The Traveling Kiwi

My brother Ian has started a truffle enterprise near Waipara in North Canterbury and we spent the day out checking on his progress. The soil is prepared and in the next few weeks the trees will go in. The location is just spectacular, tucked in a small valley with awesome views out to the coast. You can see in the photos he has installed the water tanks at the top of the field and the cultivated part of the valley is where he will plant the oak trees when he gets his vacation later in November. Joe and Ian spent the next day staking the field for the irrigation and putting in the warratas for the fence which needed upgrading to keep out the sheep and rabbits while the trees are young. Its a farsighted enterprise with the first crop of truffles not due for 5 – 8 years. We finished the day in a world class restaurant in Amberly. I was surprised to find such fine dining in what used to be just a small farming town. 5 stars for my pate and Ians steak sandwich was superb as was Joes pumpkin soup. The road sign did leave us all rather puzzled as it was located a good 1/2 mile from the point any merging was going to take place.

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I know I know, I haven’t posted for ages – I have been internet challenged. They have a strange system of allocating only so many GB of capacity per month and we arrived in NZ just as they had run out for the month. We are now free to surf and upload to our hearts content – well for another 5 GB anyway so you will get all my last two weeks worth in one lot.

Flying in to Christchurch from Melbourne we crossed over the West Coast and the Southern Alps on a brilliantly sunny day. Its wonderful watching the mountain change to rolling hills and on to the tidy patchwork of the Canterbury  plains.

Its spring time in Christchurch and the weather is typical spring weather, cool, cloudy, suddenly hot and then wet and cold. The blossom is out and the azalea’s and rhododendrons have put  on a lovely display. We wandered the gardens at Ilam ( my old university) and although it was overcast and cool the colors were spectacular.

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We went to Geelong for the day with Mark and Jane and the girls, about 30 miles from Melbourne, Geelong is a beach community with a great view of Melbourne on a sunny day (this was not the day). Unfortunately it was still cool and overcast so there were few people on the beach and none in the water  In fact the few that were about looked pretty stiff to me. We walked the promenade and played Boules on the beach and managed to have a great day out regardless of the weather.

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The weather has been cool, overcast and windy most days and not the best light for photos, we have headed into the city a couple of times on the train and just wandered around. Since it is the school holidays its been crowded and busy, but maybe its like that all the time. We read in the paper Melbourne is adding 1700 people a week which translates into a huge population increase over time.

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Mark and Joe decided it would be fun to spend the two coldest windiest days of the year dropping in a new transmission, tourque converter, oh yes, and adding a couple of wheels to Marks old car. When they had finished, somehow a few nuts and bolts remained, they reassured me that it was to reduce weight and if the wheels didn’t fall off I would be fine. They then informed me that for insurance reasons I would be driving. It was with more than some trepidation I got behind the wheel and started to familiarize myself again with driving on the right side of the road in crazy traffic.

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So at last we are on the way to Australia and New Zealand to see my family, I know this is my last opportunity for a long time to see Mum and all my brothers, sisters and their families and its important for me to spend some time with them while I can.

We left Seattle Monday evening on Virgin America and had a lovely flight, just as we landed I started to chat to the guy in the seat between Joe and I. He turned out to be a manager with Virgin Australia so I was able to ask him if I would be able to power my computer on the flight. Apparently not as we were in cattle class. When we found the checkin desk he was there waiting for us and instructed the girl checking us in to find us a good seat. When we boarded our Virgin Australia flight we found ourselves in Premium economy – the equivalent to business class on United. Woo Hoo – I will keep chatting up strange men 🙂 It was sooo nice, great food, great service, nice big seats and hardly anyone in the section so I snagged two seats and had lots of extra room to sleep.  What a wonderful start to our journey.

We woke to breakfast and the brightening sky and a strange colored storm, white fluffy clouds floating on a sandy sea. The captain came on and told us we were heading into a sand storm and that they would only be able to land if they had more than 600 meters of visibility. We started heading into the storm, outside it became redder and redder, an eerie light in the cabin but you could see nothing. We started watching the map in front of our seats, counting down the altitude, we were at 400ft from landing, still unable to see anything, when the engine roared and we headed straight back up. They told us if we would try again and if we couldn’t land then we would be diverted to Brisbane – exactly the wrong direction from where we were headed. The second time was a winner and we landed to sighs of relief and clapping from all the passengers.  As we taxied in we couldn’t even see the terminal or the other side of the airport. Only an hour delay and we were on our way to Melbourne. We listened to the news later that evening and found out that we were one of the very few flights that landed in a sand storm that was the worst they have seen in 70 years.

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Well I finally hit the road to head back to Seattle, the plan was to take it slow and take lots of photos. Joe left 2 days earlier to head up to Alberta and see Pete, then take the scenic route back though British Columbia and down into Washington. I left with high hopes looking forward to some time on my own and just the open road. As I headed into the Rockies the sunshine quickly turned to showers and by the time I got to Loveland Pass it was lumpy rain just this side of snow. The cloud cover stayed low and the radio promised thunderstorms for the afternoon. My plan to visit Maroon Bells ( the whole reason to take this route) was sidelined when I realized that I wouldn’t be able to see them through the cloud cover, so I just decided to drive out of the bad weather. I hit Grand Junction on the other side of the Rockies and just kept going. The aspen trees were just turning gold and combined with the rust of the dead pines it looked like it was already fall. I slid into Salt Lake city and just kept going across the Bonneville salt flats to see if the scenery was any better. It wasn’t. Although the salt flats are pretty amazing just in sheer size, people had used rocks and empty beer bottles to spell out messages in the white crusty salt. The California wild fires had created a haze that dulled the charm of the bleak landscape. Once I hit Idaho the rain started and continued on through Oregon. No photo opportunities and not much reason to slow down. Battling fatigue and unending roadworks I finally arrived in Seattle tuesday morning to find Joe had perfect weather for his whole ride and had travelled through some of the most beautiful scenery – mutter mutter mutter – hmmmm maybe the road less travelled really is better.

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We lost Cosmo and Aspen last year and they were cremated but we didn’t really know what to do with the boxes of their ashes. We also had the ashes of Brandy who passed away in 1999. So as we packed up the house the decision needed to be made as to what to do with them. We decided that since all three of the puppies loved Colorado and Round Mountain in particular, thats where we would scatter them. It was a sad trip up into the mountains behind Loveland, through the Big Thompson river gorge, to the trail we would go every weekend, sun or snow. We both made our way slowly up the trail with tears in our eyes remembering the puppies and their antics. Choosing the perfect spot was hard but we finally found a place where Cosmo would always find some water to jump in and where Aspen would race up the stream, beside it was a shady spot where the snow would last the longest and that would be where Brandy would like to lie. She never liked the water, just the cold snow on her tummy.  Somehow scattering their ashes and saying goodbye has helped a little with the sadness of their loss. Slowly making our way back down the trail we were reminiscing  the time Cosmo ran after a bear when we came across a fresh pile of bear scat. The two photos are of choke cherries – one before the bear and the other afterwards.

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We needed to go to Topeka Kansas to meet with our financial advisor (our spiritual advisor has already given up on us and this was our last hope) so off we went, skipping down the yellow brick road with hope in our hearts and our shoe box of receipts tucked under our arms. We left from Burns, Wyoming and the trip took us through Nebraska on the Interstate 80, mind numbingly boring and flat, then we dropped down into Kansas taking smaller back roads. The scenery changed from the dry flat plains of Nebraska to soft undulating waves of maize and small groves of apple trees. We found ourselves on the ” Road to Oz” and the Oz museum popped in to view. Still looking for the wizard we continued on to the big city.

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