We are OK in NZ, after the Christchurch quake.

This event certainly changes the tone with which I write this post. As you can imagine, at least for me at “home” in Waitarere Beach, much of my day has been filled with first communicating with you all at home via email and Facebook, laundry after 4 days of traveling, and keeping glued to the TV. We were in Christchurch and it’s central square with Randi Berg and her family in December during our second weekend in this amazing country. The face of that beautiful square is now irreparably changed by the collapse part of the Christchurch Cathedral, but more important at this moment, many people whom we have befriended and met have been affected through friends and family that live in Christchurch. NZ is the size of Colorado, but longer and skinnier than California, with 4 million people, so it’s very small and interconnected. People fly or take the ferry back and forth between islands easily and frequently; well, some people do, others, as in the US, rarely travel out of their surroundings. As you travel this amazing country, you are reminded all around that it’s stunning scenery is due to it’s wild geothermal activity, earthquakes and volcanoes. And we have yet to travel through most of the south island, which even the north islanders say “wait until you see the south island”, when we comment on the beauty of the north island that we’ve seen so far.

We saw so much more of the north island’s unique beauty this last few days. On Monday (Feb. 21) Steve and Edie Jacobsen and Kevin and I tramped the Tongariro Alpine Crossing.  At the website, tongarirocrossing.org.nz/ , you’ll get a glimpse of amazing features that we came across during a 19 km (11.4 miles? really?!?) tramp up to and over a “saddle” between two mountain peaks in Tongariro National Park. We did see some people who likely were older than us but not many, ha! We took us a little longer than most, about 9.5 hours, but we made it! We are moving slowly the first days afterwards, but are sooo glad we went, it was well worth it and we highly recommend it to anyone who has a chance. It is a well-travelled tramp, meaning not only is it easily accessible but it is also well worth the effort. We saw several groups and never felt isolated (at our level of fitness, that is reassuring!) but also never felt overrun….it was more like a party, I think :) celebrating earth’s beauty! In my mind, this is so far our peak NZ experience. Go here to see my pics https://picasaweb.google.com/TongariroAlpineCrossing  And we have yet to see the south island! Now, Kevin might protest, he might say that flounder we caught surpasses all understanding….???

And, speaking of Kevin and fishing, I have to tell you about my great fun the last few weeks! After taking friends Laurel and Charles to their train a few weeks ago, I stopped at a rural quilt shop enroute home; I had spied it earlier but never stopped. Well! Susan-Claire Mayfield of Gourmet Quilter gourmet-quilter.com has beautiful NZ batiks and I picked up a few pieces, and a pattern…..that’s all. Then later emailed her and a couple other NZ fiber artists whom I’ve met, and she replied by asking if I wanted to come and sew on her machine while she quilted on another! Whoo hoo! What fun I’m having, she said I can come every Friday until we leave! So the last two Fridays I’ve taken lunch down for us both and am not only quilting and learning, but watching her design quilts too. She has a beautiful 1902 home in which her studio/shop is on the ground floor and she and her husband Royden live upstairs. I’ll go back this week, and in March she’s having a sale….hmmm! How much can I bring home?!? This is taking me back, as I worked in a fabric shop when in high school, and now have been starting to quilt over the last year at home.  Photos of Susan and some of her work, as well as my other fave fiber artists of various sorts, are seen herepicasaweb.google.com/NZFiberArtists#  I can't remember if I told you about meeting Helen Palenski, she KNITS the mini monkey, topsy-turvy dolls and Mr and Mrs Mouse that I'm bringing home for my dollhouse! Amazing!

I’m including links to my pictures, please let me know how it works for you to access them.

So it’s probably a good thing that there are only 3 more Fridays until we will be on the road, which eventually will get us home. Kevin’s last day is Thursday, March 17. The next day we’ll take off to travel most of the country that we haven’t seen yet, until flying out to Jen & Carlos’ in Sacramento, CA for several days. We plan tentatively to be back in Decorah around April 11. After this NZ tragedy, I’m somewhat eager to get home to our family and friends. Stay safe, all of you!

Stream of consciousness

As I write this, it’s Saturday morning, February 12, and Kevin is in his element.  He got ahold of a few sharks that someone caught (another story there!) and he is showing the neighbor boys how to filet them, in case someone sometime would want to eat shark…?  These will be bait, likely in a few days.  In the meantime, the meat will reside in our (small) freezer….

Which reminds me to tell you the possum roadkill story. Weeks ago, we passed a possum roadkill on the highway.  Kevin had to go back to check it out. Being the former Luther bio person that he is (so am I, I might point out, and I don’t do things like this but that’s always his line) he stops for roadkills and in my experience, if the roadkill is in excellent condition (his words) he will put in in a plastic bag, put it in the trunk and then into OUR FREEZER at home to save it to take it up to Luther for somebody to stuff, for whatever reason.  (I hope you understand here how patient and wonderful a wife he has here)  So, being on the beginning of a 4 day weekend, when we don’t have a readily available excuse like Luther around, or a large freezer anywhere, I was NOT to pleased about him doing this.  He put a dead possum, in a plastic bag, in the trunk, drove to a side road (you should hear fuming coming across time and space here) and took his catch several yards behind the car in the ditch. While he was doing this, I tried to calm down and decided that it was possible this could come out to a win-win, if he was able to pluck the possum hair (has to be done while the beast is still warm) out to knit into a scarf, and leave the carcass. Well, he DID!  Peace is restored, you’ll be happy to know, and we have a good story on both of us to boot.  Now what I need to do is find out 1) if I can bring it to the US, and 2) if so, what shape it has to be in both to bring it and to use it.  Hmm, good project for today maybe? :)

  Some things certainly transcend time and space. I’m smiling remembering hearing the neighbor boys discussing with their mom who would get to sit in front, getting into the car. And I wish I’d had a camera yesterday. When driving into town to pick Kevin up, I passed the elementary school and it had just let out.  At the crosswalk, the two students were manning the crossing, and had these really cool (I thought) gates that swing out into the street to stop us drivers, or the boys would swing them back in front of the sidewalk to stop kids. And this is the transcending part (besides the guards themselves), two boys ran up to the gate hollering “keep it open, keep it open” as they were closing it (on the students) to allow me to pass.  Those of you in the bigger city might have this viewing opportunity often; living in Decorah, I have not seen it for years (since I was a crossing guard, with a lowly flag?)

Regarding school, when a child turns 5 they start school. Then.  As in, the day of, or after, their birthday. So during the first school year, students come in throughout the year.  What a headache for teachers; evidently they are considering having two “intake” dates. The comment I have heard when I mention our method of having a cut-off date for starting kindergarten is that that’s not really fair to the children that have to wait, is it? As to the school calendar, there are 4 sessions of 10 weeks, with breaks of 2 weeks in between, except for summer (ie, over Christmas and January!) when there are 6 weeks. Or something like that. And between “districts” or towns, there might be slight differences in the dates that those breaks start, but the length of time is prescribed.  So Dr. Hull’s grandson told me that he was going back to school a few days earlier than his younger cousin(both of whom live in Wellington), but they all had the same number of days so it was fair.  Next year, when NZ hosts the Rugby World Cup, school schedules will defer….as I said, some things transcend… 

The other day on my walk on the beach, I passed a tractor (green and yellow, for those who need to know) pulling a boat trailer. I thought I had told you about our beach being a road, but maybe not?  At Waitarere Beach itself, there are two roads that lead right over the sand dunes, onto the beach.  As you drive onto the beach itself, there are signs stating that this is a registered road, your car must be registered and warranted (licensed and insured, I think) and you must follow the speed limit signs.  And there are official speed limit signs, at 30 km/hr (where normal in town speed is 50 km/hr) stuck into the sand along the way. So on the far “ends” of the beach (it doesn’t end, it goes on for miles, but this refers to the end of “town” next to the beach) you’ll see cars and pick-up trucks (“utes”, another vocabulary word) with fisherpersons nearby. Anyway, I digress again..so I watched this tractor and it’s boat trailer make it’s way towards a fishing boat coming in. No boat ramp needed here!  A little later, along came two horses, being ridden pretty much all out by what looked to me like jockeys, or their trainers.  A morning workout!

Now I’d better tell you what I know about the fishing here; Kevin always reads my rough drafts, maybe this time he’ll have some editing to do!  There is surf casting, which  requires a rather huge pole and a kind of anchor thing to hold it which goes into the sand.  This pole can be used from the beach or a boat, to catch red snapper.  Then there is the flounder net, which is a 20 or 30 meter long net, about a meter (a meter is about a yard) high, and has two long poles inserted along the short ends for two people to drag through the water.  It has weights along the bottom, so as to hug the sandy ocean bottom and bring up the flounder into the net.  (They are the flat fish that lay on the bottom, with both eyes on the top side, and they are yummy!) Then there is the crab pot, which is shaped like a big tuna can but made from a nylon cord with two trap doors through which the crab unwittingly (are supposed to) go into, and a top opening through which the lucky fisherman takes them out. The Sands are now the proud owners of each of these pieces of equipment. They have NOT (yet?) bought a kontiki, which is hauled to the beach on a small trailer with it’s accompanying electric winch. The kontiki has a small electric motor with about an 8” propeller and is shaped like a big sausage, or a shark :) . It is connected to the winch by a “long line” which is how this type of fishing is referred to.  The kontiki has a timer on it, and is set to run for 15-25 minutes with another setting that allows to accommodate for the direction of the current, which is dependent upon low or high tide. As the kontiki draws the long line out away from the beach, the fisherperson (and his help?) attach the leaders with many (30?) hooks and bait to the long line, which then dangle from it about 18” under the water’s surface. Generally the line is left out there then for about an hour.  Then it’s winched in slowly, so as to allow the hooks with catch, of course, to be taken off the line as it comes in. The motor gets turned off as it gets into shallow enough water. What is hoped for is to see many red snapper. What might be seen instead are small sharks or barracuda. Of course, some of this fishing might not be particular to only NZ, maybe US residents along the ocean’s shore are familiar with these means.  Kevin is out fishing now, for crabs, because 1) it’s his day off, 2) we’re home, and 3) it’s not raining! It’s a “fine” day today, as opposed to a dull day, which is cloudy, gray.

Vocabulary lesson - an ongoing education!

nigglies = a little bit crook (crook=sick)

a correction to “grizzly” - it is not “really sick”, as I earlier wrote, but fussy, as in the baby is grizzly :)

plaster = band-aid

piss = beer; Kevin was told, “Doc, I’ve been drinking too much piss”!!!!

grommets = ear tubes

boot = trunk of car

loo = bathroom

pinch = to steal

shift = to move, as in “I should shift the car” ie from parking on the street, or to shift from one house to another

across the ditch = to Australia

Hooray for friends from the US!

Since the last post, we’ve been having fun welcoming US Midwesterners :) to our corner of the world in New Zealand. And that is my excuse for not writing, I’m sure you’ll all have forgotten about us by now. Clint Farlinger and brother Carl came for only two nights Jan 29 & 30, and now we have Laurel Gamm and Charles Stephens, whom we’ve come to know through sister Robyn. Kevin took the Farlinger bros to the Otaki Gorge (twice, but that’s another story) and the following day we had hoped to accompany them north enroute to Auckland and their eventual departure….instead, as it was rainy and we didn’t HAVE to travel (as opposed to they who did) we sent them on their way to what was hopefully and eventually a scenic route north to Tongariro. Clint is a free-lance professional photographer, so NZ should provide plenty of material...IF the weather cooperates. Laurel and Charles arrived last Friday Feb 4 and we managed to get more time out of them :) The four of us headed up north and east on Saturday, determined by where in the north island it would not be raining, and it worked! We got to Napier and had a leisurely lunch outside, and visited one of NZ’s ubiquitous stores selling beautiful clothing made from merino wool and possum. Eeeuww, really, possum, you say? Yes, but wait, these are not the opossums that we see at home (although I guess both can be spelled that way). They are smaller but not much, akin to a weasel if you ask me and have a luscious brown fur coat. (and that is another story too, about a road kill…..all for Leslie’s benefit, of course) Anyway, they are a non-native pest in NZ, having been introduced years ago (late 1800’s?) to jumpstart a fur industry. Of course, they have no natural predators here and they eat things like kiwi eggs, and are a huge problem. People do hunt and trap them, and the DNR poisons them. Anyway, I digress, sorry...the possum fur is combined with merino wool to make an exceptionally soft and warm hat, scarf, sweater, gloves…..and expensive, natch. Stores can be found easily that are dedicated to the sale of these products. AND, this one in Napier actually had a little possum museum with dioramas of stuffed possums! Cute….? But we learned something..they are marsupials, who woulda thunk? So we made some smallish purchases, gifts of course heheh. Then the guys headed off to get fishing licenses, while Laurel and I wandered in amongst the very cool art deco architecture (including a very cool store…..gifts, of course, gifts) Napier was hit by an earthquake in 1931 and so the buildings built to replace what was ruined (much of it’s downtown and waterfront) is in art deco style. They have a huge annual art deco festival in February even, with lots of cars, costumes, music and history of the era. Laurel and I want to go!
Next we headed up to Te Urewera national park, and another lucky find, the Whakamarino Lodge, which is near Lake Waikaremoana (and remember, WH is pronounced like an F…?!?) It took us all weekend to figure out how to say the latter, thanks to Charles :) for getting it right from somebody’s mouth. Anyway, the lodge is iwi-owned, meaning a Maori tribe owns it, cool. We had our own 2 bedroom apartment and the lake all to ourselves, there was literally no one else there. Why, you say? Because it’s just a little, heheh, off the beaten track. We tried to stay a second night but they were expecting a group of 35 for the week, so our worry for their long-term viability was dissipated a bit. And, in the end, it was good we couldn’t stay, somebody was looking out for us. We went just a wee little bit up the road, maybe an hour, to find a cabin, the last one, on Lake Waikaremoana itself. Mostly metal (as in gravel, one lane, windy) road, ending at a beautiful lake ringed by lots of hilly, green bluffs. Which must have fish in it, hmmm. We explored trails not too far from the cabin, surrounding what really can best be described as a waterfall complex. (At this point, I hadn’t found my camera…...in my bag, so technically I had not lost it, right?) There were maybe five different falls, like a series of three some of which split into two, and we walked all around to see all of them from all vantage points, cool. Stopped at a big flat stone across from one, which we also had all to ourselves, for a picnic and some of us took a BRIEF swim (some of us just really didn’t need to get cooled off). Hiked back, then hiked an hour to get a dinghy at another unpronounceable lake that starts with a W and has about 4 consonants and 10 vowels. Kevin and Charles tried their darndest, but there were NO fish in that lake, beautiful though it was. We could tell, ‘cuz we could see to the bottom. Hiked down, and for the second time in 2 weeks, Kevin and Leslie timed it so we got back to our new cute cabin for four just in time for...dark and dinner. We are promising to do better now, really. Anyway, that brings us to why it was good we couldn’t stay a second night at the W Lodge...because the next morning, we got packed and out of there in a reasonable time, and we did not see another place of lodging for a loooong time. We drove and drove (thanks, Kevin, I’m saying “we” quite figuratively) on an again windy, narrow, metal road. At one point we came to an island of privately owned land in the middle of the park. It has few houses, with one place of business where there was a loo and coffee available. We surmised (wisely I’m sure) that this is where the descendants of the Ngāi Tūhoe live. Ngāi Tūhoe was the last Maori tribe to sign the Treaty of Waitangi, if indeed they ever did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Waitangi and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ng%C4%81i_T%C5%ABhoe Signs in the building were in Maori, which is not in itself so unusual in NZ, as it is one of three official languages, along with English and sign language. Usually, however, it is written below the English; in this case, for what looked like the iwi agenda meeting, it was the only language written. It seemed to us that there is a lot of pride in remaining on this piece of land. The Maori have a political party, and some representation in Parliament, and there is ongoing negotiation about repatriation for some parts of the country. At least one of the national parks (Tongariro, that we’ve visited) was given to the people of New Zealand by a Maori chief. I could digress here and go into more about the Maori, but I think I’ll save that for another post.
We finished up our trip that day with a picnic on the banks of Lake Taupo, and followed that by using the laptop and 3G T-Stick to call all 6 of our collective kids. Of course, it was during the Super Bowl, so some were unavailable..but we did find out that the Packers were ahead :) I took Laurel & Charles to the train station the next day, about half an hour away, to send them on their way to the South Island for several days. Happy trails, L&C, until we meet again.