Fire and Fury around the White Ship Zoonie
A tongue in cheek title since I have just finished Michael Wolf’s fast paced and perceptive book about the first year in Trump House. Rob is ‘enjoying’ it at the moment. Following on from the storm Eleanor in the UK the cyclone season in NZ was filling with meteorological events.
When we landed back the dairy cows on the south island were suffering from lack of shade as all the trees in their pastures have long since been felled to allow the vast irrigators to spray unheeded. Some herds and flocks were being trucked to green pastures and things were looking dire for the coming winter as animal feed stocks were already being used.
Forest fires were proving a dangerous challenge to firefighters and residents alike and many were praying for rain.
Then down came rain filled Cyclone Fehi, straight down the Tasman Sea and wreaking havoc down the west coast from Wellington, across the Cook Straight and all down the south island. Roads were blocked by slips. Remember the motor cyclist who came off his bike on a bend infront of us between Fox Glacier and Franz Josef? Well the slip that blocked that road was 100 metres long and a helicopter pilot circled overhead trying to figure out how to rescue the 117 tourists who were trapped in the town beneath him.
Further down near Haast, where a tiny café sells the most delicious coffee, 700 tourists were trapped in their hotels by impassable roads and while the radio interviewer bragged about the hospitality they would be enjoying, we wondered about how the delay would affect their holiday itinerary and flights.
Near the mouth of the Grey river at Greymouth, a place which holds fond memories for us, a 25 year old closed refuse tip was blown open by the wind and massive waves and liberated tens of thousands of old plastic carrier bags which headed lemming-like for the Tasman. Mother Nature has since blown the mess back ashore to help in the clean-up process.
A group of hikers tried to cross a wild and swollen river a couple of days ago and two poor 17 year olds didn’t make it and the milk from a number of dairy herds near Westport had to be ditched as the electricity supply to the processing plant was outed by the storm.
We had hoped to get away to Great Barrier at the start of this week before another violent weather system arrives but ended up with the choice, wait it out on board and at anchor in a bay down river or stay put in the marina with all the shoreside facilities handy for us.
We need to leave in the next hour to catch the tide if we are going…..
So that deadline has gone and we are counting the advantages of staying another week or so awaiting more ‘clement’ weather. Rob would like to see the film ‘Churchill’, we can attend Naylene’s (from the marina office) country and western gig, which is on next Friday evening, the post I am waiting for from the UK may well arrive and we’ll see our friends again. We are amongst the famous to appreciate Naylene’s talents; she played for Bill Clinton at the White House a few years ago.
This coming Tuesday is Waitangi Day, commemorating the signing of the Treaty written hastily and ambiguously by the Brits to the disadvantage of the Maoris, so there may well be something to see in town, I’m thinking Haka!
We have already decided to return here at the end of April to celebrate Rob’s birthday with our friends before looking for a weather window to head off for Fiji.
Of course we are now approaching the southern winter and the end of the cyclone season when the weather is less stable and cyclones at their most likely. We’ll never forget the weather last March and April will we! Cyclones Debbie and Cook! But this year we will be on board to look after Zoonie.
Yesterday we had an amazing day with Jeannie and Merv. It started with being collected by Jeannie and taken out to the home of friends of theirs, Max and Shirley, who have 30 acres overlooking the estuary and Limestone Island where Merv has been converting part of a workshop into a small apartment.
Jeannie cooked a yummy breakfast in the kitchen of the main house and we sat at the oak table with the window walls slid wide open giving a fine vista across the mangroves to the river proper, wondering if we would leave on the morrow. The house is a lofty single storey construct of well insulated pre-cast concrete blocks.
The couple were away at the time exploring the south island. Back when they designed the house they made all the corners curved and the floors polished concrete. They have covered the walls with their choice of artwork and filled beckoning spaces with quirky sculptures. The result is a delightful home in an elevated and secluded spot.
After we’d cleared up Jeannie and I scrumped ripe lemons and passionfruit from around the bushes in the garden.
Then off we went in Jeannie’s little car to a steep walk through native bush for a couple of hours before settling on Zoonie for lunch and a briefing from both of them about their cruise around the south of Australia from Sydney to Dampier, a journey we hope to start later this year.
Its Tuesday, Waitangi Day today and I decided to celebrate by getting up early for a hike up to the lookout in the cool. Rob, still half asleep, mumbled “Miss you already” as I left, while plugging myself into the radio on my phone. Rob is nursing a very large blister on the ball of his big toe at the moment so I walked alone right up to the top, one ear plug tucked into the top of my tea shirt so I could hear the radio reports from the Treaty Ground and listen to the fauna sounds around me at the same time.
Still low down I passed through a band of raucous cicadas and in places the track was washed over with mud and leaf litter from all the rain.
Just after I got to the cool lookout a lady arrived and we started chatting. Gail is from Budapest, the modest Pest side actually and her hubby is from North California. They are going back to Europe soon and preparing their boat for haul out. In conversation it transpired she met Merv on the track the other day and as a result is hoping to buy Jeannie’s Sailrite sewing machine, so that became a source of conversation for a while. They have spent a number of years to and fro-ing between NZ and the south pacific islands. Hmmmm.
We split because she was going back the same way and I like a circuit, so half way down the other side who was coming up but Jeannie and Merv with a friend Stu.
I enjoyed the physical and humorous high ground and tapped my wrist watch,
“What time do you call this then?” It was 07.20am.
“Ah well we had to wait for Stu,” Jeannie replied. Merv commented in response to the beautiful blue morning that held such promise, “I bet you wish you’d gone now (to Great Barrier Island) don’t you?”
“Not at all Merv, we made our decision and hope to get away Saturday now!” Merv is going to send us photos of his 29kg fisherman’s anchor to see if we’d like it for our trip around S. Australia where the bottom is usually sea grass and kelp on rock. They dragged a lot in Meridian Passage for want of an anchor made of four prongs that would readily penetrate the grass rather than blades, like our Delta, that tend to sit on top and slide over it.
Coming back down the pontoon I spotted Rob working hard polishing Zoonie’s stainless steel and white-work and the day has continued nicely from there. Jack Sparrow and his mini pirates keep visiting in the hope of some crumbs. The barometer has risen 10mbs since Cyclone Fehi went through but there is still a lot of unstable weather around, so later we will wander over to the Riverside Café and meet some of the other yachties, then maybe take in a film with J & M. Life goes on……
Gita – The Marauding Beast
We have watched the progress of the second NZ bound cyclone this year for nearly two long weeks. She has devastated Samoa and side-swiped little round Niue recurved more than once like an out of control Catherine wheel. Moving forward at a modest 13 knots, until she turns that is, her spinning speeds have broken records, over 270 kmph at her worst around a central barometric pressure of 930mbs.
She is certainly a big one looking at the reports and our Metvuw.com source predicted her hitting the south of the North Island and all around the north and north-west coast of the South Island and ploughing through the Cook Strait, ten days before she did exactly that, last night. Golden Bay, on the north coast of the South Island, near the Abel Tasman Park where we camped a year ago, is cut off, with roads destroyed and 500 tourists trapped. Numerous honey-mooning couples don’t really mind!
We have not wasted any time waiting for her though.
Workwise Rob has sanded and varnished the companionway steps and floor boards beneath and they look better than new. I have been busy editing our blogs and sorting photographs from the start of our trip back in June 2015 and spending long periods in the nearby Internet Café, loading them onto my new WordPress website. The process would quickly use up our onboard Wi-Fi and at £1.50 per hour the fast internet in the café is well worth the money.
With the mailasail blog I can load the text and photos offline and just ping off the complete blog in a second, but with WordPress all the inserting of the photos into the text has to be done online and it takes me 40 minutes or so to do each blog. I will only be able to load blogs when there is access to good internet for longish periods, so not when we are at sea. (Just in case you’d like a peak its skipperbarbwhite.com).
My aim in this is to target a broad readership and build up a following with the hope that I might be able to one day publish something for a primed audience, or whatever other opportunities it might bring along. So far 430 folk have visited the site 1120 times and they now have 28 blogs to read.
Healthwise we have kept up the walking. Recently we found a different walk steeply up a bush track and along the ridge parallel to the river and off the familiar Ross track up to Parihaka that I have mentioned before. It was very pretty with fine views over the river.
After cyclone Fehi dumped its load of rain on us our usual path down from Parihaka Lookout, the Drummond Track was closed due to damage so we explored the alternative route, Dobbie track that winds along through the old Maori Pa site past terraces, storage pits and narrow tracks worn by past bare feet almost hidden under new growth. An amazing twisted Kaori tree must have grown up in the prevailing winds to give it its unique bark. When you go a little higher the flora changes to Manuka and soft grey/green ferns. Pale lichen fronds hang over branches and blow in the gentle wind.
Last Sunday Jeannie and Merv took us off to Breams Bay Beach for a cooling swim. (The thermometer was recording 30’ with 74% humidity in Zoonie’s saloon at the time). I was wearing my bikini and the powerful rollers determined to strip the bottoms off me!! So most of my time was spent clinging onto them. But the water was refreshing even though it was warm and it was wonderful to spend a little time away from Whangarei, much though we love the place.
Socially we have visited J & M in their renovation project home and Gail and Tony, our G & T friends, in their re-decorated two bedroom unit. Their yacht, Cetacea, is undergoing an extensive refit under cover at a boat yard down river, the first major refit she has had in their 18 year ownership. By comparison that means Zoonie has had more than her fair share in the past six years of our ownership!
Having decided to give the passage around the south of Australia a go we have been doing a little research and bought Merv’s fisherman’s anchor, I mentioned in the last blog. It’s a big heavy anchor and will give us a feeling of security when we anchor over rock and weed. We have named it Merv. It cost us $400 which we should be able to recoup again when we sell it at some later date.
Merv had this cash, plus $150 more from selling a compressor, in his wallet when he accidentally left it on the driver’s seat of his vehicle and popped into Mitre 10, the equivalent of B & Q. Of course it wasn’t there when he came out. We really felt for him.
Culturally we have twice gone to a singing group on a Monday night with J & M and apparently all 40 of us have the voices of angels. We sing chants, rounds and simple songs unaccompanied and with mixed but enjoyable results.
This Monday a chap came along with a few other newcomers. I mention this because he was waiting outside the Internet Café yesterday when I turned up just before it opened.
George (real name Primo) is originally from Samoa and moved to Whangarei from south Auckland two weeks ago. He left his law studies there for some reason and arrived here without a job. We chatted, he complimented the Fords of Oakham website then he said, “Barbara have you got any change? I need to go and buy some lunch.” I rummaged and came up with $10 thinking he would give me a note in return, since he used the word ‘change’.
Silly me. So he packed up his bag and as a parting shot said “Thanks Barbara, if you’re in on Thursday I’ll pay you back.” Benefit day I guess.
So a couple of loaded blogs and about an hour later he returns to tell me he’d bought a nice subway snack and a big bottle of (lurid) red squash. Plus he had popped over to the Design College opposite and come away with photocopy enrolment forms. “Barbara I’m going to enrol for a course in fashion design!”
“Well good for you George, and I hope it works out for you.” I said as he swept out of the door, full with joie de vivre.
My contribution to the future New Zealand fashion industry is assured.