NEW ZEALAND - HEADING to WELLINGTON and BEYOND

FEBRUARY 21/22, 2013

Heading to Wellington through Napier. Unfortunately known nationally for a devastating earthquake years ago. So massive that it pushed huge acreage up to the surface that is now the airport. The town  has rebounded as a major art deco attraction.

Wellington, New Zealand

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Sailing south to the South Island

Will write to let you know if we made it. I now travel on water keeping an eye out for if the Captain jumps overboard on route. My signal that the fun part of the passage is over.

NEW ZEALAND, PAUL NEMY - 1979 MIDDLE EARTH, LONG AGO

1979

NORTH ISALND, NEW ZEALAND

In 1979 I travelled to New Zealand in the pursuit of motorsport, outdoor adventure and beer. It’s the beer that perhaps I thank for making this trip as almost like I’ve never been here before.

I do remember, for fun, that it was as late as the early seventy’s here that all pubs closed at 6:00pm.  My travels then brought me to some very small villages. It was a couple of times I remember the local pub being such a fixture of the community. If the proprietor decided he had enough for the night he handed the keys to the soberest patron and only asked to keep the till square and lock up at nights end.

Kate and my tour of the North Island is slowing coming to an end. Having hugged the coast for most of trip resulted in us bypassing both the much hyped tourist regions of the thermal Rotorua and the mildly active volcanic center.

I assume they would look similar to my 1979 trip.

1979

THOSE WERE THE DAYS

HEY EDITH, YA ARCHIE'

WEREN'T THOSE THE DAYS

BOY THE WAY THE BEE GEES PLAYED

MOVIES THAT JOHN TRAVOLTA MADE

GUESSING HOW MUCH ELVIS WEIGHED

THOSE WERE THE DAYS

AND YOU KNEW WHO YOU WERE THEN

WATCHING SHOWS LIKE GENTLE BEN

DISCOE DUCK AND FLEETWOOD MAC

COMING OUT OF MY EIGHT TRACK

MICHEAL JACKSON WAS STILL WAS BLACK

THOSE WERE THE DAYS

NEW ZEALAND, MAHIA BEACH, HAWKE BAY - THE EDGE of TIME

 February 20, 2013

MAHIA BEACH, HAWKE BAY, NEW ZEALAND

Some things a best not written. After our visit to the lighthouse where one would think that you’ve the some pretty fine landscape, Kate and I, and no one else, spent the night on this beach.  

Isn't that special.

 Home. Sweet dreams are made of this.

Front and rear view

EDGE of TIME

You would think that just spending the night here would be memorable enough. This morning we and perhaps a couple of hundred or a thousand out of some seven billion people on this earth woke to see the first rays of sun for Thursday, February twenty first, two thousand and thirteen.  Other than a splattering of a few sparsely inhabited islands in the Pacific, a few exiled Soviets, we have camped about as close to the International Dateline as you can get on terra firma.

When we were talking to someone about the International Dateline, I inenvertly carried on the discussion with the association to that 1-800- Heidi-Learns-to-Yoedel dateline.

We are over to the near bottom right.

If you want to be the first to celebrate a New Year, this is the place. Not only will be not as crowded as Times Square, you will have already recovered from your hangover by the time they drop the ball.

COMING NEXT - OFF TO THE CAPITAL AND KATHERINE MANSFIELD'S BIRTHPLACE.