Blogging as a way to stay awake ...

I woke 36 hours ago, apparently, and went out with my camera exploring that misty Coromandel morning.  Then there was the big boat adventure out in Mercury Bay.  A short crash-into-bed afternoon nap, then 'assisting' the Belgian bloke in packing the big suitcases.

Later ...fish and chips some place fabulous where a Blues performance could be heard down at the seashore.

We continued on to Auckland city, the airport, and a 1am eleven-hour flight to Singapore. 

I didn't get an aisle seat.  Last night I learned that I need one.  My old motorbike accident body needs to walk every hour or so and my lovely seat companions slept.  I had a wee sleep but watched enough movies to know that it wasn't longer than 2 hours. 

We arrived in Singapore 6.30am local time and hunted for something to settle us down enough for me to write my blog post for Fans of Flanders.  Nothing worked so we found ourselves an airport hotel room for 6 hours.  But! there was too much in my mind and I never slept and voila, here we are some 14 hours later ... still awake and waiting for our flight back to Europe.

I do believe there might be a Russian parked directly in front of the big sports tv, making a Skype call that we're all getting to share... or perhaps I've become delusional.  The Aussie couple nearby seem irritated enough to suggest that it's really happening here in Singapore Airport.

Anyway, another photograph from my early misty morning walk on the day I was leaving ...

Channeling Katherine Mansfield...

Very early morning. The sun was not yet risen, and the whole of Crescent Bay was hidden under a white sea-mist. The big bush-covered hills at the back were smothered. You could not see where they ended and the paddocks and bungalows began. The sandy road was gone and the paddocks and bungalows the other side of it; there were no white dunes covered with reddish grass beyond them; there was nothing to mark which was beach and where was the sea. A heavy dew had fallen. The grass was blue. Big drops hung on the bushes and just did not fall; the silvery, fluffy toi-toi was limp on its long stalks, and all the marigolds and the pinks in the bungalow gardens were bowed to the earth with wetness. Drenched were the cold fuchsias, round pearls of dew lay on the flat nasturtium leaves...

Katherine Mansfield, extract from At The Bay.

I love the above extract, more than any other, from New Zealand writer  Katherine Mansfield.  She was a rather remarkable modernist writer, the one who caused Virginia Woolf to write, after Katherine's early death from TB, that Katherine's writing was 'the only writing I have ever been jealous of'.

But back to tales from New Zealand ... yesterday morning I woke to what I've been known to call a Katherine Mansfield kind of morning.  All of the above was out there.  It was truly stunning at 7am, as the fog began to burn off.

I wandered along the walkway and down by the river and on to the beach where spotted these two, in conversation with one of the boats leaving via the river mouth.

Did I mention how much I love New Zealand ...

Morning, Cooks Beach, New Zealand

I slipped out into the early morning mist and immediately noticed the cows, just across the creek, looking beautiful ... somehow.

The Belgian Bloke Goes Boating in New Zealand

We honestly never really knew what each day would bring in my beautiful New Zealand. 

Yesterday, prior to our 1am flight from Auckland, you would have found us out in Mercury Bay with Peter, Christine and Michael Kirker.  They put him in the  driver's seat as we wandered all over the bay, pausing at the famous Cathedral Cave before bouncing off across a most stunning sea.

My Jade Pendant, Created by Jayme Anderson

Hei Matau is a jade carving in the shape of a highly stylised fish hook typical of the Māori people of New Zealand. They represent strength, good luck and safe travel across water..

It took a long time to find the jade pendant I loved enough to take home with me this time but I have it now ... a small piece of New Zealand to take away with me.

Jayme Anderson's work can be purchased online at the Hokitika Craft Gallery.  Although it's better if you can just pop in and just get a feel for the piece that is yours.

Gert gifted me this exquisite piece of Marsden jade. 

But Wait ... there's more!

Christine's lovely brother, Bruce, has loaned me both laptop and internet connection so here's the post I wrote earlier and stored on the usb stick.

There's talk of a boat and Cathedral Cave and all kinds of things so I'll post and run ...

And so we flew … north from Dunedin to Christchurch, then up again heading for Auckland, city of just over 1.5 million people.  

This 5-week journey home has been a journey into all kinds of intensity.  There has been the overwhelming reality of returning home after 8 years away and then this avalanche of incredible experiences gifted by family and friends. 

It has been a journey I was warned not to expect too much of but it became a journey that was much more than I could have dreamed of or imagined. 

And it hasn't stopped … that intensity.   You see, this time Auckland was partially about finally meeting my half-brother, Rob, and his family too.   A lovely man that I'm so happy to welcome into our family after all these years.  

Then, after lunch with Rob, the same friends who had eased us back into New Zealand all those weeks ago arrived  to gently slow us down and get us ready to leave this country I love so well.  We are spending 3 nights at their summer place and it is surely a little bit paradise here at beach-side village on the Coromandel Peninsula

You can't begin to imagine how much we've been fitting in here because we are without internet and I haven't been able to write but I have taken an early morning walk alone with my camera, visited Hot Water Beach – where you dig your own hole in the sand and relax into thermal water. Peter and Michael introduced us to the Shakespeare Bay lookout too. 

And then I faded, so ridiculously fast, into an afternoon nap that got me back on my feet in time for another New Zealand feast with Christine's extraordinarily lovely extended family.

But as I write this I'm realising that one of the huge challenges on this journey has been the fact that recording more than 1/5^th of it has been impossible.  I couldn't write up all the good people we have met, shared meals with, nor all the food eaten, and then there are all the experiences I never ever want to forget. 

This morning finds me sitting at the dining room, in a welcome cross-breeze, table while Christine and Peter take care of us all.  The rain has stopped and humidity is high.  It's early-morning-18-celsius, and birdsong is exploding in through the open doors.  The Purangi River is out to my left, just a few metres away, and I can hear the conversation two kids are having as they paddle past.

We're located in a beautiful  little settlement called Cooks Beach, the place where Tahitian explorer and master mariner, Kupe first landed in about 950AD.  And where Captain Cook arrived back in 1769.  There is so much more but we're off … heading for Whitianga via the ferry and I'll load this at an internet cafe there.