Changes in Auckland

At around 5:45 am this morning, the following was seen at the Auckland airport.  Yes! David and Isabelle arrived safely.

John, Lynda, and Bayne had arrived last night after a great visit to Waitomo Glowworm Caves where John and Bayne did the Black Abyss Tour, a caving expedition that started with rappelling down a hole 11 stories into the cave.  We then got to float through the cave wearing wetsuits in 50 degree water.  And there's a lot more, but those details will have to wait.  But it was great!  Anyway, after picking up Iz and David, we decided to take the ferry out to Waiheke Island in the Auckland Harbour entrance.
We did a nice little walk that included Isabelle almost jumping a stream and then returned home.  Then it was time for John's NZ trip to come to an end.  Mom and I took him to the airport and saw him pass through the gates.  He is now on his way to Los Angeles with plenty of stories to tell when he gets home.

jk

John Climbs Mt. Doom

On his last week here, John went up to Tongariro with Mom.  She did some little hikes while he went with Stuart, our guide last time, with crampons and ice axe and did Tongariro and Nguarahoe.

Today we will try the Black Water Abyss Caving Adventure at Waitomo Glowworm Caves.  More later.

Change over Time

This will be John's last weekend with us and then Isabelle and David will be coming in. Mom has finished a picture of Mt. Taranaki (Egmont) that is really good. I was not in the picture, but she painted me in. Yea!

John hiked Mt. Ngaurahoe and Mt. Tongariro with ice axe and crampons, but I don't have his pictures yet. We will miss the little guy.

In his two weeks here, our trivia team has come in 2nd both times, good for $40 in the Pub. We actually tied for 2nd this week and the team sent John up for the playoff. First it was to be singing, but the other guy backed out, then arm wrestling, but then the pub people decided to give us each $30. This weekend - Rotorua for Yellowstone like hot springs and Maori stuff, then Waitomo for glowworm caves and extreme caving, then to Auckland to trade John for Isadave.

Wellington and the South Island

Last weekend. Ah, where to begin. I guess at the beginning. This was John"s "weekend" in NZ. All the kids will spend time here but get only one long weekend when we can get away. So we planned to head south. First stop, Wellington, capital of NZ. We got in Friday night and went straight to Joan Mirkin's house, our good friend who Lynda and I stayed with previously. She was once again unbelievable with her hospitality and John loved the house - views both ways over two parts of Wellington harbour. The next day started out rainy, so we hit the Weta Cave, the workshop for Peter Jackson, the movie director. We'll have to tell you about that in person, but it was amazingly cool for such a small place. I have not posted the picture of Mom lecturing the Uruk-Hai towering above her, but it is priceless. After that we walked around Wellington, went to the Te Papa museum, Mac's Brewery, and then back to Joan's to change for ... THE GAME. Yes, we went to the All Blacks vs. France at the Cake Tin (also known as Westpac Stadium). It was cold and rainy, but we bundled up well and were quite comfortable. And best of all, the All Blacks avenged their loss the week before with a good, albeit nail biting, win! Highlight was the red, blue, and white painted rooster getting loose on the field. Those French!
We headed home to Joan's picking up a pizza on the way. We rose early the next morning to catch the BIG ferry to Picton on the South Island. It is about a 3 1/2 hour ride across seas that are sometimes pretty rough. They were pretty rough this time and Mom had to get me some Dramamine, but we won't dwell on that. John and Mom were fine. On arriving in Picton we got to see their mid winter swimming event. They don't even call it a "Polar Bear" swim. It's just "everybody go in the water". We didn't, needless to say. Then it was on to our water taxi for the 10-15 minute ride across the sound to Portage. We were met their by a little van and transported over a saddle in the ridge to a really cool little lodge - better than we were expecting. A short walk followed by a chess game, then dinner, then sleep. The next morning we had breakfast and set out for a 7-8 hour hike on the Queen Charlotte track from Portage to Anakiwa. A boat would be waiting for us there at 4 pm. We planned to leave at 8 am, but actually hit the trail at 8:55 am.

Everything was covered in mist, but we figured with the hike starting out with a straight climb to 1300 feet, we might pop out of the clouds. We ran into little areas of residual snow/frost, but the track was in good shape.

And we did pop out into bright sunshine. Too many good pictures to post and too many good stories to tell of our journey, but it was right out of the Hobbit. Best might have been a fat Jack Russell terrier suddenly emerging from the woods followed by a grizzled mountain man looking guy. He was holding what turned out to be a dead possum (NZ version) in one hand. He then knelt down, showed us how much fur he had already gotten, and then proceeded to pick the fur off this possum. Interestingly, it came right off in big bunches. He said he gets $95/kilo. More details on that story and others later.

The scenery was nothing short of spectacular the whole way (did I mention the cloud/mist "waterfall" pouring over a saddle in the ridge! Wow!). Finally we got to the end 20 minutes early and the boat was there. A dad and his little 6-7 year old boy as first mate. On the way back to Picton we went through the middle of at least 50 dolphins (porpoises) feeding and got some spectacular pictures. It was right out of a National Geographic article. I won't go into the ferry home as it was even rougher and the captain announced he had to take a somewhat alternate route - at least that's what Lynda told me. I took my Dramamine ahead of time and stayed pretty quiet. And again I fared quite well. Then Wellington, into our car, and the drive home. Another amazing Selby long weekend in New Zealand.

John arrives in NZ

We got nice updates along the way as John went from Charleston to Philadelphia to San Francisco to Auckland. Thanks Papa, John, and Isabelle. Mom and I were afraid we might oversleep and not be at the Palmerston North airport to pick him up at 7:55 am, so we set lots of alarms. However we didn't have to worry. Mom's phone went off with a txt from John at 5:30 am saying he was in Auckland. We were happy. A few minutes later we got another text saying "Where are you". Mom, who was pretty asleep, txt'd back "At home". John txt'd back, "Should I get a cab?". Rut-roh. Not sure where it got lost in the translation, but John didn't realize he had one more plane flight for which we had purchased a ticket. I called him on Mom's cell and filled in the details. So he left the curb outside the Auckland airport in the dark and headed back in to the domestic counter where they gave him his ticket to Palmy.

He told us later there was one more bit of excitement. When boarding time came he couldn't find the boarding pass. He searched frantically. Then they said last call. Then a red light went on that said CLOSED. Then they overhead page John Selby while he was waiting behind a slow lady trying to take care of a ticket for a later flight. Just as he got to the counter and started to explain, he saw his boarding pass laying on the counter. A quick dash to the gate where they were waiting for him (This is not US Air) and they got him on. Fortunately he didn't txt us any of that so we went out to the airport at 7:45 am happy and relaxed. And there he came. Yes, on our coldest day yet in Palmy, frost on the ground and a low of 0 celsius, a young man stepped off the plan in his sandals. Ah, he must be Maori.

But of course, Mom (and Dad) always wants to see her little chicks or little roosters, I guess, and all is well. Mom and John are playing chess now while I'm working... What... okay, be right there. Sorry, gotta go.

Weekends on call

Well, to try to catch up a little bit, I'll combine two weekends. The first was back in May and the second was this past weekend. I am on call one day a week while here and had to be on call for two weekends. Both weekends happened to have a fun run, so that is what we did (and a little golf). The first weekend the run had two versions, one running (or race walking which is also big here) from Feilding to Palmerston North or a shorter version from Bunnythorpe to Palmerston North. The shorter version was still 13 km which is longer than anything I have ever run officially, so that is what I chose.

The Saturday morning of the race dawned cold and rainy. Interestingly, Lynda decided not to accompany me. Hmmm. So I headed down to where some buses would pick us up to take us to either Bunnythorpe or Feilding. The Manawatu Striders, the local running club was putting this on. I was wearing a good bit of stuff including my heavy lined rain jacket since it was cold. I kinda figured there would be some place to stash that in Bunnythorpe, but ... there wasn't. So, when we took off I was bundled up for the rain. I ran along with some girl who was setting a good pace for me, although she wasn't wearing a big rain jacket. At about 7 km she commented, "That must be getting a little heavy." A little! At one water checkpoint she handed off some small extra thing she had been wearing, so at the next one I dumped my whole raincoat on some poor lady. As I ran by and dropped it I said I would find her at the finish. The run wasn't too bad, but they have these things called hills here. I vaguely remember them from Kentucky but we don't seem to have them in our low country runs. At one point I was running up a hill and passed a poor guy in a wheelchair (they got to start earlier). I was feeling sorry for him (and was being amazed at how strong he was) when suddenly on the downhill part he came whizzing by me at what seemed like 100 km/h. I ended up doing pretty well I think (one hour and 30 sec). It turns out they don't give any prizes for how you ran, but they have a lot of raffles based on your number - I didn't win. But I did come in in the top 20 I believe.

This past weekend they had a 5k/10k run/walk starting at the hockey park (that's field hockey for the kids) and going around Massey University. Lynda walked the 10k and I ran it in 44:56, a new record for me. On the one hand it didn't have a Cooper River Bridge in the middle of it. On the other hand, Massey University is up on a big hill we had to run up to and around.

We also got to go to a nice dinner the local medical society does once every two years to say goodbye to retirees and to welcome new folks. I was surprised how many people I already know. I have gotten in a couple of rounds of golf at my new club, Manawatu Golf Club, and every one I have played with has been great.

We are now looking forward to the kid visits which will begin this Wednesday with the arrival of John. After he gets acclimated for a day we will do trivia night on Thursday and then set off this weekend for Wellington to watch the All Blacks play France in Rugby. France beat us last week, so the pressure is on. We are supposed to be the best. These are friendlies, by the way, i.e., they don't count for anything. Then we will ferry across to the South Island and go tramping on the Queen Charlotte Sound Track. That should make a good post I suspect. Till later.

Good bye Stewart Island

So we got up early this morning, had our coffee, and trundled over to wait to be driven to our airplane. They actually wait till the airplane has taken off from Invercargill before driving us up to the airstrip. So we go up there, watched the plane fly in over us, and then we all boarded. We didn’t really think we were going to get a student pilot again, but we were somewhat shocked to see an elderly woman with white hair in the co-pilot’s seat.
We finally figured out that she was just a lucky passenger who got to sit up there and have a good view. We landed back in Invercargill, got a short term rental car, and proceeded to drive down to Bluff on the tip of the South Island. We were in search of the highly regarded Bluff Oysters. Along the way we saw the other end of the anchor "holding" Stewart Island to the South Island, we went up some hill and looked out over some of the worst weather we had encountered, we walked out to a lighthouse with the Southern Ocean in all its fury, and then finally found a landmark - the mileage to everywhere sign.

If it looks like we are dressed for one of our mountain tramping expeditions, it is because this weather was worse. Fortunately, just up the hill from the sign there was a little restaurant. So we ducked in there and had our oysters while looking out at a beautiful, but very stormy, view. The oysters were good, but different from ours. We couldn't say better or worse (well, yeah, we can. Ours are better of course). But they were really good. At the end Mom, a la (insert any one of the grandmothers names here, or even the name of someone else's grandmother), edged a couple of oyster shells to the edge of the table and then dropped them in her paper napkin to quickly go into her purse.

Then it was back to Invercargill to see the oldest Tuatara lizard (he wouldn't come out of his hole) and the fastest Indian motorcycle (much easier to see). The motorcycle was in a hardware store that looked like something we would have gone into in the 60's maybe. They had an amazing collection!!

Not only the real fastest Indian motorcycle that set the record at Bonneville Salt Flats (read earlier posts about the movie - or see the movie) you see above, but a bunch of other really cool old motorcycles from all over the world. They even had some German ones from World War II. We even found the one we think Grandfather Williamson had when he was younger and Mom had her picture taken by it.

And with that, it was time to get on our plane home. The flight was somewhat eventful. Our plane was grounded, but another plane was diverted to Invercargill so we "borrowed" it to fly to ChristChurch where they have their only in-country security checkpoint. We just made our flight from there back to Wellington and then we drove home. Time for a rest now and of course, work tomorrow.

Preview - Mt. Taranaki

Coming soon, at the snail's pace that we are keeping up with this blog, our adventure from this weekend. Lynda and Bayne tramp Mt. Taranaki. East Egmont - Dawson Falls Loop, 4-5 hours on a beautiful day! And cross over the highest swing bridge in Egmont National Park - only one person on at a time. Have to admit Dad took a little while to get up the courage, but made it. Mom volunteered to stand out in the middle and take a bunch of pictures. Brrrrrrrrrrr!

Stewart Island Part III or Boy, are we slow bloggers

Alrighty then! Back to Stewart Island to get our trip back in order. As you will remember, we crashed in last night from our 3 day hike done in 1 day and had a good sleep. The next morning we decided to go easy with maybe just a walk out to the lighthouse and then a dinner at the Island's "Fancy" restaurant. We may have mentioned that this hotel was the old "bathrooms down the hall" style. Lynda headed out first. As I was leaving our room I saw her emerging from the restroom. Yes, you are correct. There was no heat in the "bathrooms down the hall". In fact, there was no fan but that was unnecessary because the window was always left partly open. Still, I thought Lynda was overdoing it a little bit, so I headed down to check the weather report for the day - they would post it on a big whiteboard each morning.

Hmmm. Seems there was going to be good reason for us to be wearing a little extra clothing all day, not just to the bathroom. Glad we hiked the Rakiura Track yesterday. So we did decide to head to Acker's Point, named after one of the early settlers. It is on the tip and was supposed to be a great view. Plus, we were still trying to see Kiwis and Penguins. Mom particularly wanted to see a penguin up close.

Before we left, we couldn't resist the urge to get in a quick game of chess (or possibly we just posed for pictures while pretending to move pieces). Well, we'll let you all figure that one out. But it does look like Mom may be winning, temporarily, hehehehe.

We did have a nice little hike. This one was about 3 hours return (round trip in NZ speak) and was on roads most of the way going around picturesque little bays. I did see the island's only golf course which had 6 holes. It was pretty however. The lighthouse point was beautiful although the lighthouse is no longer functionins and may, in fact, be the smallest lighthouse in the world. The weather wasn't as bad as advertised and there was even some sun. We had made a reservation at the Church Restaurant up on the hill, but were worried it might not open on Monday night. Not to worry! They opened just for us and it was really neat.

We arrived up there following the dress code (e.g., No gumboots) and knocked on the door. We were greeted by one of three local students working there that night. They actually have jobs, but they help out for free there just to get a free great dinner and to work with the great chef. And he was great. Our hostess was from Sweden or Norway, Mom will remind me, and then there was a guy from France and one from Slovenia you will meet later. The Chef was a Kiwi and he has been on TV cooking shows and the works. We ate in a small almost living room with a roaring fire and the mandatory huge cat curled up on the sofa next to it. We toasted with champagne and then checked out the menu. I went with the stone grill (seafood version) which was a selection of food served on a really hot stone rectangle. It was excellent. Lynda decided she just had to go with the Mutton Bird or Titi. In case you don't know, this is one of the interesting areas where political/philosophical leanings get a little confused. NZ is, in general, very green on environmental issues and pretty socially liberal. In other words, they would not stand for clubbing of baby seals - I don't think. But they will not only stand for but sanction the traditional harvest of baby Titi which are plucked directly from their nests when they are at their fattest and offer zero resistance to the hunters (gatherers?). It made really good sense in the old days when the Maoris down here had a hard time finding calories in any form and the really fatty baby birds got them through the winter. Now, well, they get to keep doing it. So, we decided to eat one. When we had asked people whether they were actually any good, we got uniform rave reviews. Although no one really seemed to remember when they ate their last one. So ... how was it, you ask. Best answer is ... it's probably an acquired taste.

Mutton Bird in Foreground

Stone Grill in Background

I love fatty food as you all know, and I have to admit this may have been even a little too fatty for me. But, now we have had Titi.

Near the end of dinner the chef asked if his helpers could come out and eat at a nearby table. We said of course. Not surprisingly we started talking to them and ended up staying at least an additional hour after we had finished. The Norwegian girl and French guy only stayed a little while, but the Slovenian and I had a good long (and civil) discussion covering many things in the world. And Mom and the Chef had an equally good conversation and probably steered well clear of controversial topics. But maybe not. You will get those stories in person. And then we said goodnight and headed down the hill to our little hotel. As we came out, the Southern Cross was right in front of us. We slept well for tomorrow morning our little student pilot takes us back over to the South Island and Invercargill where we plan to visit Bluff and have some of their famous oyster. Till then!