Travels and New Zealand - 2016-17 |
Profuse Apology! For
a multitude of not very good reasons we have not posted an update to this
website for nearly two years, perhaps because we don't have much sailing to
report. However, we have not lapsed entirely into decrepitude as you will
see. Here is a recap of what we have been up to. We will try to be more
communicative in future for those of you who still have the slightest
interest in our lives and travels. |
It took us the best part of six weeks to
recover from the job of bringing Sunstone's hull back to something
approaching its former glory. Despite having visited many of the port
cities of France, we had somehow missed out on any opportunity to be proper
tourists and spend some time in Paris. By a stroke of serendipity, Tom's high
school classmates had decided to hold a communal 70th birthday party in the
City of Light in early July 2016. Despite having attended no reunion function
of any kind in the past 50 years, we decided that fate had intervened and off
we flew. Fortunately we had a chance to spend a few
days on our own exploring and in fact celebrating Tom's actual rather than
virtual birthday in style. |
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Like so many before us we found the Louvre
interesting, but overwhelming. The key to enjoying it seemed to be to stay
away from the most famous items, such as the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo.
We were much happier at the Musee d'Orsay (left) and positively ecstatic in
Sainte Chapelle's airy architecture and beautiful stained glass. |
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We
intentionally mixed the historical and traditional with the modern - as the
French so readily do. Though dauntingly meccano-like on the outside, we quite
liked the Pompidou Centre's interior, which was very suitable to the modern
art on display. The spiral staircase of the Arc de Triomphe's shell-like
whorl was hypnotic. The engineering of the Eiffel Tower and the Louis Vuitton
Museum, make very interesting contrasts. |
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Thanks
to Steve Pierce and his French wife, Catherine, who live in Paris, we were
extraordinarily well entertained for our communal birthday. It was
interesting to catch up with several of my old classmates and we managed to
avoid excessive reminiscence or nostalgia. Before
we headed back to England we managed a Sunday morning in the streets and
stairways of Montmartre, both to see the famous artists' district and to walk
around Sacre Coeur. |
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Returning to Essex and Suffolk we visited our
old haunt, Mike Spear's marina at Levington, where we lived for several years
while working in Ipswich. We were delighted to be able to catch up with Mike
himself at the lightship clubhouse of the Haven Ports Yacht Club. |
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A swing along the south coast and into the
West Country gave us a chance to visit David and Rose Shepherd, where Vicky
and David dressed up in appropriate Lady Margaret Boat Club colours. In Lymington we dutifully admired Kitty and
Simon van Hagen's Lymington Scow. |
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The primary object of our tour into the West
Country was to visit John Langdon, the retiring editor of the RCC's Journal, Roving
Commissions. Having served his four-year stint, John was handing off to
us and we needed every bit of the two days we spent with him to get to grips
with the editing process, its complications and potential pitfalls.
Thankfully John had prepared a wonderful crib, which has allowed us to
maintain an adequate pretence of competence as editors. |
In another lucky bit of serendipity, we
managed to meet up with both Inge and Annabel in London, while each was on a
short break from other duties. On return to Essex, Vicky managed to catch up
with David Russell (RCC) on board David and Jane's boat, Tinfish.
Fortunately from a photographic point of view there was a Thames Barge match going on in the River Orwell,
with barges and smacks passing close to David's mooring. |
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The best time for Kiwi residents to walk the
most famous of New Zealand's tracks is in the off-season when there are very
few tourists and you can have the track largely to yourself. The only
down-side is that some of the accommodation along the track may be closed for
the winter. Six us decided to take the opportunity to walk the whole of the
Queen Charlotte track, which threads its way along the coast of Queen
Charlotte Sound in the Marlborough Sounds in the north-east corner of the
South Island. With a little planning we even had the convenience of a ferry, not
only taking us to start point and collecting us from the finish, but ferrying
our larger bags and the food each day to our next night's accommodation.
Beside ourselves the group included Jan, Jenny, Merle and Val. Quite apart from intermittent beautiful views
of the Sound, the track works its way through varied native bush and along
ridge lines of the hills that separate the sounds. The track can be done more quickly, but we were happy to take
most of five days, only one of which was really wet, though the last day was
decidedly frigid. Vicky was of course delighted that the track begins at Ship
Cove, where Captain Cook landed and rested to replenish wood and water. |
Cook's Monument at Ship Cove and the walking group, looking cheerful - early on! |
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Koru's (Unfolding ferns) |
Stumped! |
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The wire bridges constructed by the Dept of Conservation
(DOC) are always a marvel of simple engineering. We first saw the sign by which Vicky stands
when we biked this section of the track in 2000. At that time it just said
'Cyclists Dismount' we dutifully did. Just beyond the trees you can see, there
is a sharp corner and there is indeed a steep drop off - a cliff in fact,
with a drop of several hundred feet. We have always assumed that the original
sign only went up after a cyclist failed to negotiate the corner. |
Picton seen in the
distance along Queen Charlotte Sound |
Track End |
After all this travelling and trekking it was
time to get down to work on our first edition of Roving Commissions. Our
job as editors is most basically to take the cruising accounts submitted by Royal
Cruising Club members and turn their
text and photos into a book, entirely prepared for printing. John Langdon's
briefing had helped a great deal in preparing us for the task, but it was still
a steep learning curve to master those elements of the publishing software
required to produce a professional standard publication. In addition there
are always time pressures. The task itself is about two months of fairly
continuous work, but of course there are both expected and unexpected
pressures as well. Production of the book is geared to the
Northern Hemisphere seasons. Unfortunately for us working through November
and December impacts on prime time for our summer activities. Despite working entirely through electronic
communication the task went smoothly and we were quite pleased with the
result of our first efforts. |
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In
January, with the proof-reading of the book complete, Vicky declared herself available
for sailing and was immediately snapped up by our friend Derek Hillen to help
him and another friend, Sandy Fontwit, to deliver Derek's yacht, Asmara
Sky to Auckland. Since Asmara Sky is 53' and luxuriously
appointed, the trip promised to be rather more comfortable than a similar
passage in Sunstone. So
it proved, especially since the weather was benign and Sandy's magic fish
lure worked to perfection, bringing in a perfectly sized albacore tuna for
several dinners. |
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At
the end of January we finally managed to get out sailing on Sunstone,
taking along Sandy and his partner Sara, who has done very little sailing. It
was intended to be a gentle introduction for her, but the weather did not at
first cooperate. We had a fast downwind sail to d'Urville Island, but then
were buffeted by strong winds and Williwaws for a couple of days at anchor -
strong enough to raise spray devils off the water and send the dinghy
spinning at the end of its painter. When we pulled up the anchor the windlass
struggled against the burden of mud into which the anchor had driven. |
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The
little cruise finished in much more placid weather and gave us the opportunity
to take some sailing photos of the boat in her refurbished state - the hull
varnish gleaming. |
The
one part of Australia which we like very much is Tasmania, where several of
our cruising friends have 'grounded' after decisions to take up a more settled
life. We spent several days with the 'Yawaras', Jan and Nick, who have bought
a house on the d'Entrecasteaux Channel at its junction with the Huon River.
It is a beautiful spot and quite close to the village of Cygnet, where they
are active members of the boating club. Jan rows - or coxes - with other
women in whaleboats and Nick takes part in the intensely competitive model
yacht racing. Peter
has moved Ilywhacker to Kettering on the d'Entrecasteaux Channel,
where he has also built a house. We had a great time catching up and
revisiting Hobart, a city for which we have some affection. |
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Jan
and Nick |
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Peter
and Alison |
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A
visit to Kettering also gave us an opportunity to see Holger Danske again
and, even more importantly, to visit Saona, Ben Maris' boat, which
played an essential part in Vicky's life. Her parents took the boat cruising
in the d'Entrecasteaux Channel, which they loved so much that Vicky's middle
name is d'Entrecasteaux. Oddly enough the cruise was around nine months
before Vicky's birth. Our
trip to Tassie also gave us another chance to visit Constitution Dock in
Hobart and the Franklin Wooden Boat School, where they are still teaching the
skills and trades of traditional boat building. |
Holger Danske |
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One of the reasons for the timing of our
visit to Tassie was that Vicky's sister, Annabel, and husband, Dave, were in
Canberra visiting his parents. This gave an opportunity for Annabel to fly
down to Hobart. We rented a car and set off to explore the west of the
island. We first took a short train ride from Queenstown and back. As with so
many of the wilderness train lines there were remarkable feats of engineering
along the way, as well as stories from the guide about the fate of the
various speculators who tried to establish the gold fields which the train
was to service. |
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After the train ride we headed to Strahan
(pronounced Strawn!) to take a powercat across Macquarie Harbour to Sarah Island,
the site of a prison camp for those too naughty for Port Arthur. The boat
then took us up the beautiful Gordon River for a few miles. We reminisced
about our trip much further up the river in Sunstone in 2001. Going back to the east coast we stopped in
historic Ross and had a hike across the hills of the Freycinet Peninsula to
the white sands of Wineglass Way. |
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We had both hoped to bike the Alps to Ocean Trail
in the southern part of the South Island, however, the opportunity to have
his second shoulder joint replacement came up for Tom earlier than expected
in March 2017. The operation was as successful as the first, but he was still
in recovery in April at the time of the planned excursion. Vicky carried on
with Candy, Charlie and Trish. The Trail begins at Mt Cook village making
its way down to Twizel and across to the east coast at Oamaru, over 300 kms
in total. As so often with such trails, overall it is downhill, but there is
plenty of climbing as well, quite apart from gravel, muddy patches, tunnels
and streams to negotiate. At one point it is even necessary to take a five-minute
helicopter flight to get across a river. A cheerful but tired group reached Oamaru
successfully. |
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May is Feijoa harvest time in our garden, a
task best accomplished by our smaller and more agile young neighbours than by
us. Vicky's voluntary work as a driver for the
St. John Health Shuttle was also acknowledged with a citation. |
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In June we took vicarious pride in the
remarkable accomplishments of Team New Zealand in winning the America's Cup.
Though the event bears only the slimmest relationship to the kind of sailing
which we have lived through and for, it was nevertheless a remarkable event
won by a team whose innovation and ability to recover from disaster was quite
outstanding. The winter is also when Tom generally tries
his hand at furniture making. In this case a combined table and display
shelves to fill an empty corner of the sitting room. |
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Not content with her other athletic
endeavours, Vicky decided to try her hand at an indoor triathlon, which
fortunately excluded her normally weakest event, swimming, while including
running, biking and rowing. Fortunately for the latter she had not only her
natural perseverance to count on but also a coach in Tom. At the actual event
she had a cheering and support group of Corrie and Willem Stein and Geoff and
Jane Evans, visiting us from Auckland. |
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As we had plans to be travelling a good deal
in January and February 2018 and then hoped to be sailing in March and April,
we decided to get Sunstone's bottom repainted in late October.
Fortunately this was an easier job than usual as Sunstone had had so little
use in the previous year. |
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