisphere shift as I dreamed that I might.  There is an exact 12 hour difference between Belgium and New Zealand, with the Kiwis leading the way into each new day ... I stumble a little at times. 

I left behind winter and now I'm tanned from this South Island summer.  My arms are brown when I look down at the hands writing this story.

We prepared our New Zealand Christmas day menu today ... ham and some kind of roast will be involved, as will new potatoes, cherries, and all kinds of other things.

And much as I love 'the road' here in New Zealand, stopping has delights of its own. I'm just home from an evening spent with the lovely poet, Kay McKenzie Cooke, and her husband too.  Gert made the comment about them being the loveliest people ... but, to be honest, we keep meeting the loveliest people here.  We laughed when we realised.  Everyone along the way has been 'the loveliest people'. 

It has to be said that I am fortunate in that I know some of the best people ... in the world!  They're not just here in New Zealand.

But I cannot begin to tell you how much we have loved reading Kay's poems as we've wandered through her worlds on this Red Car Journey.

The photograph of the sign that follows was taken near Cromwell, in Central Otago.  We had lunch on a seat that overlooked the old 'meeting of the rivers' in Cromwell. We've been everywhere there on that sign except for Oamaru.  And technically, we didn't make Christchurch, opting instead of Oxford and Springfield.  No regrets but for not seeing two people I would have loved to have seen ...  huge apologies to Kim and Catherine. 

My much-missed Auntie Coral was out in Oxford and I cried when I had to leave her.  Once I had said goodbye to her, I had to drive ... the Rakaia Gorge and down into the McKenzie Country, on into Mount Cook, only stopping when I reached Twizel.  Otherwise I wouldn't have left. 

It was like that ...

 

 

 

 

That Belgian Photographer Bloke ...

The Belgian bloke out in the McKenzie Country ...

I think I've convinced him about New Zealand being the greatest little island-continent in the world.

We're in Twizel tonight, using the slowest internet in the world, cursing it a little ... as one does.  But the room is lovely and we spent an hour chatting with our neighbours here.  Frank and Dianne Sedlar from Michigan.

Riding The Waimakariri River with the Waimak Alpine Jet Company

I was out visiting with my cousin today.  Tania lives in a beautiful house nestled in at the foothills of the Southern Alps here in Canterbury.  It's probably my favourite house in the world and I took some photographs of it, just to remember the feeling of it when I'm back in Belgium.

So Auntie Coral drove Gert and I out to Tania's and, upon arriving, Tania and Al announced that they had organised a ride for us on a Waimak Alpine Jetboat.

Oddly enough, my first reaction was a nervous 'Really?'

I wasn't sure I was up for a ride on a jetboat that had an '8.1 litre engine and a cruising speed of 80+ kilometers per hour.'  It all seemed a bit fast and slightly insane.

How wrong was I ...

So wrong! 

It turns out that my favourite thing on that wild ride up the turquoise-blue Waimakariri River, on this 29 celsius summer day, was that manoeuvre known as the HAMILTON 360º spin. It's that moment when the jet boat is spun out at full cruising speed and it feels divine.  I'm so glad that it happened more than once too.

It was bliss out there in that world only accessible by boat.  And I can't recommend this jetboat operator highly enough ... and our driver, Greg, he was simply superb.  A lovely Kiwi bloke who made us laugh often but also earned our trust with his professionalism, and his knowledge of the river.

The photo at the start of this post is one that captures that moment when Greg was talking of the 360º spin and the need to hold on ...   Gert couldn't come on the boat trip today but he was happy to wait on the bank and take more than a few beautiful photographs.

It was a grand day out here in New Zealand.  Thank you to Tania and Al, who made it all happen.  I loved it ... intensely, immensely.

News from the New Zealand Road Trip

We have stopped in Oxford, out on the Canterbury Plains, with my aunt.  The aunt I have, quite simply, adored for years.

We have stopped after 1,700kms - the distance from here to Dunedin traveled these last 5 days, via the convoluted route I chose to take Gert on.  In my 8 years away from New Zealand, I've only driven once.  There was that visit to Ireland to see Rob and Angie.  I was a bit nervous back then but Gert put me in the driver seat and told me to drive from Dublin to Connemara ... so I did.  And I loved it.  It does all come back and I used to have a big passion for driving in NZ.

This trip has been something else again and we have driven some truly interesting New Zealand roads.  The Haast Pass, then the road between Fox Glacier and Franz Joseph, and yesterday it was the Arthurs Pass.  All been spectacularly memorable with their 25km hairpin corners, kms of twisty-turny mountain roads, mountain passes, and gradients that once saw me drop the car into second-gear. 

That was this road: 'State Highway 73, and remains an important communication and transport link between Canterbury and Westland. There are 11 bridges with a total length of 406.6 metres (m).  Road gradients range from 1 in 30 to 1 in 8. Five bends through a zig zag section facilitate ascent and descent over the Pass. 

Over the years work has been done to improve blind corners and ease bends. However, the nature of the landscape and the weather can still make the Otira Gorge and Arthurs Pass road a challenging driving experience.'

There have been a million stops to take photographs along the way ... stops so Gert could buy my exquisite greenstone/jade necklace in Hokitika.  Stops for pies, and stops just to wander along some beach or mountainside lookout.

Yesterday, on safely reaching the other side of the alpine pass, we stopped because I needed out of the car for a bit ... and voila, we met a Kea, who was most confused when I mimicked his cry. 

As per the rules, we didn't feed him but we did 'chat' for a while, and that was just lovely. 

Arthurs Pass ... I wondered why I didn't remember anything about that 'interesting' alpine crossing.  I had never driven it before, I just thought I had and I have to say ... I won't be in a hurry to take a 1600CC car across it again.  The little red car is a valiant little car and I'm completely loving it but, by crikey, that was an interesting road.

Absolutely loving the whole driving thing though.

It's summer here.  It's a little confusing but easy enough to embrace.  Auntie Coral has a chicken roasting in the oven tonight, there are new potatoes boiling, and I can hear her cutting up some silverbeet.  She kicked me out of the kitchen but I'm on dish-duty. 

All is good out here on New Zealand's Canterbury Plains.

I'll wrap this meandering post up with a photograph I took of that Kea I met ...

The Simplest Things ...

I woke at 5.30 this morning ... again.  Then again, I was dragging my tired self around at 10pm last night.  So much earlier than happens in Belgium.

My body clock has changed, possibly inspired by this small passion I have developed for lying in bed and listening to the dawn chorus here in New Zealand.

Today we're still on the west coast of the South Island of New Zealand.  This morning, we'll hunt down a glacier - Fox or Franz Joseph Glacier, although access isn't what it used to be since 2 young men were killed by falling ice a year or two ago. 

I remember the awe-inspiring feeling of getting up close to those lumbering icy creatures but I'm happy to remain safely at a distance with my telephoto lens.

The telephoto lens has been the lens of choice (as usual) on this trip ... even when it comes to the intricacies of capturing fern fronds.  I carry my wide-angle lens everywhere but it's rare that I use it.

This morning I was lying here in bed thinking about the air and the water here in New Zealand.  I've been loving them both.  The air ... I presume the quality is all about low population density and the extreme number of trees and plants, most especially as we have traveled through these massive national park areas.

The air is like air on steroids, good steroids.  And finally Gert understands why I struggle so much with his world in Antwerp.  He has seen me in the context of the place where I was born and grew.  But more than that, coming home after 8 years away, I am seeing myself in context too.  It's almost recommended ... that length of absence.

I finally understand why I like wandering so much. What it is about packing a car ... any old car, and just going.  And I see that I am a creature who works with her senses.  Here, where there is so much to see, smell and listen to, I feel like all of me is operational again.

Each region here in the South Island has its own scent.  Fiordland is mostly about the scent of water and intense beech forest-type vegetation, although the Cabbage Tree was in flower while we were there, and it sweetened the air in the most exquisite way.

Westland is more about mountains and forest, with huge sweet bursts of scent from the sea.  The coast here is owned by the Tasman Sea, where waves arrive from their beginnings hundreds of miles away.  Often the beaches are littered with huge pieces of driftwood and the trees on the coast bend inland, twisted by the powerful winds.

The sights ... Gert gets it now.  There is a visual smörgåsbord on offer out there.  We have stopped so many times along the way ... that mountain, this beach, those trees, that view.  I'm driving the little red car, the one that is happiest at 90kms but the days have been longer simply because there is so much to photograph ... not that you would know that, as I work through my fern stage.  I pull over whenever someone comes roaring up behind us.  Traffic is rare and I love having the whole road to myself.

The birdsong has stopped me in my tracks so many times.  There are the dawn choruses but then there are the Bellbird and Tui songs throughout the day.  And last night, here in Fox township, I heard the magnificent mountain parrots calling to each other ... the Keas.  They were about but I didn't manage to find them ... I was mostly too tired to try.

It has been the simplest and most basic of things that have made me happy here.  I loved those things before but now ... now it is more intense and I find myself wondering if I could give up Europe for home. 

That thought is quickly followed by the realisation that I probably couldn't afford to live here and that has been the most stunning thing.  New Zealand's current government has some disturbing policies  that seem incredibly shortsighted in terms of the future here, confirmed by conversations I've had with friends and locals along the way.  Some see it now, some don't but that's for another day. 

This morning it's about finding a good coffee.  I've been rapt with the coffee culture here.  It's an excellent one.  New Zealanders have always been wanderers on a major scale, as seen in our history, and it appears there are some who have gone out and brought back the gift of good coffee.

Anyway, a good morning from this wild coast in New Zealand.  I hope your day is a truly delightful one.