April 25 is ANZAC Day, the most revered holiday in Australasia, commemorating the first participation of combined Aussie and Kiwi forces in WWI. It is a date with great significance for me too because we initially landed in New Zealand ANZAC Day, 2010, and will have been in Australasia for seven of the next eight April 25ths. There have been 118 prior blog postings since the beginning. At the end of the last blog, I described how we were moving into J&F in NZ Version 3.5, as my 8/10ths job was reduced to 6/10ths. By adding in my paid leave, I will basically work 1/2 time and have the rest of time off.This is what I requested, and may be idyllic, but the transition has caused me to ponder my relationship to work, retirement, and aging. My thoughts turn to this quotation:
"Love and work....work and love-that's all there is."-Sigmund Freud
My desire to work is in part quite selfish. True, I do still feel competent and that I am providing a service that is wanted, needed, and appreciated. It also provides me with a specific function and place to contribute in my world, and I take great pride and joy in that. Over the next few years, I will try to sort out when it will be time to stop, and how do I find a "new" sense of purpose, and/or accept the inevitable change. In the meantime, I plan to further enjoy my time around this country and travels elsewhere.
Below is my 119th installment chronicling my life and times, both on and off work.
March 7-11,2018
Back in Timaru, back at work, I always look forward to the March meeting of the Internal Medicine Society of Australia and New Zealand, aka IMSANZ. It is always a well-planned blend of education and fellowship, with a tiny bit of adventure to boot. This year it was held in
Tauranga/Mount Manganui on the east coast of the North Island and the 5th most populated city in NZ. The heart of the Bay of Plenty region, the area is noted for the busiest port in the country, mild weather and good beaches, and the highest average house prices in NZ. We had driven through once before, but this was a chance to stay for five days.
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| Aerial view of Mount Manganui and Tauranga |
The conference was at the bay-side Trinity Wharf Hotel in Tauranga.
If you are fit and eager, no visit is considered complete until you ascend to the top of Mount Manganui. This meant boarding a bus at 6am in the dark to be delivered to the base of the mount in order to scamper up and down to be back in time for the 8am lecture. My walking buddy was a lovely woman named Jo from Lower Hutt, who also was my role-playing partner the day before and dinner companion later that night. She followed-up the conference with a kind note the next week, and we drove down to Oamaru in April for lunch with Jo and family while she was visiting her in-laws there.
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| This is what it looked like from the 232 m/760' summit nearing dawn. |
This extinct volcanic cone is the dominant geographical feature in the Tauranga district.
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| View from down the beach later in the day. |
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| War Memorial on the beach |
As always, the centerpiece of the meeting is a gala dinner, this time at the Eagle Ridge Winery on the hills overlooking the city: good food, drink, music, and dancing if you like.
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| The eagle at Eagle Ridge |
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| The view back to the Mount |
As with most places in NZ, the locals are proud of the public artworks, like this park dedicated to beloved Kiwi children's author (and long-time local) Lynley Dodd. She is most noted for
Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy and sequels, and Hairy (a Scottish terrier)
and his pals are immortalized in bronze here.
Around the corner is the Tauranga Art Gallery, featuring an exhibition
Future Islands, described thusly:
" Future Islands, New Zealand’s official entry in the 2016 Venice
Architecture Biennale, is a story about New Zealand, told through 55
architectural projects on 22 island-like forms, floating through the
gallery space."
I could not tell at first if these were all fantasy designs until I recognized some as buildings I have actually seen, like the Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth.
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| Len Lye Centre in miniature |
March 14, 2018
Meanwhile, back in Timaru local hero shot-putter Tom Walsh gifted his home-town fans with an international competition called the
Timaru Super Shot in Caroline Bay March 14.
Tom is the current World Outdoor and Indoor Champion, following up his Bronze medal in the 2016 Rio Olympics, and by all accounts a really nice fellow.
The Soundshell on the bay is a scenic and versatile venue for all kinds of events, and was converted to a shot-put arena. The crowd was in high spirits and enthusiastically welcomed the Kiwi and foreign competitors. New Zealanders are rightly known for their good sportsmanship and pride in accomplishments of any notable Kiwi.
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| Canadian Brittany Crew won the Women's Event |
March 30-April 1, 2018: Dunedin
The biggest concert tour in the history of New Zealand (and Australasia) headlining Ed Sheeran, selling over 1,000,000 tickets(!) ended in Dunedin with three shows over the Easter weekend. In my efforts to stay competitive in Pub Quiz Music and Culture sections, I try be be "down with the kids", despite the fact the "kids" probably prefer I not. This includes keeping an eye on the charts and music videos, both dominated by Mr. Sheeran for several years now. For those not familiar with his
oeuvre, he is a very talented singer/songwriter/musician. At first listen, about 50% of his tunes might be dismissed as "sappy", but on repeated listening, I can appreciate the craftsmanship at work.
It is no exaggeration to say that a significant proportion of South Islanders attended one of the Dunedin concerts.
The town rolled out the welcome mat, including the
controversial $8,350 mural paid for by the Dunedin Town Council. It was
de regueur to take a selfie in front of Ed.
Forsyth Barr Stadium was packed with a very mellow and festive crowd of all ages (we were not the most aged there), and many families. Our seats were far, far away and the only video screen was behind the stage, so the view was not great.
The sound system was quite good, however, and the zoom on my camera allowed me to get some decent photos.
Ed was on stage alone and sang and played energetically for nearly two hours. I was confused at the concert because I could seen in my binoculars that at times he was not strumming yet I could hear the guitar, leading me suspect he was using pre-recorded tracks, a charge that really upsets Ed. I Googled later to find out that he is the master of a loop pedal recorder, a foot-activated device that enables him to layer in tracks while playing live. This is a
link to a video showing him demonstrating the technique, quite remarkable really. Being Old School, perhaps eventually playing with a band would open-up the songwriting possibilities away from 8-bar loops of sound, but that is a completely uninformed opinion.
April 6-8, 2018: Akaroa/Banks Peninsula
The Banks Peninsula and Akaroa was one of the first NZ places we visited and documented in
this prior blog from May, 2010 and I have wanted to return since but it takes at least a two-night stay. My new schedule provided the opportunity.
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| Map of Banks Peninsula |
The area is a geographical anomaly, an ancient volcano cone which collapsed in the center and created Akaroa Harbor. It is connected to Canterbury by a narrow isthmus causing Captain James Cook to mistake it for an island. The weather was great, as my photos demonstrate.
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| Akaroa Harbour |
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| Akaroa War Memorial |
Akaroa's claim to fame is its French heritage. On February 6, 1840 the British and many Maori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi on the upper North Island, and the Brits were anxious to consolidate their presence in NZ. The first tribes or
iwi on the South Island signed the Treaty in Akaroa May 30. They also dispatched the HMS Britomart, which arrived on August 16, 1840 to raise the Union Jack two days before the arrival of a shipload of French settlers. The town retains many French names and descendants, but the dominion of the British Empire was never really in question.The local movie house was screening films from
2018 New Zealand French Film Festival, an annual event that shows a selection of
cinéma français in selected locations around the country. We attended screenings in Timaru, Dunedin, here, and the following week in Arrowtown, taking in 13 films in a month.
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| Britomart Monument at the site of the 1840 flag-raising |
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| Boats for fishing or nature cruises abound |
There is a well-organized and informative local museum. You can learn of
favorite son Frank Worsley who served as the Captain of the Endurance, Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated ship. After being trapped in Antarctic ice early 1915, he helped navigate a 22 ft. lifeboat 900 miles over open seas, which led to a miraculous rescue of the crew-members left behind.
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| Part of the Worsley exhibit in the museum.... |
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| ...and his bust in the town square. |
If you are in town for any period of time, you should make a point of visiting
The Giant's House, a one-of-a-kind "Old School" tourist experience. The life's work of artist and gardener Josie Martin, she has spent the last 20 years re-imagining this home from 1880 and cultivating the grounds and creating fantastical and whimsical concrete and mosaic statuary. Ms. Martin has incorporated
objets d'art from her travels around the globe as well as pottery shards and whatever captures her fancy into giant animals, Adam and Eve, jazz groups, etc. She still roams the grounds and welcomes visitors to her home and B&B.
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| Liberace wanna-be |
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| Adam&Eve |
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| Acrobats |
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| Bird-lady? |
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| Mosaic walkway |
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| The Giant's House Collage |
Sunday April 8th also happened to be Greek Orthodox Easter. I am not "religious" but I feel a hole in my year if I don't do anything for Easter. The marking of the year passing, the sounds, smell, and sights of the church still touch something deep in me, and the previous weekend (Western Easter) in Dunedin eerily religion-free. When I read that a farmer in a tiny hamlet over the hill had built a wooden Russian Orthodox Church on his property, it became my mission to seek it out. Built in 2007 as a faithful wooden replica of one in Novgorod, Russia,
the Church of Protection of the Holy Virgin is in Le Bons Bay. Although it is a consecrated church, it does not hold regular services, cannot be seen from the road, and is not open to the general public. I called the landowners late on Saturday but they were scheduled to go into the main church in Christchurch for Easter services.
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| View looking back at Akaroa Harbour from the rim of collapsed volcano |
I was determined to at least see it on Sunday, so we took off on the back-roads. The day was gorgeous, and despite a bit of misdirection that led to magnificent vistas, we made our way down to Le Bons Bay and beach. As advertised, despite our best efforts, we could not spy the onion-domed edifice driving through the "village".
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| Le Bons Bay beach |
The owner had told me on the phone that you could spot the church from the Summit Road "if you knew where to look". As we were returning to Akaroa, I pulled over and scanned the valley for something that might be it. This is what the view looked like to the naked eye.
With careful searching by binoculars, and using my camera zoom, I was pleased to capture this image.......
of the church. I felt a bit more whole.
April 13-16, 2018: Arrowtown
For the third consecutive weekend we were out and about, in part as mentioned above to catch up with a few last films before the French Film Festival ended.
Arrowtown was our destination, the tiny gold rush era village so reminiscent of Californian Mother Lode towns like
Murphys.
The autumn around the mountains of Otago near Queenstown is lovely, and the chill in the air and changing of the colors reminds that winter (and ski season) is approaching.
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| View along the Arrow River |
The luxury of spending three nights there gave us time to leisurely explore places we had omitted before, like a stroll through the historic
Chinese Settlement. Gold Rush in California triggered a series of similar manic periods around the greater Pacific Rim in Australia, New Zealand, and the Yukon, as many people arrived drawn to the prospect of untold riches. These included groups of Chinese, mostly from southern China around Canton. They made money from mining, supporting services for miners, and providing cheap labor. In general, they were treated with suspicion by the Caucasians, and most eventually returned home. Scattered around these areas are remnants of these communities, and Arrowtown has preserved whats left in memorial to these pioneers, in the local museum and in the park on the outskirts of town.
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| A collage of the Chinese Settlement sights |
As we were exploring the environment, I saw in the distance a couple in the river. At first I thought they were fishing, but as I neared I saw a person carrying another, then I noted she had a tail. It turns out, she is a professional mermaid from Virginia. Going by her mermaid name Hyli (here is her
Instagram link), she travels the world and her partner photographs her in various settings. They have just arrived in new Zealand with the goal of capturing the mermaid at as many of The Lord of the Rings sites as possible (this was one).
She graciously allowed me to take this shot. Who knew mermaiding was such a popular (and lucrative?) pastime? I think she said her day job had to do with manufacturing silicon products like her outfit. It was especially weird to me because just earlier that day I sent
this video link to my granddaughter of mermaids in Florida swimming with manatees for her school report (on manatees, not mermaids).
An Odd & an End
I was searching for chestnuts in New Zealand in November to make my
yaiyai's Greek rice with chestnuts stuffing, and was told in Timaru multiple times "I have never seen them in NZ". It turns out they
are grown locally but in autumn. I found these in the farmer's market in Akaroa.
Combining my search for the traditions of Easter with my love of a good pub quiz, the traditional quiz features a raffle to benefit that week's charitable cause. This 1/2 kilogram milk chocolate bunny caught my eye, and when my number was called I had to have it.
Having it, I am not sure what I will do with it. Currently it sits majestically on top of my bookcase at work.
On Deck
We now awaiting the much anticipated first visit from our dear Fort Bragg friends and neighbors Christine and Doug. They will be here only two weeks and we plan on showing them as much Kiwi fun as they can handle (and perhaps more).
TTFN
Nobody rocks the party like my nearly surrogate son Florry O. and his little buddy Rocco, and we were fortunate he made time to brunch with us before we left the city.
