I hauled myself out of bed on Sunday morning to go and see if there was anyone down at the rowing club. For once there was, and the guy I spoke to took my details, emailed someone else; she emailed me today and I have training times at last. I am going down on Thursday. This makes me a happy person. I don't think I realised how much I'd miss rowing until I wasn't doing it.
More good news: I've got a place on an Endeavour voyage in October, Newcastle to Sydney. I've wanted to sail on board the Endeavour for a long time, and it seems apt for this Yorkshire lass to sail aboard the replica of the Whitby collier brig that brought Cook to Aotearoa all those years ago.
Monday 25 June 2007
Thursday 21 June 2007
A Night at the Opera
I got a nice call yesterday from one of my online friends who lives in Wellington and is a musician. She's in the orchestra for NZ Opera's current production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and she very kindly gave me one of her free tickets for the dress rehearsal tonight. It was a good - though admittedly not great - production. I was way up in the Grand Circle (which would be an Upper Circle in some theatres) and it was a looong way down to the stage, but the set design was such that it didn't matter too much. The set would have been superb if the water feature hadn't emptied itself all over the pit before the show started - so there was a big black hole in the middle instead of a pond!
I didn't know any of the music for the opera - I can see why it's become a popular one, the story's good and the music's lively. Sometimes I thought it was perhaps too lively for the Gothic subject matter (unwanted marriage, evil brother, thwarted love, murder, madness, death). The Russian soprano playing Lucia was very good indeed, with a lovely clear voice that worked particularly well in the mad scene. Anyway it was a nice evening out.
Winter's hitting hard now with storms predicted. We had a mini-storm this evening but it blew over very quickly. There's lots of snow in the South Island.
The Crown announced tonight that it's going to retry a guy called David Bain who was convicted of the murder of his family and imprisoned before the Privy Council quashed the conviction a few weeks ago. As the PC quashed the conviction on the basis of an unsound trial rather than deciding Bain was innocent, I'm not surprised in the slightest. However I have been puzzled by the way Bain's been treated in the media recently. Innocent until proven guilty, sure; but until he has had a fair trial he's still a suspect.
I didn't know any of the music for the opera - I can see why it's become a popular one, the story's good and the music's lively. Sometimes I thought it was perhaps too lively for the Gothic subject matter (unwanted marriage, evil brother, thwarted love, murder, madness, death). The Russian soprano playing Lucia was very good indeed, with a lovely clear voice that worked particularly well in the mad scene. Anyway it was a nice evening out.
Winter's hitting hard now with storms predicted. We had a mini-storm this evening but it blew over very quickly. There's lots of snow in the South Island.
The Crown announced tonight that it's going to retry a guy called David Bain who was convicted of the murder of his family and imprisoned before the Privy Council quashed the conviction a few weeks ago. As the PC quashed the conviction on the basis of an unsound trial rather than deciding Bain was innocent, I'm not surprised in the slightest. However I have been puzzled by the way Bain's been treated in the media recently. Innocent until proven guilty, sure; but until he has had a fair trial he's still a suspect.
Monday 4 June 2007
Rest of the weekend, and pictures
The Edwin Fox, looking aft:
The tiller:
Copper cladding:
Renwick vineyards:
Lake Roitoiti:
Today I pottered around Nelson for a bit. A pretty town, with a very Sixties cathedral and a little pretty historic park with old buildings in it which was good for an hour's wander. There was a booksale on too but I didn't find anything I really wanted. Somebody was apparently ditching their entire Frederick Forsyth collection.
Then I drove back to Picton along the scenic route; winding roads, mountains and glorious sunshine. These were the Marlborough Sounds as sun began to set.
I was hoping to get back for choir, but really it was too late and I was too tired so I skiived. Ooops.
The tiller:
Copper cladding:
Renwick vineyards:
Lake Roitoiti:
Today I pottered around Nelson for a bit. A pretty town, with a very Sixties cathedral and a little pretty historic park with old buildings in it which was good for an hour's wander. There was a booksale on too but I didn't find anything I really wanted. Somebody was apparently ditching their entire Frederick Forsyth collection.
Then I drove back to Picton along the scenic route; winding roads, mountains and glorious sunshine. These were the Marlborough Sounds as sun began to set.
I was hoping to get back for choir, but really it was too late and I was too tired so I skiived. Ooops.
Sunday 3 June 2007
Happy Birthday, your Majesty!
I find it very odd that NZ celebrates the Queen's Birthday when we don't at home. Apart from the Trooping of the Colour, that is, but it hardly counts as only tourists go and watch it. I suppose it's partly to do with having a Bank Holiday the week before for May.
Anyway, I'm taking advantage of the Queen's Birthday holiday tomorrow to get away from Wellington for the weekend. Not that I don't like Wellington, I do, but after all I'm here to see as much of NZ as I can before I go home, whenever that may be. And seeing as there's so much of NZ to see, I think I need to take all the chances I get.
So I got up early yesterday to fly to Picton with lovely Sounds Air. I was a bit daft actually and managed to get the time wrong, so I thought my flight was at 7.15am. That was, in fact, when I was supposed to check in, so I had half an hour to kill at the airport when I could have been asleep. Oh well. It was worth getting the early flight though because the light flying over the Sounds was utterly stunning; the sun was just coming up and everything was golden and calm and beautiful.
Picked up my car in Picton, an amusing little blue thing which doesn't like hills but otherwise appears to be behaving itself. I was (as will be revealed later) very grateful for it being a little hatchback. Breakfast was leisurely and scrambled eggs in a cafe with the Saturday Dominion Post - terribly civilised.
After that I thought about going straight to Renwick, my first stop, and getting straight into the wine tasting but I realised I wouldn't actually need the whole day for wine tasting. Instead I went to visit the Edwin Fox, the ninth oldest sailing ship in the world (who's measuring these things?) The Edwin Fox was built in Calcutta in 1853 as an East Indiaman, very old-fashioned even when she was constructed. She spent a few decades sailing round and round the world before fetching up in NZ, where she spent a while as a freezer ship of all things and then was used for coal storage. Eventually she got left on a sandbar in Picton harbour, where she languished listing to starboard for some time.
But because some people are ship geeks, they decided to rescue her. About eight years ago she was refloated and towed across into a dry dock, where she in now with a roof over her. Her masts have been gone since the freezer ship days, and her timber shows the ravages of the sun, sea and tide (better where she was submerged and where she was in ballast). Her port side, left exposed, has about half its copper cladding still; the starboard side is almost completed clad after all these years.
There's a little museum you go round before boarding the ship - though the main deck's gone the tween deck is still half-complete, and you can also go down into her hull. She's incredibly deep - built not for speed but for carrying a lot of stuff. When I was wandering around the hull in shippy happiness the vice-president of the trust working to preserve her turned up, and proceeded to show me round with lots of detail. He even took me up to the stern and showed me her great rudder-post and the hole which was the ship's safe, and pointed out all sorts of little anomalies like alternating inferior timber and that sort of thing. And he took me into the dock to have a look at her from below. He was wonderfully enthusiastic and it was lovely to have a personal guided tour! I even ended up with a nail that had fallen out from where the copper sheeting was coming loose, as a souvenir. :)
After the tour I got back in my amusing car and drove to Renwick. R&E had recommended staying in a backpackers there called Watson's Way, renting bikes and cycling round the local wineries, so that's just what I did. I managed to not buy very much wine because I don't have much room in my bags and it's heavy, but I did manage to taste plenty. Cycling tipsy is quite amusing, particularly on a glorious, unseasonably warm winter's afternoon. Many of the wines I tried are on sale in my local liquor store, so I shall toddle along there at some point with my lists. It was fun.
Spent the evening reading and partaking of steak and chips in the local tavern. Mmm. Slept badly, because the dorm was too hot and I had funny wine-induced dreams.
Today I headed off promptly towards forbidding-looking skies west of Marlborough for Nelson Lakes National Park. The skies cleared as I got there and I was able to see Lake Roitoki in the sunshine, snow-capped mountains on the horizon. Not much snow though considering it's June. It was pretty chilly though, that crisp Alpine chill. I went for a bit of a walk, about three hours but nothing too challenging, through forests and then along by the lake.
After that, drove to Nelson through a rainstorm, checked into tonight's backpackers (free internet, friendly dog, nice bunch of guests), before going out to see Becoming Jane at the cinema. Good film, slightly spoilt by an annoying couple chattering all through. I mean honestly, if you're going to spend $13 each on going to the cinema why not actually watch the film?
Tomorrow I'm going to potter around Nelson before driving back to Picton the scenic route. Hopefully I'll be back in Wellington just in time for choir, or at any rate not too late ...
Pictures later this week.
Anyway, I'm taking advantage of the Queen's Birthday holiday tomorrow to get away from Wellington for the weekend. Not that I don't like Wellington, I do, but after all I'm here to see as much of NZ as I can before I go home, whenever that may be. And seeing as there's so much of NZ to see, I think I need to take all the chances I get.
So I got up early yesterday to fly to Picton with lovely Sounds Air. I was a bit daft actually and managed to get the time wrong, so I thought my flight was at 7.15am. That was, in fact, when I was supposed to check in, so I had half an hour to kill at the airport when I could have been asleep. Oh well. It was worth getting the early flight though because the light flying over the Sounds was utterly stunning; the sun was just coming up and everything was golden and calm and beautiful.
Picked up my car in Picton, an amusing little blue thing which doesn't like hills but otherwise appears to be behaving itself. I was (as will be revealed later) very grateful for it being a little hatchback. Breakfast was leisurely and scrambled eggs in a cafe with the Saturday Dominion Post - terribly civilised.
After that I thought about going straight to Renwick, my first stop, and getting straight into the wine tasting but I realised I wouldn't actually need the whole day for wine tasting. Instead I went to visit the Edwin Fox, the ninth oldest sailing ship in the world (who's measuring these things?) The Edwin Fox was built in Calcutta in 1853 as an East Indiaman, very old-fashioned even when she was constructed. She spent a few decades sailing round and round the world before fetching up in NZ, where she spent a while as a freezer ship of all things and then was used for coal storage. Eventually she got left on a sandbar in Picton harbour, where she languished listing to starboard for some time.
But because some people are ship geeks, they decided to rescue her. About eight years ago she was refloated and towed across into a dry dock, where she in now with a roof over her. Her masts have been gone since the freezer ship days, and her timber shows the ravages of the sun, sea and tide (better where she was submerged and where she was in ballast). Her port side, left exposed, has about half its copper cladding still; the starboard side is almost completed clad after all these years.
There's a little museum you go round before boarding the ship - though the main deck's gone the tween deck is still half-complete, and you can also go down into her hull. She's incredibly deep - built not for speed but for carrying a lot of stuff. When I was wandering around the hull in shippy happiness the vice-president of the trust working to preserve her turned up, and proceeded to show me round with lots of detail. He even took me up to the stern and showed me her great rudder-post and the hole which was the ship's safe, and pointed out all sorts of little anomalies like alternating inferior timber and that sort of thing. And he took me into the dock to have a look at her from below. He was wonderfully enthusiastic and it was lovely to have a personal guided tour! I even ended up with a nail that had fallen out from where the copper sheeting was coming loose, as a souvenir. :)
After the tour I got back in my amusing car and drove to Renwick. R&E had recommended staying in a backpackers there called Watson's Way, renting bikes and cycling round the local wineries, so that's just what I did. I managed to not buy very much wine because I don't have much room in my bags and it's heavy, but I did manage to taste plenty. Cycling tipsy is quite amusing, particularly on a glorious, unseasonably warm winter's afternoon. Many of the wines I tried are on sale in my local liquor store, so I shall toddle along there at some point with my lists. It was fun.
Spent the evening reading and partaking of steak and chips in the local tavern. Mmm. Slept badly, because the dorm was too hot and I had funny wine-induced dreams.
Today I headed off promptly towards forbidding-looking skies west of Marlborough for Nelson Lakes National Park. The skies cleared as I got there and I was able to see Lake Roitoki in the sunshine, snow-capped mountains on the horizon. Not much snow though considering it's June. It was pretty chilly though, that crisp Alpine chill. I went for a bit of a walk, about three hours but nothing too challenging, through forests and then along by the lake.
After that, drove to Nelson through a rainstorm, checked into tonight's backpackers (free internet, friendly dog, nice bunch of guests), before going out to see Becoming Jane at the cinema. Good film, slightly spoilt by an annoying couple chattering all through. I mean honestly, if you're going to spend $13 each on going to the cinema why not actually watch the film?
Tomorrow I'm going to potter around Nelson before driving back to Picton the scenic route. Hopefully I'll be back in Wellington just in time for choir, or at any rate not too late ...
Pictures later this week.
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