Saturday 28th to Sunday 29th April – Marine Medic Training and Auckland Comedy Festival

Saturday – My Project Jonah training was due to be an all-day session with lectures in the morning followed by a practical session in the sea in the afternoon. The weather for the day had forecast thunderstorms and gales so I was relieved to get a very convenient parking space right opposite the marine centre from which I ran inside to take shelter. There were 32 of us being trained that day and the same number again tomorrow so they clearly feel that they need to up their volunteer strengths.  We consisted of a variety of ages and nationalities as you tend to find in NZ.  I got lucky by getting into conversation with a friendly lady who works for St Johns and may have a second-hand wetsuit I can buy and save myself a fortune. As the morning progressed the weather worsened, and we were all getting nervous about the prospect of having to go out in it and save fake whales!  It was quite a heavy-going morning, we learnt about the history of Project Jonah before finding out about our responsibilities and roles at strandings.  We had a couple of short breaks during which we were encouraged to purchase PJ merchandise and there was tea and coffee supplied to keep us going.  There is so much to remember! But luckily, we have been given a handbook to keep with us. I was left feeling conflicted – I don’t want any whales to strand any time soon, but on the other hand it would be good to have some practice of everything I’ve learnt without it being in two years’ time!

We finished the theory and the organisers had come to the conclusion that it was far too risky to do the practical work this afternoon.  They had to postpone it until next Saturday in the hope that people can re-attend then to finish the training.  You don’t get a PJ fluorescent jacket if you don’t complete the training, so I will be there!

I rang Simon to give him the good news that I was finishing early.  He was waiting for a train into the city to meet me as we had booked a hotel for the night.  We were taking the opportunity of being tourists in Auckland and getting a taste for the city we were hopefully going to be living near to for the foreseeable.  It was also the start of the Auckland Comedy Festival and we had tickets to two shows to enjoy.

I had enough time to go and check-in to our hotel before collecting Simon from the Britomart central station and finding our parking spot for the night.  The hotel we had booked was in a brilliant position for our night out.  We stumbled downhill stopping off to browse in shops until we found a great Japanese restaurant where we expanded our drinks repertoire – neither of us had ever tried Sake. 

We sat at the bar so that we could watch the food being created in the kitchen

Some very tasty sushi and sake

I got to enjoy some brilliant sushi to compliment the drink, but even then, I wasn’t too keen to be honest - Simon loved it though!

We continued to ‘crawl’ around a few bars whilst trying to avoid the worst deluges of rain.  We had to keep on going – our tickets were for ‘Late and Live at the Classic’ which didn’t even start until 10pm!  We were very early as Simon wanted us to be first in the queue to get good seats.  Despite clear warning signs, we hoped that we would avoid being put right at the front row for ritual humiliation, but the rules were ‘first in down to the front’ - so that is where we ended up!

It was a mostly British line-up of acts with the compere being English.  Each of the other six comics were on for roughly fifteen minutes each.  As you’d expect, some were better than others, but we got away with our vulnerable position in the most part, so we could just enjoy the show.  I’d had quite a quantity of drinks by the time the gig ended at half past midnight, so I was grateful we were only a few minutes stumble from our room!

Sunday - 10am is quite an early check-out when you’re feeling a little tender.  So, we opted to stay on foot and head to a nearby café for a bumper breakfast to make us feel human again.  

They had some of those clear floor sections to make your vertigo worse!

We had to move the car out of the hotel’s basement car park, so we opted to drive to Sky City to do our ‘viewing the City from high-up’ tourism choice by scaling the Sky Tower.  It was a much clearer day than yesterday and I felt a twang of pride as I looked around.  Auckland is awesome and I’ll be proud to call the city ‘home’ for the next couple of years if it all works out for us.

View across the Viaduct basin, Westhaven Marina to Auckland Harbour Bridge

View across the Cityscape and harbour to the north shore and that conical island in the distance is Rangitoto Island scenic reserve (it's on the list)

Auckland Town Hall

There is the option to do the Sky Walk at the tower, which is where you are attached to the outside edge of the building with a harness so that you can really get a lean-out!  We decided to save that experience for when we have some visitors who also fancy doing it. We will leave the ‘Sky Jump’ on a permanent basis!

From there we discovered free parking down by the harbour on Sundays and took a stroll around the wharfs and the area known as the Viaduct. 

BB-owl sculpture

View from the viaduct back across the City to the Sky Tower

It was busy, but I could imagine it really gets buzzing in the summer months.  We enjoyed a couple of drinks and a mid-afternoon snack to keep us going.  My seafood chowder was more like a main meal.  It was bloomin’ tasty though!

David O'Doherty's stage set-up

We’d had a very relaxing enjoyable day in the big City, but it was time to head back to the Q theatre where we had tickets to see one of our favourite comedians, David O’Doherty (he’s Irish don’t you know).  He was doing a 4pm and 7pm show that afternoon, so we figured we could see the 4pm one and be home in time to relax some more in the evening.  The D.O’D was great as usual.  His set is a mixture of stand-up interspersed with comedy songs accompanied on a small Casio keyboard (right) He makes it look easy, but it takes a lot of talent to play and sing at the same time and all with spot-on comic timing.  

Getting back into the car, to our surprise the satnav told us that we were only 40 minutes from home.  It’s amazing how near we are to the city when there’s no traffic!  What a great weekend.  We look forward to exploring the City more.

Thursday 19th to Friday 27th April – Ralph update, submitting Visa applications and ANZAC day

Thursday - Simon’s police certificate has finally arrived! Oh, and he’s a ‘no trace’ too, of course, so we can get his Visa application in as soon as possible now.

I took my car back to the garage as planned and a mechanic took it out for a drive to find… absolutely nothing wrong with it! Frustrating. But when the engine is warm it doesn’t have the problem. We agreed that I would use up the rest of the fuel in the tank and replace it with premium unleaded to see if the problem goes away. If not, I will have to book it in overnight with the garage so that they can try it out with a cold engine.

Having mentioned Ralph’s leg issues back in the UK I have failed to mention the fact that the vets discovered a major issue with one of his cruciate ligaments. In summary, it was completely knackered and meant he needed an operation. On Monday Ralph was admitted to hospital to be knocked out and have a metal plate inserted into his rear right leg to fix the issue. Today, he has been allowed home to rest and recuperate. Here he is, looking suitably sorry for his poor self.

I feel terrible that I can’t be there. Not only because I should be there for him, but also due to the responsibility and after-care this has enforced Simon’s parents with! We now find out that he must be totally rested for SIX weeks, during which he must not jump, run, go up and down any steps, and must be supported with a towel to be carried outside to go to the toilet.  What a trial for them all?! Oh, and then there’s the cost. In excess of £3000 and with a course of hydrotherapy to be added to that total once he has recovered from the initial op. Ralph isn’t the only one in pain after that!

Saturday – In return for our lovely dinner at the Hurrells a couple of weeks ago, we did our first NZ dinner party night at ours (left).

Not only inviting Trish and Steve, but Simon extended the offer to Geoff and Jules who we’d met when Nick was over. Well, as he increased the number of diners, it was only fair that he made the main meal, a lasagna. Trish brought lots of treats like cheese and bread for the starter and we all gorged ourselves.  We had a pleasant evening chatting, but it didn’t progress into any games or craziness. Maybe it was a little tame for our first effort.  Could do better!

Sunday – I managed to stir myself in time for body balance at the gym, after which I persuaded Simon to join me for a drive to the Hunua falls. Having concluded that I would be too far ‘off-piste’ when I am volunteering there to get to see the waterfall, it seemed like a good opportunity to see them whilst the weather allowed. The benefit for Simon being that it was a very short walk from the car park, across a bridge to get to the base of the falls:

I played around with some of my camera settings to try to get some of those photographs where the water looks like it is still flowing. How did I do?

 

A stunning kingfisher sitting on the phone lines

Most importantly for today though, was to finally submit Simon’s Visa application now we had all of the necessary paperwork. But I managed to mess up in the process. Convinced that I could add payment details but then be able to amend the application afterwards, imagine the expression on my face when Simon’s application disappeared from the screen and could not be accessed by us anymore. Off it went to NZ immigration before Simon had a chance to add his qualifications. I had to take responsibility and eat a couple of portions of humble pie. It means that Simon will have to ring immigration tomorrow to attempt to rectify the situation. Oops!

Monday – The immigration website had estimated that Visa applications are being processed in roughly twenty working days at the moment. Not too bad, we can wait a month. So, it was eye-opening when Simon rang them today to correct my error and discovered that they currently have two-month backlog!! Oh dear, this may take longer than we expected…

I finally got my golden owl on Duo Lingo

Tuesday – I’m still progressing with my Spanish lessons on Duo Lingo. A significant milestone today – I completed every different section up to level one! No, I’m not sure what the significance of that is either or, in fact, how many levels there are in total, but it’s progress nonetheless.

I went on a voyage of discovery today.  Firstly, I stopped off at Totara Park, a park near to the Botanic Gardens with panoramic views of the city:

Panoramic view from the top of the hill in Totara Park

 

Then I made my way to Massey University in Albany (left), which is north of Auckland.  The reason for this was to do a recce before attending a lecture there that I am interested in that evening.  















I had time prior to the lecture to do another important recce in finding Brown’s Bay.  As luck would have it, I managed to get a cancellation spot on that marine mammal medic training I mentioned and so I am doing my project Jonah training here on Saturday:

Above and below: views of Brown Bay

I’ve even managed to borrow a wetsuit from Steve instead of having to hire one for the practical session (right). 




This links conveniently into my lecture tonight back at Massey Uni at 7pm lecture – ‘Welfare Science at Whale Mass Strandings – responsible or irresponsible?’.  The scientist taking the lecture was Dr Karen Stockin who was originally from the UK where she studied biology at Plymouth University before specialising in marine mammals and heading to NZ ten years ago to do her PHD. It was a very interesting lecture, especially when she explained a project she is putting together soon involving satellite tracking, micro-chipping and using video cameras to start obtaining data in relation to the length and quality of marine mammals’ lives post re-flotation. Maybe this is something that I could help with?  As drinks and snacks were put on afterwards, I took the opportunity to hang around and speak to Dr Stockin, so that I could volunteer my services.  She gave me her email address so that I could get in touch afterwards, but whether I will ever hear back from her I do not know. I’m really looking forward to the training on the weekend now and had a fascinating evening.

Wednesday 25^th April – ANZAC day.

In the UK we have remembrance Sunday, here they have ANZAC Day (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) which is always a bank holiday. The custom is for everyone, young and old, to attend a dawn parade in their local town or city to pay their respects to those who have served and or given their lives in all the World’s conflicts.  I had agreed to join the Hurrell family for the event and had a terrible night’s sleep worrying about whether I would wake up in time.  This meant that I was awake by 350am, but at least I didn’t sleep through my alarm! It was completely pitch-black outside, I took the last free seat in the Hurrell’s car for a lift into town where we walked to the Town Hall.  We were clearly a little late as the ceremony had already begun and we’d missed the march to the hall. However, we were just in time to hear the last post being played and be present for the two minutes’ silence. The rain just about held off until after the bagpipes played as the procession marched off site:

We were back at the Hurrell’s house by 630am and I was quick to accept the offer of bacon and eggs for breakfast after which I stayed for a couple of cups of tea and a chin-wag. Feeling suitably dozy, I sloped back off to join Simon in the cottage for an easy morning.

But the Bank Holiday had brought us such a lovely day that I managed to persuade Simon to go out for a drive to Manakau Heads and its lighthouse (right). This is out west from us, so no driving on the motorway required, just a pleasant tour along some winding country roads.  The views of the bays and green hillsides around were stunning:

We also visited Big Bay (below) before heading back to the house.