THE COMPLETE EBB TIDE RFC
NEW ZEALAND RUGBY TOUR
Part 1
As I write this we are in Queenstown, New Zealand, having arrived yesterday
morning after what might be the longest airplane flight in the world: 14 hours.
We left Vancouver at 9 PM, had dinner an hour later, breakfast at 9 AM our time
(4 AM the next day NZ time), landed in Auckland, and flew from Auckland to
Queenstown, landing at about 10 AM. Air New Zealand has friendly staff, not-bad
food, and an open bar. Featuring, unfortunately, Sauvignon Blanc which tastes
like nothing much; Pinot Noir which tastes like citric acid; and Chardonnay
which tastes like a poor Emerald Riesling. And a Merlot that wasn’t bad, for a
Merlot.
Upon landing, we were whisked off to adventure sports, which came with the tour
price, or I probably would have backed out. Well, in the case of the first AS, I
would definitely have backed out, because the ‘sport’ consisted of stepping off
a perfectly good bridge into 45 metres of space, with a rubber band tied to my
ankles. The worst part is looking down at the river far below, at what seems to
be two tiny figures in a toy inflatable, before the bloke says, “Dive on one,”
and then “fivefourthreetwo” and gets ready to push if you haven’t gone. (I’m not
kidding. The non-jumpers took pictures to prove to the folks back home that we’d
actually done it, and you can see the guy’s hand in the small of the jumper’s
back, ready to add impetus to the reluctant.)
Having a reasonable fear of heights (I’ve never thought of that as a phobia: there’s nothing unreasoning about a fear of falling far enough to break your neck on reaching the bottom) I would never have done it, but the fee is $65 and as I said, it was included, so off I went. The expectation rates a 10 for fear; the fall a 2, and the first bounce a 3. That’s because it’s all so fast. Then come the next six or seven bounces, and they’re at least 5 or 6, because the cliff walls are close enough to make it seem that death by granite poisoning is imminent.
Then off to the jet-boat-down-the-river ride, which was also well up on the excitement scale, but nothing like the bungy jump – just much, much longer, wetter, and bumpier. And so to dinner and bed.
Eight hours on the bus, and we’re in Christchurch, which is to NZ what Victoria is to Canada – a little bit of England. Mind you, all of NZ is a LBOE, but CC more than most. A lot of this country looks like the area around Kamloops – dry, rolling hills. More sheep, but. And MORE SNOW. We actually ran into 20 cm of snow on the way here. BAH!!
We play tomorrow, and I’ll let you know how that goes. The hotels here charge for internet connection, at $.68 per minute, so this is short. I didn’t know I’d be able to get through, so I didn’t write more in this missive before I connected, and once connected, logging off requires a new connection and more $$$, so that’s it for now. More later, another day.
EBB TIDE RFC
NEW ZEALAND RUGBY TOUR
Part 2
It is a well-known phenomenon that as one grows older, time goes more quickly. Many people think this is an illusion, but if one believes, as Einstein did, that time is relative rather than absolute, it is not illusory at all, but an actual fact, explained as follows. To an eight year old, a two month summer vacation represents 1/48th or 2% of his or her existence. To me, two months of summer (if it ever comes) represents 1/400 of my life span (you can figure out the percentage): a mere nothing. Well, I am pleased to tell you that I have discovered a way to reverse that process. Go on a tour of New Zealand with a rugby team, average age 53, and play a team with an average age of 35. Every 15 minute period seems like at least an hour. In fact, when you are chasing a 21 year old the length of the field, 20 seconds seems like an eternity. As you may have gathered by now, we have had our first game, and if you haven’t gathered that, WAKE UP. The Christchurch Wankers (the largest team in the world, although most of the members don’t pay playing fees) has, as one of their players informed me, a genuine oldies rugby side, but as we were playing on a weekday, many of the members were working, and couldn’t play, so they recruited several sons. The game started at 4 PM, as the sons didn’t get out of school until 3. The kid I was playing opposite scored two tries, running past me handily both times. As I said to him after the game, “Ten years ago, I’d have caught you easily.” He looked doubtful, so I added, “Of course, ten years ago you would have been eight years old.” (Adding, under my breath, “You little snot-nose.”) Further, we brought 35 players. In the two weeks before we left, four of the 35 suffered injuries, bringing the number down to 31. In what might be seen as an evil coincidence, but actually isn’t, all four of them were backs. (Well, they are still backs, but not at the moment. At the moment, they are spectators.)
For those of you not familiar with rugby, there are two groups of players on a team. There are forwards, also called ‘the pack’, and backs, also called “those useless assholes” (by the forwards). The forwards are big, slow, and brawny, and enjoy crunching into other players, either their own or the opposition. The backs are generally smaller, fleeter of foot, and brainy (although not very, as they are playing rugby) and want to avoid contact as much as possible. (As you may have surmised, I’m a back.) There are eight forwards and six backs, which, if you do the math is 14. There is also an intermediary, yclept the scrum half, who… well, never mind. The point is, we originally had 22 forwards and 13 backs, and we are now down to 22 forwards and nine backs. Given that there are seven backs on the field at any given time (counting the scrum half as a back), that’s not a lot of subs. In fact, it’s hardly any. It sure wasn’t any today. I ache all over.
But I survived, and on Thursday we stocked up on food and beer to take to a BBQ with Mike Chrono, who coached Velox RFC in the late 70’s, when they were just starting on their field by UVic. He then came back to NZ, and is the scrum coach for the All-Blacks, which makes him one of the five or six most important people in the country, rugby being to NZ what hockey is to Canada. Very nice house, overlooking the Bay that is the port for Christchurch. Lovely spot, but quite a climb up from the water. Good thing one of our members had that connection, because everything closes on Good Friday – and I mean everything. We’d have starved.
The most interesting thing about Christchurch, from my point of view, is the variety of architecture. The downtown area is what Victoria should be – lots of interesting buildings mixed in with the new glass boxes. Today is Saturday, and we leave for Hanmer Springs in an hour, so I’ll try to send this. Best to all.
EBB TIDE NEW ZEALAND TOUR
PART 3
As I write (type? keyboard?) we are on the ferry from the South island to the North Island and its Easter. Happy Easter, everyone. It’s not much like B.C. Ferries – there are probably more sheep than people carried on these ferries – but it’s big. Shorter, maybe a bit narrower, and quite a bit higher, reflecting the fact that this crossing is sometimes very rough. Our bus driver told us on the way that he has been on the ferry when the normally-three-hour ride took eight, because of high seas. In the late 1960’s one of them, the Wahine, ran aground at the entrance to Wellington harbour and 65 or so lives were lost. Having started in media res, let me now regress. Last time I sent one of these off it was from Cathedral Square, in Christchurch. Christchurch is an interesting city, or at least the downtown area is. There is a small river flowing through the middle of it, with parks on either side. It also has the second largest municipal park in the world, featuring several dozen rugby pitches, plus a very elaborate botanical garden. (What’s the largest? Fame to those who give me the correct answer. No cheating, please.)
I’ve mentioned the architecture: it comes from the fact that nothing has ever been torn down. They built in brick, and when the enterprise outgrew its quarters they moved to a new building, and a lesser enterprise took over the old one, so that a small place selling classic cars (including several Morgans) bears a carved name over the doors: Bank of Christchurch. The current bank building takes up half a city block, some distance away. Every second building has a plaque telling the world something on the order of : “The first Baptist service in New Zealand was held here, in Joseph Browns Carpentry Shop, in 1871.”
We left Christchurch at 11 Saturday morning, and drove the 200 or so km to Hanmer Springs, a popular tourist spot, as are most hot springs in the world. Small, but quaint. And, of course, expensive. The springs, of which I did not partake, cost $14 to enter, and of course one then has to rent a towel, as the motel/hillside cabins don’t want you taking their towels to get stunk up by the sulphur in the springs, and one wouldn’t want to use one’s own towel. (There has just been a PA announcement to the effect that the feature movie, Slum Dog Millionaire, is now showing in the theatre on deck five. How is it that B.C. Ferries hasn’t caught onto that? Or maybe they’ve figured that they make more money out of food than movies.) Any road, the countryside varies, of course, but is quite like the Okanagan, by and large. There were lots of little villages between Christchurch and Hanmer, with sheep and cattle between, and very few people between Hanmer and Picton, the southern terminus of the ferry, but also lots of sheep and cows. Also lots of grapes around Picton. The team has discovered the national fast food of NZ: meat pies. I don’t know haw many meat pies the 42 of us have consumed, but I bet it’s over 200. Pricing here is weird: individual meat pies cost between $3 and $3.50; hamburgers (fully loaded, usually) about $4; very large sandwiches about $4; fish and chips $4. Pop, on the other hand, is $3 to $4; a full breakfast in a small coffee shop $10; any kind of lunch entrée is at least $15. Wine is everywhere, as is beer, but not awfully cheap. Weird. Well, about time to find some food. One of the couples on the tour has just entered the annex to the restaurant, in which I am ensconced, with lunch: the ubiquitous meat pie (actually a large sausage roll in this case) and a fruit/yoghurt/granola combo (guess who’s having what?) The latter looks good enough to tempt me. More later.
The ferry ride was interesting: the first hour getting out of the maze of islands at the north end of South Island, yclept Queen Charlotte Sound. Got around, didn’t she? Then 60 km of open ocean – on one side Oz, the other Antarctica. (Although one goes from the South Island to North Island, one actually travels west to east, as the islands overlap.) Into Wellington Harbour, to see the largest fleet of Optimist prams (2 metre sailboats for kids) I’ve ever seen: there were at least a hundred of them. The Easter Regatta, I would think. Big harbour – larger than English Bay, at a guess. Certainly longer. (Later saw a sign advertising the National Optimist Championships.) Wellington has little of the charm of Christchurch: it’s another city where they razed each building as it became too small to be economically viable. Wellington is the capital, and the business district is squeezed between the water and a pretty good hill. Hard to build on the hill, at least tall buildings, so the downtown core is solid office towers and hotels, all with retail on the ground floor. Being here stirred my brain, and I asked one of our players if he was related to a famous author, and he replied, “She was my great-aunt Kathie.” Now. Who was she? You’ve got two clues, and if that won’t do, I’ll give another in the next post. But let’s see what you can do with that. I have to go: Moose court in ten minutes.
(Moose court is our name for what is termed generically kangaroo court: I don’t know if other groups do it, but it’s a traditional part of a rugby tour. One of the players is the judge, there’s a sergeant at arms and a defense attorney [who has never won a case] and the offences are anything from leaving something on the bus to being late to anything at all. The fines include a small donation to the last-day party fund [usually a dollar or two] and some sort of punishment, including singing in public, having to say ‘good day’ to everyone you meet, and so on. A team spirit builder, generally.)
Weather – it’s about 10 C at the moment – 8:52 AM, so I did over pack. One pair of long pants and a sweater, at least. It’ll be 17 or 18 later in the day. That’s about right – we’re at 41 S Lat here, more-or-less San Francisco, as I recall, and that’s about what I’d expect this time of year. Later. Spent two hours in the Wellington Museum. Not bad at all. Best of all, it’s free. Now, that’s civilized. Still later – 8:20 PM, to be exact. Played a much better game – this time, the average age of the opposition was about 45, and their youngest player was about 35. (In NZ, ‘old-timers’ rugby starts at 35). Not only that, this team has two rather odd rules: no kicking, and you can’t run more than 20 metres without passing the ball. Makes it quite a different game. We caught on, though, and won. I’d call the post-game festivities a draw – they lasted from 3:30 to 8, and featured vast quantities of beer, pretty good food, and about two hours of singing. I drank very little: I don’t like beer much, and I was playing the clarinet for the singing. All in all, a good day.
It’s now 3:30 Tuesday, the next day, and I’ve visited the Bee Hive (the House of Parliament); the National Museum; and the Wellington Railway Station and the university. All well worth seeing, and all free. I like NZ: they got rid of their upper house of parliament in the early 50’s. Smart people. They also had a referendum a few years back and adopted proportional representation. Several people have told me they think it was a mistake: that single transferable vote would have been better. (If you don’t live in B.C., I mention that because next month we have a referendum on the issue, and the choice is sticking with first past the post or going to single transferable vote.) The most common word in this country, at least by the working/middle/ average person, is ‘yeah’. It’s pronounced with the ‘ye’ as in ‘yes’, with ‘ah’ added on, so it’s more nasal than the ‘yeah’ in Canada, and longer than the ‘yeh’ of the eastern US, especially Noo Joisey. It’s used as a placeholder, as we use ‘uh’ or ‘er’ or ‘ummm’ or ‘you know’ or ‘like’ or ‘so’.
I have discovered why things seem expensive here: the minimum wage is $13 per hour, so a $12 bottle of wine is equal to our $8 bottle, and it’s certainly a better wine. (As I write, I’m sipping an Aussie Cab Sauv I bought on special for $7. The label says it’s ‘a rich red wine with blackcurrant flavours and soft tannins’. I say it’s a medium bodied, simple red, not much Cab character, light colour for a Cab, not much nose, almost no tannin, okay for pasta Bolognese. BUT $7 here makes it the equivalent of $4.50 at home, and at that, it’s a bargain. At least as good as most B.C. wines selling for $12, or imported wines at $9 or $10. So the question is, if NZ, with a growing wine industry (sorry) is willing to allow cheap imports and not tax the hell out of them, what’s with B.C.? (And that’s from someone in the wine business, who has something to lose by lower import costs.)
Well, I tried to send this, but the hotel was out of wireless network cards. However, they have a card in each room saying, “If you have a problem that is our fault and we don’t fix it in 15 minutes, you stay the night free.” So after five minutes of dialogue with the manager-on-duty (Me: “You don’t consider this a problem?” He: “Well, it’s not OUR problem.” Me: “It is now.”) he gave me a code that should get me connected, for free. Gotta like dumb guarantees. If you get this with no further comment, it worked. I’ll try and get this off. Best to all. Trust you are all well.
EBB TIDE NEW ZEALAND TOUR
PART 4
Why is he sending this so soon after the last one, you ask? Well, because my roommate and I figured that we could buy a 24 hour internet card and both use it. Wrong. I logged on, and he can’t, so I have to get my $10 worth out of it. Hence the early installment. I’m going to get my money’s worth if I have to stay up all night. We are now in Napier, one of the more interesting cities in NZ. About 1932 they had a major earthquake, which leveled all the concrete buildings in the town, sparing only the frame buildings, mostly houses. So they rebuilt. And what was popular in 1932? Right. Art Deco. So the entire business district (which isn’t all that large, as it’s a rather small city) is Art Deco. Napier is also one of Victoria’s sister cities, which is, of course, a boondoggle arranged so that municipal officials can swan around the globe and call it business. As I write, it’s 5:00 Wednesday, and it’s about 17 C. The motel pool has just been closed for the winter, although I’d reckon that it should be swimable. Well, it doesn’t actually say ‘closed’: it says that the heat has been turned off. I suppose one could swim in it. In fact, I’m sure someone will try it before we leave in two days. Nice enough motel – first actual motel on the tour. Quality Inn, just like all 10,000 of them in North America.
You know the old line – “It’s a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there.” NZ is just the opposite. It’s a nice place to live, but I wouldn’t want to visit. Mind you, if I lived anywhere else I might, but it’s so like B.C. that there’s no point. Cleaner (no litter at all), but same sort of people, same prices, same weather, same everything, except they play a lot of rugby and you can find rugby on TV almost any time. Oh, and they know how to serve bacon – a slice of back bacon with the side bacon attached. Very little fat. BUT they make up for that by not having ketchup, unless one goes to McDonalds. They have ‘Tomato Sauce’ instead, and it’s runny and sweet. And, of course, they have Marmite, which is as bad as it was the first, last and only time I tried it before this trip, 40 years ago. I thought that perhaps my taste buds would have changed, and I could eat the stuff, but no go. It’s still disgusting.
Somewhat later – went for a run and a practice at 9:00 AM and I ran back to the motel, (most of the rest walked) finding the chambermaid making up the room. I asked about the pool, and she said, “You can use it, but there’s no heat.” “Heat?” I said. “We’re Canajuns. We don need no stinkin’ heat.” She smiled hesitantly, and said, “That’s nice.” Evidently not a Bogart fan. So I pulled the cover back, and went for a swim. Cold, but not as cold as the chuck in front of our house most of the summer. I then went for a walk around the town. On the north edge of the downtown area is an escarpment about 30 metres high, with houses on the top, and all down the opposite side. The area is called (rather unimaginatively) Bluff Hill. The road that runs along the edge, with views of the city and the ocean, is, naturally, Cameron Road. It feeds into an even more posh address, Cameron Terrace. Behind are the streets named after lesser beings such as Shakespeare, Milton, Dickens, Roslyn, and Coleman. (Our next-door neighbour is Rosalind Coleman. Your streets are rather short, Ros, but quite nice. There are no streets named either Michael or Simmons. Found the Botanical Gardens – very nice – and had an ice cream cone for lunch. Double scoop, $2.50. One scoop was something called Banana Berry, which is bright yellow with large red splotches. I won’t tell you what it reminded me of – Alex would approve, but Mary wouldn’t, and I know who I’ll be living with when I get back.
I had only two answers to my first question in Part 3: Doug Ingram, one of my predecessors as president of the Victoria Jaguar Club, said ‘South Mountain Park, Phoenix’, and Mark Pitcher offered this: “Phoenix Park in Dublin, Ireland - visited when I was in the navy and think it was the largest urban surrounded park. South Mountain Park in Phoenix, AZ - Maggie and I visited and I think they said it was the largest city park; or Fairmount Park in Philly - When Maggie and I visited for a conference there I thought something stated that William Penn laid it out in the 1600's and that it is currently the largest city owned park. Can't remember if that was world or US. To Americans, South Mountain is the correct answer, but the North Saskatchewan River valley parks system is larger. It’s a continuous collection of urban parks in the North Saskatchewan River valley of Edmonton, Alberta. It comprises 111 square kilometers, or 27,400 acres. The South Mountain Park has 17,000 acres. To the second question, about the author, Mark offered this: “Kathy Fray (nee Boon) is from Wellington, NZ and wrote a book 'Oh Baby'. Does that count?” Good try, but no cigar. Here are some more clues: the author in question wrote excellent (and famous) short stories, and died very young, in the 1930’s. She wrote under her first two names, as was a common practice in the ‘30’s, the best-known example being Neville Shute Norway, who dropped his last name when he started writing, as he thought that the fact that he wrote novels would detract from his reputation as an aeronautical engineer.
EBB TIDE TOUR OF NEW ZEALAND
PART FIVE
We have played our third game. I ache all over, even though I didn’t play much. Red shorts (worn by players over 60, meaning me) mean the same here that they do at home: the guy says “Sorry” after he hits you. Very good team, with lots of skills that we don’t have, especially getting to the ball in the rucks. And tomorrow we get up at 7:30 to get the bags to the bus by 8 to leave at 8:30. At the moment, bed. And it is now Saturday morning. We spent yesterday morning on the bus to Rotarua. Again, the countryside could be a number of places – a cross between the Okanagan and California will do. More sheep than both put together, but. The highlight was a look at one of the geothermal power plants, featuring vast quantities of steam and several kilometers of large diameter pipe, and pools of water bubbling away.
Rotorua styles itself, “The tourist capital of New Zealand,” the third such claim we’ve heard since we got here. It’s an interesting place, what little we’ve seen of it. It’s on the shore of a very large lake, and has a large amount of geothermal activity. I had heard that the town reeks of sulphur, but that’s not true. Only part of the town stinks of sulphur – in the vicinity of live vents. (Which are, admittedly, common.) (Another aside: the Word spell-check doesn’t like ‘sulphur’. If one were a chemist, one would have to disable the spell check or go crazy.) We played our fourth game last night, against a Mauri team. First, a visit to their marai, the equivalent of a West Coast long-house, with lengthy welcome speeches from the elders (in Mauri), followed by brief translations in English.
The game itself was a reverse of the first game, where a bunch of kids ran circles around us. The club we played has a number of sports – rugby, soccer, netball, softball, a couple of others (not, interestingly, cricket) – but their old-timer’s team is not very active, so they sent out a call to members of other clubs, with the result that they had a number of players who haven’t put their boots on in some time. It showed. They had lots of skill, but when we got the ball in the backfield we scored easily Final score, 5 tries to 0. Followed by the usual speeches, all of which have been made a million times, and the usual beer. Two things were different from the usual game: the pitch is close enough to a vent to reek of sulphur, and the post-game feed was a hongi, which is the Mauri word for ‘feast’. (And food, and breakfast, and lunch, and supper. Pretty simple language.) The club president defined it as “Digging a hole in the ground and throwing food in,” using, he didn’t add, red-hot rocks to do the cooking. I doubt that they actually did that last night, but they might have, as the main dish was pork, which certainly tasted as though it had been cooked in a pit. There was also smoked trout (they must have bloody big trout here) and squash. In total, about 200 kg of food, and the only green in sight was a couple of sprigs of watercress as a garnish on the fish. These people are not great on salads.
I should tell you about netball. As rugby is the male sport in NZ, netball is the female sport. It’s a weird offshoot of basketball, with different rules and no backboard. The biggest rule difference is that once a player has the ball in the vicinity of the net and indicates a desire to shoot, the other players stand and watch, as if it were a basketball free throw. I guess that with no backboard it would be rather tricky to score if one were being harassed, but it still looks weird. Anyway, it’s on the telly almost as much as is rugby, and that’s a lot.
Saturday morning. I’ve just been to Starbucks, where, we were told, one could get Internet access with a purchase. Not so, or at least, not the sort of purchase I anticipated. . One has to purchase the Internet time, at the usual $10/hour, so if you had sent me an e-mail and received a very terse answer, that’s why. I had 120 messages, and 90 of them were spam, so of the others, the 25 or so to which I replied got pretty short responses. Sorry about that. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that I collect messages using my usual program, Eudora, because that puts them all on my computer, but I have to respond using the UVic web-based e-mail, as it’s a pain to configure Eudora to send using something other than my usual provider. So it’s back and forth for every message to which I wish to reply.
It’s 6:00 PM, and most of the team spent the afternoon.....watching rugby. To be exact, a first division game between the club we played last night and a team from a neighbouring town. Ages of players between 20 and 28, with one guy who’s 34 and played in the premier league. Wonderful skills, and of course very fast. I was standing next to a local, and at one point I commented on the speed of a fullback. “He does the hundred in 13 seconds,” said the local. Hmmm. I used to do the hundred in 12.4, and allowing for the difference between metres and yards, that’s about the same speed. I can’t believe I was that fast. No wonder I used to score tries. Where have the years (and the legs, and the wind) gone? The game was played on the grounds of a local high school, and the gym was the bar. 750 ml of NZ near-beer (4%): $5.00. Take the bottle out to the game? Of course. Y’know, if I’d done this tour when I was 20, I mighta stayed here. Equivalent to our mid-October, cloudy day, 14 C. Guess I could’a got used to the accent. Funny – I don’t mind the men’s accent, but the nasalization of the vowels makes a lot of the women sound as if they’re perpetually complaining.
As I’ve said before, the whites here are not bad, but the reds are not good. I thought I had been too soon in my judgment, as I just had some red that was quite drinkable ( a Cab Merlot) but on close inspection the label says ‘Produced and bottled by Averill Estate Wineries’, which of course means that the grapes didn’t come from there: they came from Oz, which is what I would have said on a blind tasting.
It’s Monday, and yesterday we traveled to Auckland through rolling farmland, sheep and dairy. Spent the evening and night at the marai of Alec Hawke, a Mauri fellow who spent some time in Victoria in the 90’s, and played for Ebb Tide during that time. His family was the first Mauri family/clan to win a land claim to recovered at least part of their land from the NZ government. In their case, the land is very nice piece of property on the edge of Auckland, overlooking the harbour, as well as the site of the main train station. When the government starts paying rent for the station, after a ten year grace period which is up in two years, they’ll have more money than they know what do with, I would think. Those of us who opted to spend the night slept on foam mattresses with sleeping bags, 30 of us in one big room. An interesting experience. It’s been a long time since I spent the night listening to that many people breathing, some quite loudly. (I was not accused of being one of the loud ones, Mary.) Finally got some rain. Lots of rain. Off and on (mostly on) from 9:00 PM to noon. But it stopped in time for the game, with the Eastern Teachers. I now have several winners of my last quiz. Winston Jackson, who taught English for many years; my partner in Babe’s Honey, Mark Pitcher; next door neighbour Rosalind Coleman; and my cousin Grant Cameron all knew that Katherine Mansfield was born in Wellington. Mark even had her last name – Beauchamp, pronounced ‘Beecham’. Best to all, and I hope you’re having as much fun as am I.
EBB TIDE
NEW ZEALAND TOUR
PART 6
Got up this morning and wandered across the road to the Parnell Rose Garden, Parnell being the suburb of Auckland where we are staying. Very impressive – I would guess two hundred varieties and about a dozen of each, including a Floribunda called ‘Ebb Tide’ Very dark purple. (See attached.) Then off to the Auckland Museum. As I have said before in one of my reports about a previous trip, I’ve never met a museum I didn’t like, and the one in Auckland is no exception. Parnell is near the Auckland Domain, a very large park which houses the museum, which is a natural history and ethnological museum and the National War Museum, three stories of everything you could imagine, and, as it’s the Easter Holidays, 1,000 mothers with 3,000 kids. One of the exhibits is ‘the world’s largest, most complete and best preserved T Rex’, yclept ‘Sue’, on loan from the States. The decibel level in the room housing ‘Sue’ must be illegal. Bedlam doesn’t begin to describe it. The war memorial floor is quite something – it has memorial rooms to the men (and women) who died in the Boer War, WW I, WWII, Korea and Vietnam (not many in the last two). Each room has, engraved in the walls, the names of the dead. The WW II names cover the four walls of a very large room.
Back to the hotel and a quiet evening. On the bus this morning up to Paihia, a resort town on the Bay of Islands, which is on the east coast about 150 km north of Auckland. The scenery is more like what I imagined New Zealand to be than we’ve seen so far: semi-tropical forest interspersed with pasture. Well, actually the other way ‘round: pasture interspersed with patches of semi-tropical forest. Norfolk pine, Kauri, and lots of stuff I don’t recognize. We stopped for a lunch break on the way, and I bought a bottle of L&P, partly because of the slogan: “World Famous in New Zealand.” Once the main soft drink of NZ, indeed once the only SDoNZ, the drink itself was okay – a fairly tart lemon concoction (the L is for lemon, the P for paeroa, a NZ fruit) but I was disappointed to read, in fine print on the back, “Produced by Coca Cola of New Zealand.” The world is indeed very small. Paihia is a typical seaside resort town of about 2,500 (winter) and 25,000 (summer). I had an interesting conversation with a couple who were working in their garden and were glad to take a break. After the usual introductions, they asked how I liked NZ.
”Well,” I said, tongue only partly in cheek, “If we’d made the trip when I was 20 or even 25 I might have stayed. Nice country.”
“I doubt that you would have,” the man told me seriously. “That would have been, what, 1970? If you’da come here in the ‘70’s you’da thought you were back in Canada in 1950. The drinking laws were archaic. Almost no-one had a car, which didn’t matter, ‘cause almost everything except food came from Britain, so none of the cars worked anyhow.” And in spite of the fact that we had the best produce in the world, everything was deep fried or overcooked.” I guess he saw something in my face, because he laughed, and said, “In most restaurants it still is, I reckon. We don’t eat out much.”
It turned out we have something in common besides gardening (actually, I don’t garden: Mary does, but I’m interested by default) – he also has an old Brit car – a 1949 MG Type YT, which was a four-seater open touring car. Very rare – they weren’t very sporty and they weren’t very practical, so not many were made (fewer than 1,000, he said), but I enjoyed looking at it. With regard to food, he’s more-or-less right: NZ is much like the U.S. south: if you can’t deep fry it, it isn’t worth eating. On the other hand, they do it better here: the oil is hot and whatever they use for oil has little flavour, so you can taste the basic ingredients. Their fish and chips are especially good: generally not too expensive and very edible. We left in the morning at the usual time. It’s about the longest distance I’ve driven for a meal since I was in university and we used to drive from Vancouver to Seattle for breakfast, but we can say we’ve seen the Bay of Islands, so I guess it was worth it.
Time for a few words about domestic architecture: in a word, uninspired. All houses must have metal roofs, by law, and that leads to sameness. Modest houses have corrugated steel, and more expensive ones have steel that looks like tile or slate, but it leads to very similar appearance. There are very few houses that have an interesting design, except in expensive suburbs. And even then, the suburb had better be a new one: the guy to whom I spoke was right – most private dwellings built in NZ before about 1990 were pretty boring. With one exception. Moderne, the domestic equivalent of Art Deco, was fairly popular here, more so than in B.C., and there are still lots of Moderne houses, characterized by round corners, glass blocks, and flat roofs with little or no overhang. Usually not very attractive, but at least different.
It is now Friday morning, and we played our last game yesterday afternoon, against the Water Rats, the NZ Navy old boys team. There were a few players under 40 on their side, and all their players were big, hard and fit. I strongly suspect that they were not playing up to their top level, and so they won by only a couple of tries. If we had played as well in our fifth game as we did yesterday, we would have won handily rather than tying. In the last minutes of the match I tackled a player twice my size and half my age and he came down on my thigh with his knee, causing me to limp through the post-game bun toss. Feels better today, but. The hotel in which we are ensconced, on the North Shore of Auckland Harbour, is The Spencer on Byron. Byron is the name of the street, and I guess someone was being clever. Strikes me as more than somewhat precious. I’ve purchased a week’s worth of internet time, as that’s the cheapest option. Sorry to keep ranting on about internet costs, but they’re ridiculous in NZ.
Auckland is called “The City of Sails”, but if they get the sort of wind we’re having today I’m not sure I’d want to sail here. ‘Blowing the dog off the chain’ is the mot juste. About 45 knots, I’d guess.
Saturday, April 25th. ANZAC Day. On the morning of April 25th, 1915 the troops of the Australian New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) landed on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey, to attack Germany’s allies the Turks. It was a disaster from the beginning, but was (and is) still seen in the two countries as their coming of age, as Canadians see Vimy Ridge. It also the most thoroughly documented day in the history of either country, as Australian Charles Bean devoted most of the first volume of his official history of the war, The story of ANZAC, to the events of the day: nine chapters and over 90,000 words. ANZAC day is the NZ equivalent to our Remembrance Day, only they take it much more seriously: every person in the country observes it. The Ebb Tide was no exception. We put on our number one dress (club blazer, grey slacks, black shoes, club tie) and marched in a minor gale with light rain to the local cenotaph, where we laid a wreath. I don’t know how many people live in this suburb, but there were 500 or so in the march to the cenotaph, and at least 1,000 in attendance at the ceremony. After the ceremony, some of the crew went to the RSA (Returned Services Assn), the equivalent of our Legion. I went down to the beach, some five minutes walk from the hotel, and went swimming. Well, body surfing, given the size of the waves coming in. The beach was packed with para-sailors and board sailors, but I managed to get out without being hit, and back in. That was enough. Not as cold as the water at home, but not a lot warmer, and hard on my thigh trying to stay upright.
It’s now 9:30, and we just returned to the hotel from watching a game between two Super 14 teams, the Auckland Blues and the somewhere-in-Oz Reds. The Super 14 League is the down-under equivalent of the NHL or the NFL or whatever. It was an interesting experience: we had tickets to the ASB lounge, which has a bar and a buffet dinner. Very civilized way to watch a game. Naturally, the crowd was cheering for the Blues, who were by far the favourites to win (by the pundits, not just the locals) but ‘twas not to be. Reds, 31; Blues, 24. And tomorrow I’m off to view a Maserati collection as the guest of the president of the Auckland Jaguar Club, and then to the airport and home. See some of you soon.
EBB TIDE NEW ZEALAND TOUR
FINAL WORD
As the Gubernator said, “I’m baaack.” And as usual with these trip tales, I’m going to provide a brief final word about my impressions of the trip – in this case, New Zealand. But first, the last day. I was picked up by a member of the Auckland Jaguar owner’s club and taken to their rendezvous point, and thence to a collection of Maseratis. There were 24 of them, owned by a guy about my age who does this as a hobby – or obsession. None of them is in the million dollar range, but some of them would be worth a fair amount - $50,000 to $100,000. All done by him with a couple of friends lending a hand. Not brilliant restorations, by and large: I saw some engine compartment work that was less than perfect, but they are all very nice drivers, as opposed to trailer-queens. The trip back was uneventful and long. On to New Zealand.
The Good
I don’t know about 20 or 30 years ago – by all accounts, NZ was the last developed country to move into the late 20th Century – but it’s now a thoroughly modern country, with all the conveniences (and some of the inconveniences) that Canadians enjoy. If I were going to leave Victoria, that’s the place I’d go. The people are wonderful, the climate is even better, I saw no pollution, prices are not as low as in places like Chile and Panama, but then, the people in NZ make a reasonable wage, and that’s the difference. Housing prices are slightly less than here, and there is exactly the same range of choice. At the middle class end of housing, I think their houses are generally less interesting than ours, but at the upper end, there’s no difference. In daily life, they have the same cars, similar appliances, same degree of comfort. There are far fewer homeless people than here: I don’t know what they do differently, but there sure is a difference in the city street scene. People seem to be happy, and they are at least as polite as Canadians. The cities and the countryside are cleaner than here, and far, far cleaner than most of the USA. If you’re a gardener, that’s the place to live. Not too hot, and in the north island, no frost, so you can grow all the semi-tropicals. By and large, I think most people garden in most parts of NZ at least as keenly as in Victoria, and that’s saying something. There are far more fruits there than here: they have everything we have, and more, including date palms (the dates don’t ripen fully) and avocados. And citrus, of course. In the north, every second house has an orange tree. Food is as good as here, about the same price, except for wine, which is cheaper (and can be bought in grocery stores), and fish, which is much cheaper. If you’re a fisherman or a hunter, that’s the place to go. No limit on fish or deer (which are not native and considered vermin), and the fish are easy to catch. 10 to 20 in a day is pretty common around most of the coast.
They’re keen on sports – rugby, of course, but basketball, baseball, field hockey, soccer, car racing, winter sports, water sports – you name it, they do it. In large numbers. With the result that there is FAR less obesity in NZ, especially among kids.
The bad
There isn’t any. The closest I can come is that their internet providers have a lock on the market, and prices are far higher than here. For instance, I pay $30 a month for internet connection, with a wireless transmitter serving as many computers as I want, and no limit on downloads. In NZ, it’s $70/month, with a 10 GB limit. Tune in to YouTube for a couple of hours, and bingo! You’re at limit. Other than that, I didn’t see anything I couldn’t live with. Oh, they have more control over your life than we do, more rules and regulations, but no-one seems to worry about it much. Do I recommend it as a vacation spot? Well, if you live anywhere but on the wet coast of NA, sure. It’s easy to travel around, great scenery, all that. If you live in Victoria or Vancouver, or anywhere similar, I’m not so sure. It’s a lot like home. If all you want is warmth in winter, Hawaii is closer and Mexico is cheaper. (And closer, but a bit more dicey.) But if you do go, consider renting a camper. Double bed, shower and toilet, $35 per day, and that’s NZ $, which are $.70 Canadian, so in our $$, that’s $25/day. What a deal. Not much traffic on the roads, 100 KPH limit, and on the open road, who cares about driving on the wrong side? Just watch the round-abouts. (Oh, year, that’s another plus. Lots of round-abouts, which keeps things moving.)
And thaaat’s all, folks. If you’d like to see pictures, let me know. I’ve got lots.