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Not long to go now before the big trip to India – we leave for England in 2 days and then fly to Delhi on 22nd Feb for 3 weeks. We have decided to use a different blog address for big holidays so that people this end can access it as well without seeing all the comments I’ve been writing about them – so if you want to follow our trip in India go to: holltravel.wordpress.com
Meanwhile life in Nerja has been as good as ever. We have had one week of rain since we returned, but otherwise the weather has been idyllic, although the temperature does drop quite sharply once the sun goes down, even reaching such lows as 9 degrees! Our usual routine has continued with one addition – Dan and I have been having a tennis hour on a Monday just to prove that I can still run – the score so far is 24 games to 1, even though Dan still disputes the fact that I have one even 1 game. We have also met another 4 Brits on the tennis courts with whom we mix in occasionally. Bridge is becoming slightly clearer and Dan manages to keep his trumps under control – we’ve promised to practise while we are away – as if! We’ve also discovered the Friday night free concerts at the old people’s day centre – all the acts which are going on to perform at the Cultural Centre later that evening do a warm up concert for free. So far we’ve seen a classical guitar concert, guitar with violin and accoustic jazz. Nobody seems to care how old the audience is as obviously we look far to young to attend!
We have been to visit the sugar factory museum in Motril with Mick and Magdalena and are now experts on the sugar cane industry in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It was interesting to learn that the industry caused mass deforestation for the fuel to fire the mills, which in turn caused environmental problems, and the high taxation become too prohibitive for the industry to survive. Plus ca change …. Of course it wouldn’t be a day out with M&M without a wonderful meat to end it – they knew a great restaurant by the port which did a fantastic platter of different types of grilled fish.
Dan’s tapas tours have continued in an informal way – we have introduced the delights of Nerja’s bars and fine fayre to a lovely Norwegian couple who have been supporters of the social club and, despite being in their seventies, still have a great zest for life and are eager to try out new things. They even survived the Communist bar. The book group has met again and managed to be fairly uneventful, our next 2 books are The Blind Sunflowers by Alberto Mendez and Mutant Memories Down Under by Marlo Morgan, just in case anyone wants to join in long distance.
We’ve had another great weekend in Granada with Ian and Diane which included a visit to Lorca’s summer house at La Huerta de San Vicente – as described in Victoria Hislop’s The Return and a flamenco show in the Albaicin area where we were the only foreigners so felt we were seeing something more authentic than the usual tourist performances. People talk about the ‘duende’ of flamenco dancing, which roughly translates as ‘the soul’ or ‘passion’ and you could really sense it in the dancers – one male and one female -as they fixed their eyes on a far-off horizon and definitely seemed to get into a ‘zone’. The expression on their faces changed to show an intensity and a passion which was definitely beyond a tourist-type show. The guitarist was fantastic and the singer had a lovely haunting flamenco voice.
Yesterday we spent the day with Maria-Jose and Rafa in Malaga and were treated to one of Rafa’s famous fish lunches after which he and Dan went to watch Malaga play football against Getafe. Maria-Jose and I wandered around the streets of Malaga and tried out the quality of gin and tonics in a couple of bars!
So it’s back to packing our cases with all our summer clothes and as much imodium as we can carry.
Luckily we just managed to get into England in between Gatwick’s various airport closures and were pretty shocked at the extent of the snow in Sussex and Kent. Pete and Brenda had risked life and limb to pick us up from the airport and by the time we started our journey back to their house the snow had started to fall again and made conditions pretty treacherous. We finally decided to stay the night with them and drive back to Kent the next day using the car they had kindly lent us for the Christmas period.
All was well with the house when we arrived – freezing cold but no burst pipes. We had a couple of days to finish the shopping and put the tree up and then Dan did his taxi runs to Essex and West Sussex to pick up the grannies; the kids arrived from their various parts of the country – Ben drove over from Bristol, Sam flew in from Glasgow where he had been to a wedding and Emily caught the train from London. The house would have struggled to sleep so many people so the boys spent 3 nights in the Sun Inn – what a terrible sacrifice for them! Christmas passed quietly, but in a lovely family atmosphere, keeping everyone amused with various games – family fortunes, blankety blank – to mention but a few (thank you M&S crackers!).
Christmas was over, the tree came down, the house cleaned and the fridge emptied and we set off back to Pete and Brenda’s in Crowborough to spend New Year with Jean and Barry and Pete Western. It’s almost 40 years since we all met (except Dan and Pete who were at infant school together!) and we have spent every New Year together (or a symbolic late New Year) since 1979, even when we had 8 kids between us – that’s true friendship. We went for a few country walks, ate some fantastic food, had our fair share of alcohol and did the many puzzles and quizzes that P&B had devised – it was fantastic. Oh – and we booked a ‘super six’ break to Venice for September when we shall all be officially retired – just Barry to go at the moment. Then back to Gatwick on the 3rd Jan and back to sunny Spain – and I mean sunny, fantastic weather ever since – still in the low twenties.
Since our arrival back to Spain we have drifted back into the usual routine, with a few minor amendments – Dan and I have started to have an hour’s tennis on a Monday so that I can try to get back into playing. No fear bridge almost ended up in a stand up row and fisticuffs last week, when a rather belligerent 83 year-old woman started having a go at the teacher for being too noisy (we were to blame because we need so much help), then started helping herself to large tumblers of red wine – it was all rather stressful in the end!
The social club has had another successful event – 30 people turned up at the Spanish restaurant on our urbanisation for a very commendable 12 euro three course meal, with requests for more of the same in the future – we have a planning meeting with the other 6 committee members this afternoon to discuss more events we can organise. I’ve even made a lemon drizzle cake for the occasion – one of my retirement projects is to become proficient at cake-making – a hitherto fairly disastrous ability. The book club had its second meeting and we welcomed some new members – a Norwegian couple, whose English would put a fair percentage of the British population to shame, and a couple of other English women. We discussed ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’ by Mary Ann Shafer, which we all enjoyed and left us wanting to know more about the German occupation of Guernsey. Last meeting I had suggested reading a book that had been left in our bookcase by one of our rental clients – ‘How to talk to a Widower’ by Jonathan Tropper, which had intrigued me because of its title and which I had read and enjoyed – even Dan read it. One of the more elderly members of the group had started to read it but confessed that she couldn’t carry on with it as there was too much swearing in it, at which point one of the newest members stated that she also would not read anything with swearing in it – so I said ‘ Bl**dy hell, what the f**k do you think a book club is about?’ – no, didn’t really! I just asked her if she would like to choose the next book – which she did – Silas Marner by George Elliot, but then she sent an email saying she didn’t want us to read it as it had too much dialect in it and it might be too difficult for the Norwegians and anyway she would rather not choose a book at all. Who would have thought a book group could be so difficult?!
The next village east of Nerja is called Maro and last weekend it was their patron Saint’s festival – San Antón – which managed to stretch over a couple of evenings. The first evening there were bonfires lit in the middle of the small streets throughout the village – with little consideration for the overhead telephone cables. Small children were racing around letting off bangers and small fireworks, with absolutely no supervision. The following night was the procession of the saint on his ‘throne’ throughout the streets, accompanied by the Nerja town band. Every 50 yards the procession would come to a halt for a series of fireworks to be let off in front of them – again anyone from health and safety in Britain would have had a seizure. There were giant Catherine wheels strapped to a home -made wooden structure, which in turn lit fountain type fireworks and bangers, all of which shot about twenty feet in all directions. Then someone in a helmet would hold a big pack of exhibition fireworks, light them with a cigarette and quickly lay them on the ground to give the most amazing sky display – but there wasn’t a fire extinguisher to be seen – it was all very scary, but extremely exciting.
Our teaching continues, but is as badly organised as ever; patchwork classes have restarted with new designs and techniques, but still no idea of what we’re aiming for; pilates is moving from the idyllic beachside bar to a more inland location and Dan is in great demand as a tennis partner.
In 4 weeks’ time we return to the UK to embark on our adventure to India, but I’m sure there will be another Spanish blog before then.
Happy New Year to everyone!
The visit back to the UK in November was a bit of a shock. We had lunch on a sunny restaurant terrace in Nerja the day we left, did our teaching stint and then headed directly to the airport in a balmy 23 degrees. We landed at Stansted at 11.30 pm to be greeted by zero degrees and had to wait 20 minutes for the hire car windscreen to defrost. And so it continued – rain, gales, more rain, more wind, cold – it was such a lovely reminder of the great British winter weather at its best.
Six days later we were back to temperatures in the low twenties, and even though there has been a fair bit of rain since and evening temperatures have dipped to 13 degrees and the heating system is back in action, the dire conditions in the UK with constantly minus temperatures have little allure.
I have always hated retired people coining that well known phrase – “I don’t know how we ever managed to find time to work!” Obviously when they worked they didn’t have time for leisure and then once they stop work they fill the time with other things, so the whole statement is a bit of a nonsense. However, it is amazing how busy you can get and how knackering it can be doing not much at all. So this is a typical week: Monday morning – nothing much, Monday afternoon I help Rose teach her English class at the secondary school; Tuesday morning – Dan goes to tennis and I go to Pilates, Tuesday afternoon is free; Wednesday morning – free, Wednesday afternoon – we both teach our English classes at the secondary school; Thursday morning – Dan plays tennis and I go to patchwork classes, Thursday afternoon – we have now been allowed to join the ‘no fear’ bridge sessions; Friday – all day is free. In addition to all this, we have pursued our goal to create more of a social scene within our community. So far, we have held a coffee morning for about 50 people, tomorrow is the first meeting of the book group and we are hoping to organise a meal at a local restaurant and an excursion in the new year. Various other people have offered to give talks on a variety of topics, so hopefully the social conscience will develop further over the next year.
So what about the new activities on our busy social calendar? Pilates – is great, it’s held at a beach-side cafe so we can see the sea whilst we’re balancing on one leg and clenching those core muscles that haven’t seen the light of day for many years. Bridge – a great workout for the brain and we haven’t made complete idiots of ourselves, although the description ‘no fear’ is not quite accurate as it’s a scary experience, but hopefully we’ll improve slowly and not have to consult our instuction sheets under the table quite so often. Patchwork – expensive equipment, slow progress, noisy Spanish women and no idea what I’m doing or making, but a challenge in its own way, plus I’m learning a whole new Spanish vocabulary!
We’ve met so many different people through our new ventures and are feeling a lot more ‘part of it’. You’ll also be glad to know that we have actually got round to painting those last 3 doors in the flat, so the refurbishment is now complete.
Christmas now looms and we are heading back to the UK on the 20th December for a couple of weeks, snow bound airports and Spanish air traffic controllers permitting. Once again we are not sending cards but will be making a donation to charity instead. So, to all you who have followed this blog closely – Merry Christmas a and Happy New Year!
We have decided to add a blog entry as and when we feel there is something worth reporting.
It’s been a busy few weeks; we have tried to fill our time constructively, but have to admit to the more than occasional lapse into lethargy and apathy, mainly when the sun is too hard to resist and we just have to repair to the beach to watch the waves, feel the breeze and snooze the afternoon away! We last swam in the sea on October 25th – it was cold, but once your limbs had gone numb, it was very enjoyable!
The sixth form school trip visited Nerja in the middle of October and we were able to meet up for a few hours to catch up with MFL news and Borden gossip – far too little these days. We have also met up with our friends, Mick and Magdalena, and have done a few easy walks together – one to a nearby waterfall and another to Almunecar across the cliffs from La Herradura. We caught the bus back and were serenaded all the way by a raucous group from Cadiz and Chipiona. Strangely enough we have also just been on a 2 night trip to Cadiz and surrounding area with Ian and Diane, taking the opportunity to visit Kelvin and family in Chipiona – but didn’t see any of the bus singers. Cadiz is a very quaint city with lots of very narrow old streets – reminiscent of Barcelona in the 70s. We also visited Tarifa – windsurf capital of Europe, Vejer de la Frontera, Jerez, Arcos de la Frontera and Ronda on the way back. Needless to say it was more of a gastronomic tour than cultural!
On the cultural/integration front, Dan has found a group of old farts to play tennis with at the local club – what was meant to be one morning a week is slowly turning into 3! We have started Bridge classes – the first week there were the 2 of us, Colin the teacher (ex maths teacher) and Godfrey – who looked very much like Godfrey from Dad’s Army! Week 2 they imported 84 year-old Mebbie, who, bless her, tried to play Dan’s hand as well. Tomorrow is week 3, so we’ll see what poor soul has been coerced into making up the numbers. We haven’t been told we can play with other people yet, so we obviously need several more lessons. We have both started giving voluntary English lessons at the local secondary school, which is a good way to meet some Spanish people – we are doing the intermediate and advanced classes, so they contain a fair amount of adults – some of whom are teachers at the school. I have also enrolled for patchwork classes, but they don’t start until mid -November.
Ben arrives tomorrow for his 3rd visit to Nerja in 3 months – we see more of him here than we ever did in England, but somehow I think the beer and tapas are the real magnets.
We are popping back to England for 6 days next week to sort a few things out with Dan’s mum and our next tenants in Canterbury and the before we know it, it will be time to go back for Christmas. Sam has been accepted to run the marathon on behalf of Muscular Dystrophy, so don’t be surprised if you get a begging email in your inboxes very soon.
Ian and Diane arrived the night before our trip to Granada armed with 2 bottles of red wine craftily disguised in white paper jackets so we could play Dan’s new favourite game of ‘spot the expensive wine’. We spend hours discussing the taste, the legs, the colour etc etc and occasionally we enjoy a glass or two!
In Granada we retraced the path to the Albaicin which we had already tried out with Jean and Barry and made another visit to the Capilla Real to see the tombs of the Ferdinand and Isabella, the king and queen who united Spain as a Catholic country in the 1400s. It was England’s first world cup match in the evening, so we found a decent Spanish bar and settled down to watch the game and sample the delights of the free tapas. After the match we continued our survey of the tapas of Granada in several bars around the cathedral and the town hall.
The next morning dawned all too soon, but luckily we didn’t have to check out until 12.00 so there was plenty of time for hangover cures to kick in. On the way home we visited the town of Lanjaron, where we had some delicious mountain cured ham and cheese and then continued upwards to the small town of Pampaneira, famous for its colourful rugs. Ian was interested to see the town of Orgiva, having read ‘Driving over Lemons” and its various sequels, so we showed him what a disappointment it was – a very strange mixture of Spaniards and new age travellers accompanied by a drabness rarely seen in Spain.
It was also time for the second meeting of the Marbella wives’ club – this time the theme was Ladies’ Ascot Day. I arrived in my only frock and sporting a floppy white sunhat bought at great expense at the 2 euro shop. There was an array of finery and hat styles, but all good fun. We had to choose a winner for 5 of the live Ascot races that day, at 1 euro a bet and the person who got the most winners won the pot. I managed one winner – called Strawberry Daiquiri strangely enough – but otherwise failed miserably. Still, it was a pleasant way to while away a sunny afternoon, drinking Pimms and champagne and eating cucumber sandwiches and strawberries and cream. Dan meanwhile was in a Spanish bar watching Spain’s first game, which ended in a miserable defeat.
It was also my first stint in the local charity shop run by the English Church in Nerja. It was a great morning dealing with some very wiley Spanish women whose nature it is to barter for everything. I’ve been booked for 2 more Fridays, which is exciting.
Our kids had quite an expensive weekend as my birthday coincided with Father’s Day. It was a lovely hot day, so we went out for lunch and slept it off on the beach – heaven!
It’s the season for fiestas and one of the biggest is San Juan on the 23rd June, which is the only night in the year when people are allowed to camp on the beach. Once again Ian and Diane joined us for the experience. It was 10pm when we set up our little picnic circle on the beach amidst the other tents and gazebos. At a few minutes to midnight 24 flares were let off and a surge of people started to make for the water’s edge – like a scene from a Dr Who episode. On the stroke of midnight the fireworks started and people ran into the sea in order to cleanse themselves of the year’s sins, ready to start a new set. Dan set off with the camera and seemed to focus on a group of scantily clad young ladies having a good frolic in the sea! The fireworks were amazing, with no concession to health and safety. There were giant Catherine wheels dangerously throwing sparks left, right and centre and one of the rockets veered off course, crashed back onto the beach and almost set light to a tent just behind where we were sitting. We eventually gave in at about 2.30, even though the party was still in full swing.
We have also started to re-register our UK car with Spanish number plates and insurance etc, having discovered that the resale value in the UK is so low and second hand cars in Spain are so expensive. Dan had to take it for a Spanish MOT yesterday and is now proficient in technical instructions in Spanish – put on your indicators, front fog lights, rear fog light, windscreen wipers, handbrake etc!
We now have less than 2 weeks before we return to England for a couple of months and are starting to think about the possibility of wearing jumpers.
The orange festival was great, the sun was shining and lots of local women had made a great effort and dressed in traditional flamenco costume. Old ladies had made their best orange-based desserts for the yearly competition, there was music and dancing and a weird, but initially tasty, orange, raw onion and salt cod salad given out for free (well, I don’t think you would want to buy it!) along with huge bags of fresh oranges. Ian and Diane’s friend, Madeline, came along and we managed to get our photo in the ‘Sur in English’ newspaper. It was a great day, the orange pom-pom managed to stay in my hair all afternoon, but unfortunately, Janet, Dan’s matador costume was rather too tight in the cojones region, resulting in looking more of a ‘ball fighter’ than a ‘bull fighter’!
We spent Saturday evening after the festival at Ian and Diane’s house doing a blind wine tasting with an expensive bottle of Faustino Rioja – Crianza, costing around 8 euros a bottle and a bottle of red Liria from Mercadona, costing 1.50 euros. The astounding result was that 3 out of 4 of us chose the Liria!
Monday was Day of the Cross in Nerja when various streets compete in making large crosses studded with real carnation heads and then displayed amongst a montage of typical Andalusian objects and religious statues. Residents of the street also set up trestle tables full of home made food and bottles of drink and travelling groups of singers visit each cross.
Wednesday evening was very exciting for Dan as he watched his favourite team – Spurs secure 4th place in the Premier League. He was so excited he couldn’t sleep, although it could be something to do with fact that we had decided to have an alcohol -free day!
Our NZ friend, Jen, arrived on Thursday bearing gin and Pimms, which we obviously had to sample that evening. Friday we went to the market at Almunecar, where Jen bought the obligatory flamenco dress for her little granddaughter and typical pottery for her friends, then we introduced her to tapas – which she loved. That evening we carried on showing her the tradition, ending up in the Molino flamenco bar, where she was fascinated by the old guitarist and the very camp waiter.
We spent Saturday on the beach and Jen just had to try out the water – even though nobody else had braved it – I think she regretted it afterwards but felt a great sense of achievement. We introduced her to grilled sardines and paella on the beach. Strangely enough she said that they would never dream of eating things such as anchovies and sardines in NZ as they would just be used for bait, but she might try to introduce it.
The volcanic ash started playing up again, so it was constant checking on the internet to see if her flight on Monday would be affected and also Emily’s flight out. Luckily enough both managed to arrive and leave (even meeting as they crossed over!)
So we are now in mummy and daddy mode with Emily here for a week, and the boys coming out on Thursday for the San Isidro festival of Nerja caves at the weekend.
I start teaching on a voluntary basis to adults at a local school on Thursday, which will be stimulating and give both of us a time of independence. So there will be lots of new things to comment on in the next blog.
Here we are again in sunny Spain. We drove down and stayed just outside Poitiers the first night – opposite Futuroscope – but other than that it was uninspiring. We spent the second night in Burgos, very near the heart of the city, and, despite being very cold, it was lovely – lots of gothic architecture. So lovely in fact that we hope to stay there on our way back in July. We stopped at a service station in Jaen to refuel and have a cup of coffee and ended up with 2 extra passengers squashed into the back seat amongst the new duvets and sheets. They were 2 English university students doing a charity hitchhike to Morocco and were grateful of a 3 hour ride to Nerja. We even managed to top up their mobile phone on the in-car charger.
Nerja greeted us with its customary sunshine, despite the fact that it seems to have rained almost non-stop for the last 3 months. During the last week we have been to the beach twice – one of which was a nudist beach, we’ve never seen so many places to park our bike! Needless to say we kept everything firmly (I use the term loosely) covered up. We’ve also tried out a couple of new restaurants – one a Brazilian bbq, offering unlimited amounts of different barbecued meats for a set price – fantastic for the Atkins diet! We have also caught up with the yr 10 school trip. It was great to meet up with the teachers and see some of the kids, most of whom we had taught between us. However, it didn’t make us feel envious and it was quite nice to walk away at the end of the day without any responsibilities.
We are also painting again – this time a different set of wardrobe doors, in anticipation of friends visiting in the near future and a new set of single beds being delivered.
We are aware that we need to integrate a bit more into daily life and plan to start putting out feelers for teaching the odd English/Spanish class or starting up Dan’s tapas tours. We also plan to join the local sports complex and do some exercise to tone our bodies for the next visit to the nudist beach!
Apologies Phil and Jen if these are not accurate – please feel free to correct and anyone else feel free to add to the list!
- There are seemingly no motorways
- There are 4 million inhabitants – 3 on the North Island (2 million in Auckland) and 1 on the South Island
- There are 40million sheep (there used to be 70 million before Britain joined the EU)
- There are 100 million possums – they are NZ’s biggest threat to nature and are currently being targeted with 10/80 – a pesticide about which there is substantial outcry
- There are no poisonous creepy crawlies
- The legal driving age is 15
- A man can drink ¾ of a bottle of wine in 90 minutes and still be under the alcohol limit (a woman can drink half a bottle)
- Many of the rural communities have to send their kids to boarding school for secondary education
- They are thinking of changing the national flag, maybe ditching the Union Jack and using a typical NZ emblem. The kiwi is the obvious choice but is not thought to be a good role model – it stays in the dark and eats insects. Another possibility is the silver fern, currently worn by the cricket team..
- Fox Glacier is 14 kilometres long and is advancing by 1ft a day
- The top of a glacier is called the ‘neve’ and the bottom is called the terminal face
- Dense bush regenerates itself even on bare rock: first moss, then small ferns which create humus for bushes and trees to grow
- Lake Taupo and many other lakes are in fact volcanoes which have blown their tops
- Doubtful Sound is so called because Capt James Cooke (explorer and cartographer) saw the entrance but was doubtful that he would be able to sail back out because of prevailing wind and tide conditions
- The rugby team are called the ‘all blacks’ ,the football team are called the ‘all whites’, and the cricket team are called the “black caps”
- The moko is the facial tattoo formerly sported by Maori men (the women used to have their bottom lip and chin tattooed)
- NZ suffered a massive earthquake in 1931 which razed Napier and Hastings to the ground
- Cadbury’s have a factory in Dunedin and produce marshmallow-filled small Easter eggs
- NZ TV is pretty dire
- The NZ wood pigeon is greatly admired as it is the only bird capable of swallowing the largest seeds to help the regeneration of the tropical forests
- NZ cafés make excellent coffee and the cheese is excellent too!
Our next journey was from Te Anau to Queenstown: of course the weather cheered up and was sunny most of the way. We drove through deer farms – the new type of farming to this area. Sam had warned us we may not like Quenstown, but we absolutely loved it as it was so vibrant compared to a lot of the other one-horse towns we had been in and it was great to see so many young people as we had been following a bit of a grey trail in the last few days. We took a ride on the cable car for a great view over the town and lake Wakatipu, then drove along its shores to the end, where there was the lovely, peaceful township of Glenochy. In winter Queenstown is a big ski resort, so is busy most of the year.
The next day we carried on towards Haast, on the Crown Range, which is the highest sealed road in NZ. We stopped en route in Wanaka – another busy resort town around Lake Wanaka, another meat pie – probably the last! We drove on, stopping to do a tropical forest walk, across a I’m a Celebrity type bridge to see the Blue Pools. Haast is really not very interesting and is not worth a night’s stay in our opinion, but we did have a lovely walk along a secluded beach, strewn with large pieces of driftwood.
The next day’s journey was to Fox Glacier through dense forested banks with occasional glimpses of lovely beaches. Fox township at first looked pretty boring, but we followed a signpost to ‘the glacier’ where we did a 90 minute round walk to the terminal face of Fox glacier – it was truly amazing, with just a few poles stuck in the screedy ground to show the path and no officials around to shout at you if you didn’t follow the path. It culminated in a breathtaking view of the ice blue and white of the end of the glacier. Whilst we were taking photos, pieces of the ice fell off creating a tremendous boom. It was an ‘at one with nature’ moment.
Later on we went to Lake Matheson, the lake famous for its mirror images of Mts Cook and Tasman – again there was a long walk around the shores, through dense rainforest at times, but with amazing clearings and viewing platforms to get those all-important photos.
Our motel for 2 nights was unusual in that the hosts were very hands-on and invited the guests to their lounge for an early evening drink and laid on their own menu for dinner, which we decided to accept. We sat at the dining room table with 2 other guests whilst Dave – mein host – cooked in the domestic kitchen in full view and Lea (rhymes with bee, not beer), meine hostess, dispensed the drink. All the while they were joining in with the conversations and telling us about their lives (Dave was an ex-chicken farmer!) and at the end of the meal they sat down with us and chatted on. They convinced us to do a helicopter flight over the mountains and 2 glaciers – ie Mts Cook and Tasman and Fox and Franz Josef glaciers, so at 8.20 the next morning we boarded a very small helicopter with 3 other people and took to the skies for a unique experience, landing and getting out for 10 minutes at the top of Fox glacier. The sky was perfectly blue, not a cloud in the sky. Back on the ground, it was off to see Dave and Lea again for a cooked breakfast with 4 other guests
We decided we should see the Franz Josef glacier from the bottom as well, so did another 90 min walk to get to the terminal face – probably not as good as Fox, but still stunning. Then we stopped off at some hot pools to soak our weary legs. There were 3 pools at 36, 38 and 40 degrees, in the open air and it was a very relaxing experience.
Our final leg, after almost 5 weeks on the road, was a short drive to Greymouth where we dropped off the car and boarded the Tranz Alpine train to Christchurch for one night before catching our flight to Sydney and then immediately onwards to Tokyo. The train journey was very relaxing, but we’re probably suffering from scenery fatigue and glazed over for some of the journey.
Christchurch is a very English-style town and somewhere that merits more time than one evening. Needless to say, we have finished off our NZ experience with a very nice meal of boneless rack of lamb – delicious, just like NZ.accompanied by a bottle of red produced at one of the wineries we visited a couple of weeks ago in the Hawkes bay region. We feel we have only dipped a toe into all that this country has to offer; as someone we met on the way said: we are ‘posh packers’ i.e. ageing backpackers!
Yesterday, Lesley plucked up courage and took control of the steering wheel for a time and in exchange she has condescended to my tinkering on the keyboard to make a small contribution to the blog.
As language is a thing close to our hearts, I thought it might be relevant at this stage to give a quick run down of things that have struck us on our travels. There seems no better place to start than the Maori language, which after many years of decline is beginning to undergo a renaissance. There are TV stations in Maori, some English place names are now known by their Maori name and the language is now taught in schools throughout New Zealand. Will we see a situation arising as with Welsh and Catalan, I wonder?
Early European settlers were the first to transcribe the language and did so with just fifteen letters of the English alphabet (the five vowels and ten consonants). This throws up some interesting combinations, none more so than the “wh” in Maori which is pronounced as an English “f”. Therefore place names such as Whakatane and Whangaroa are pronounced Fokatane and Fangaroa, respectively (whucking whunny iwh you ask me!).
Place names in Maori tell their own story, eg Aotearoa (Maori name for NZ, meaning Land of the Long White Cloud) Akaroa (long harbour), Whakatane (to act as a man) and the one that worries the most, Urewere (burnt penis). I hope we are talking sun damage and not barbecues!
As for the modern Kiwis, that is another story. We should have known when we first met our Auckland friends in Faversham and Jen (pronounced Jin) strode into a local pub and demanded “a table for sex” that we are divided by a language in common. Basically, an English “i” is pronounced as a Kiwi “e” and viceversa. So, I didn’t get too alarmed when Phil (pronounced Phel) announced he was thinking of putting a dick in his garden.. Then again, sometimes they seem to compress many vowels entirely, so you get fshnchups (fish and chips) as a takeaway, or you cook your own having first visited a whtfshop (wet fish shop).
If you are of a nervous disposition, or if your name is Ben, Sam or Emily, please avert your gaze now! Lesley and I have just had some hokey pokey, (but don’t get too concerned as it’s only Crunchie type honeycomb)!
Sometimes it’s easier to talk to a Spaniard!
Danandlesleyholl's Blog 
