Quicklinks:
|
Great Writing - Home > Non-Fiction > New Zealand trip - October - November 1976
| READING ROOM | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| COMMUNITY | |||
|---|---|---|---|
|
| ABOUT GREAT WRITING | ||
|---|---|---|
|
| WORK AWAITING REVIEW |
|---|
|
| GW IS... |
|---|
|
Great Writing creative writing community is designed to prompt ideas
and provide inspiration and motivation within aspiring and amateur
authors. Whatever your topic; from love poetry to Doctor Who or Harry
Potter fan fiction, Great Writing's online writing group is where you
can make new friends and improve your creative writing. |
| WHO'S ONLINE |
|---|
| We have 2818 guests online and 6 members online |
Non-Fiction
| print friendly version | |
| New Zealand trip - October - November 1976 | |
| By jean.day | ||||
| 15 February 2007 | ||||
|
Oct. 15 Phil sent off a paper to be published and is busy getting the one on lead in street dust caused by lead in petrol finished. It’s been requested by several national and city organizations so he has to hurry with it. Spring is so lovely - if only the sun would shine. I had to walk to get the kids today and I marveled at the beautiful trees and shrubs and flowers. You don't see so much when you drive. Our car had $l00 worth of repairs. We were just starting to feel a little less poor. Phil thinks we can probably pay for our tickets home without another loan if we don't have any more major bills and if we have a cheap holiday. As it is we will still be paying off our loan to the English bank for the money we borrowed for our plane tickets to come for another year. Oct. 17. I've had a busy morning. We bought 40 lbs. of apples at an outdoor place yesterday, two cents a pound. A lot of them were wrinkled and spotted so I've been making applesauce. We also got 56 lbs. of potatoes for $1.70. There are a lot of market gardens on the way to the beach. We're having fresh asparagus from the garden for lunch - a real treat. Maybe some artichokes later in the week will be ready to pick. I haven't had one for ages. Oct. 23 We're on our mini-holiday, at Lake Rotoiti. It’s about a seven hour drive from Chch. It’s quite a nice place and the house we've borrowed is very adequate except for the outside toilet. But it’s raining. Philip has taken the kids to the river to fish despite the rain but I doubt if they'll stick with it very long. The drive up yesterday was pretty but tiring as a lot of the roads were unpaved and the dirt from traffic in front made it difficult to see. The children are bad travelers and fight and cry most of the time. Andrea has a bad cold and is fairly miserable anyway. This lake is small and sort of horseshoe shaped and all around covered in fir trees and native bush. There are mountains in the near distance and they are still snow peaked but not much. We've borrowed the house from the Clarks who are the relatives of Philip's godfather. They're rich and own lots of property. This house is 3 bedrooms, parlour, combined kitchen and bathroom (but toilet outisde.). All the rooms are small but it has adequate beds and chairs and a fire and electric stove and frig. The hot water is only in the kitchen so having a bath mean carrying water by the pail full to the bathroom. The yard is large and wooded - very wild looking. They have a washhouse with a copper for washing clothes where you light a fire in the bottom to boil the water. There is a row boat too that the kids are keen to try but I don't like the idea of going out in the rain. There are lots of sand flies which are like small mosquitoes and bite so I'm doused with insect repellant. I went for a short walk along the lake this morning and then we drove up to the ski resort on the mountain for a picnic. It’s started raining then and still is. There are few people around as this is a holiday spot so most of the houses are for summer use only and most people wouldn't bother this early. Here come the family back - on the run. Sunday- We spent the rest of yesterday playing monopoly which Stephanie greatly enjoyed. Andrea had a nap and Jon alternated between darts and being the banker. Today is sunny and warm. We've got a picnic packed and plan to take the rowboat out on the lake and find a nice cove. We have some bell-birds who live in the trees outside the house. They have a lovely clear musical song like chimes and it’s such a nice dawn chorus. I got very cold again at night but the thermometer said 55º so it's just me missing my electric blanket as our house usually gets that cold a t night. Philip is digging worms. We lost our hook yesterday in the rain and didn't get a nibble. The hook caught on the weeds. We plan to leave tomorrow about 11 after cleaning up the house and packing etc. We plan to go by a different route back which is somewhat longer but new country to us and then past Kaikoura where we enjoyed ourselves so much last May. We are all still aware unsure of how we will spend our last three weeks in NZ. We make and change our minds every day. Nov. 2 We had two glorious days. We went to the beach on Sat. with our friends. It was hot but there was a cool breeze so we didn't feel the heat and we all got burned to some extent. I hope it won't all peel off. Our friends have a canoe so we had rides on the river and played ball on the sand. If we come back on December 18th then we will have the 3 weeks after our trip to sell the car and bikes and pack up and clean house etc . The kids will have a more normal amount of vacation time from school. They don't mind missing those last weeks. Stephanie went trick or treating on Sunday. It isn't generally done in NZ but she got 10 of her school friends to dress up and they went around the neighborhood. They got cookies and money as people weren't expecting them so they didn't have candy. Nov. 13 We've got a nice motel, the third on our trip south and west. It’s actually a house converted into apartments and our part is as big as Grace’s. It’s old but nicely furnished and immaculately clean. We have three bedrooms, in fact, all with electric blankets and a fully equipped kitchen. It costs us $16 a day which is about what the others have cost too. Last night we had a chalet in the town where the car broke down. Philip held the offending piece in place with chewing gum until we got there. The first day we stopped at Lake Benmore where there is the largest hydro-electric station and Phil wanted to visit it. He and Jonathan had a great time going all through on a private tour. The countryside is of course unbelievably beautiful. I've given up trying to describe the grandeur. It is just breathtaking and unbelievable. We are now in Queenstown and this is a very touristy place and at the moment full of Americans. In fact this place is so geared to the American tourist that it isn't at all typical NZ. It’s full of doughnuts and pancake houses which are unheard of in other parts. But despite that it’s lovely here. The scenery is almost the best we've seen on our travels. Beautiful mountains - snow capped - trees and huge clear lakes and rushing rivers and waterfalls all in one spot. We took a cable car to the top of one mountain and that was fun. Tomorrow we plan a steamboat ride and a visit to a gold rush town. Nov. 23 Jonathan just had a fight with a neighbour boy. Jonathan said Jesus was everyone's King and the boy said there wasn't any King. They got very heated about it. Jon must have been listening to the sermon on Sunday. We've got some new lettuce from the garden today. I'm making it with cream and vinegar and sugar liked we used to have it at home. I can't remember if I mentioned Phil's lecture to the science bigwigs of Chch. It was very well received and he certainly has gone some way towards making his reputation in NZ. I went to listen too, and was very surprised afterwards when he asked me what I thought of it. I didn’t understand very much, but I could tell that he is a very good lecturer. The group asked lots of questions and seemed very impressed. If there should ever be a permanent job going here, he might have a good chance. I'm not sure he'd want it as NZ is a very insular and limited place from a professional point of view but I know he'd enjoy the country as a whole very much. Nov. 28 We have a mystery in our house. When we got up this morning we found a 3 lb leg of lamb on the floor in the kitchen. About 4 oz. of the raw meat had been pulled and gnawed off. Two plastic bags had been chewed through to get at it. There were no droppings - no footprints, nothing out of the ordinary and there were several packets of cookies beside it and they were opened too but hadn't been touched. The garbage is in a scrub pail without a lid and this hadn't visibly been touched. There is only one window open in our bedroom and it is a swing out type window. We had had doors open for brief periods during the day yesterday but we were around the house all day. We were out last night but the babysitter had been in the kitchen for a drink and apparently hadn't noticed anything. I got up in the njght for what I thought was Andrea crying but she seemed asleep. But she often calls out in her sleep. A bit later she did cry and Phil got her up to the toilet. As he was just about to come back to bed, I thought I heard a low noise in our bedroom like something rolling on the floor but didn't see anything. And as I'd had 3 martinis and 3 glasses of wine felt I was probably imagining things. There are probably plenty of mouse hole openings as it’s an old house but could a mouse pull a 3 lb. piece of meat to the floor and consume so much-meat? And wouldn't it have preferred the very easily available cookies or garbage? So over to you.
Only registered users can rate and write comments. Powered by AkoComment 2.0! |
||||
 Previous item
|
Next item
|
|---|