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.