At the castle

Margaret sits on the wishing chair.

I am a paying guest in a castle full of curiosities at Aramoana. This is Margaret’s home, sturdily and ingeniously built with twists and turns. I met Margaret at the city dump where she rescues items from the pit. She is much admired by Claire and me as having much esoteric knowledge.

In recent history, 21 years ago, there was a massacre in this small seaside village where the bush meets the sea. Margaret was here at the time and her nephew was among those killed.

In my upstairs room there is an albatross suspended by a harness. Stretched to full wingspan the bird searches glassily for a horizon.

I first thought the albatross was real but it is a display model from the peninsula albatross colony that ended up in a skip.

Margaret has a caravan in the garden that was previously up a tree but someone complained and she had to take it down. There are many small outbuildings, one just containing clothes.

The community is as quiet as can be. The windy road out here is enough to put people off coming for anything other a Sunday drive. The community lies against the sheltering arms of a huge craggy cliff that towers above. There is a surf beach where seals and sea lions bask, a breakwater and a spit.

The spit. There was a sea lion at the far end.

The man who lives next door is building an ark. This structure is the subject of a lot of council head scratching: is it a boat or a house? The chief building inspector came out last week and the 

neighbour Doi – full name ‘Just Doi’ – does his best to satisfy the council’s demands. He helped Margaret build her castle; the ark is on her land but Doi is getting ready to shift the ark to its own section.

The castle with the green cliffs in background.

Doi told me that if you see a bird and don’t know if it is an albatross or a seagull then it isn’t an albatross. He shows me albatrosses nesting on cliffs across the harbour. Through binoculars they look like white dots; their wingspan is the stuff of legends and poetry.

I walk to the beach and the people I meet on the road are as friendly as my hosts. One of them invited me in to look at her house and garden. This is a dog town, the next-door neighbour says. There are 35 dogs here. Lily fits in.

While I’m on the laptop in the albatross upper room, the Port Chambers walking group stops by the castle and the members strike a deal to view the house of curiosities. 

Middle-aged matrons with knapsacks rise up the stairwell to exclaim in the albatross room. Above the room is a loft.

The albatross in my room.

Doi says don’t tell too many people about Aramoana. The people here like it just as it is.

I’m staying here for two weeks before wending my way back to Mot via the west coast.

The castle from the road.

The caravan now out of its tree.

The walking group troup to the ark.

The road not taken

Bear with me if you don't like poetry.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,


And sorry I could not travel both


And be one traveler, long I stood


And looked down one as far as I could


To where it bent in the undergrowth;



Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim


Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there


Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay


In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh


Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—


I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost 1915

 ...

Black poppies at Dunedin's Botanic Garden.

The state of uncertainty has a bad press but not embracing it denies the seeds of growth. The alchemy of turning an uncertain situation into ways forward is tackled in the new book by a blogger I follow Jonathon Fields.  The book is called ‘Uncertainty’ and it’s about turning fear and doubt into fuel for brilliance. http://www.theuncertaintybook.com/

Writing my blog is an attempt to deal with uncertainty and consider choices.

My aim is to explore and try to be comfortable with the “stuck” space between choices without resorting to fight or flight.  

Keats called it Negative Capability—the skill ‘of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts’. It is about being conscious and realizing there is infinity of choice.

I’m in the interface between outdated concepts of work and home as I knew them eight months ago and the components of a new life still being tested and considered.

Edyta sent me a text: ‘I trust the process of life. All I need is always taken care of. I’m safe. Repeat till the fear of lack of money is gone.’

Louise at Bluff.

I gave up certainty and comfort to live more edgily for a time. The reorganization of my former workplace left me feeling compromised to the point where I could barely function according to my lights. It was and is time to find a new niche.

Choosing to move from place to place I’ve taken the path less traveled. And I trust that will make all the difference.

 …

There is some to tell on the travel front.

Despite its chilly weather patterns Dunedin is a beautiful city. I love the proliferation of Victorian and Edwardian buildings. There are hardly any monstrosities of conspicuous consumption as in Auckland.  The baches or cribs on the peninsula have been allowed to remain as is where is. So refreshing! But I couldn’t settle here.

On one of my first Dunedin nights we - Claire, Gilbert, Violet, Malcolm, Kate and Dan – ate up large at the wonderful restaurant The Asian.

We three.

Claire and Dan Bell.

Dan’s exhibition was the Rice and Beans gallery’s last show and several nights later the experimental art community marked the event with mean cocktails. The end of Rice and Beans coincides with the gallery’s invitation to exhibit for two months at the prestigious ArtSpace in Auckland. This is a really big thing for the founders of R and B, Claire, Gilbert and Al. I’m particularly pleased for Claire to be taking art to her hometown.

Staying in Louise’s vegan household meant not consuming any unmentionables on the premises. I appreciated the welcoming attitude of this lovely bunch of people. Rory whose parents own the house cultivates vegetables on every possible space. Coriander grows from bathtubs in the front garden and there is a wilderness of edibles out the back.

At the public art gallery I became engrossed in a talk by historian Professor Dame Ann Salmond who was discussing tapu. In the late 19^th century Maori, European and Tahitians consented to have their heads cast in plaster and their moulded likenesses have languished away in the storerooms of a Paris museum. NZ photographer Fiona Pardington’s large-scale photographs brought them back to life.

Salmond marveled that the cast maker persuaded Maori chiefs to have their heads used in this way (they had to be partially shaved) considering the tapu-ness of their chiefly heads.

Louise and Nick: old Taupaki friends.

Louise and I set off for the deeper south in the trusty Pissan Nulsar. At Balclutha we stopped to say hello to our long time Taupaki neighbour Nicholas Pickolas who was on the verge of moving back to Wellington to round off his medical studies. We sat chatting in the main street; vegan Nick scraping dairy product off his sandwich.

Nick has a healthy disregard for the medical model; he says mainstream doctors earn too much, consider themselves above the herd and refuse to accept alternative theories.  He will make a difference somewhere.

Wongy's at Balclutha.

Ate an oyster pie at Bluff in a café owned by a native of Los Angeles. Was not overwhelmed by the general look of southland; the pastoralists have had things too much their own way.

Papatowai.

At Papatowai village we found a perfect rustic cottage to use as a base. The bush meets the sea in this Catlins’ landscape where the population is measured in the small dozens. The bush meets sea aspect is rare in NZ and the bush has the look of being untouched by fire. From Papatowai we roamed around the district.

 Back in Dunedin and after staying again with Lou and a couple of r and r nights in a motel, I’m now staying with Claire at an artists’ community and gallery in the city. It’s called ‘none’ and tonight I’m dusting off my old habit of dressing as a nun for a show tonight. Sunday I go to stay at Aramoana.

…..

Travels with Lilyput resumes

Time for some new experiences. I finally made it to Harwood's Hole with the walking club. Check out this photo of the lake. Yup. It's hobbit country all right. The Hobbit film makers have booked in locally, specifically near this atmospheric place.

I've also enjoyed getting mucky with clay at the Motueka Pottery Club and making new friends at the Mot newcomers' coffee mornings.

Sarah and Laura from Bavaria. 

Then several Couchsurfers turned up. Chris bought groceries for her two-night stay; this was much appreciated. It is certainly not expected and I don't think any the less of the other travellers who didn't. Everytone contributes in their own way to this energy exchange. Luca the man from Rome and I watched some cool black and white movie DVDs; South African Cuan was a real cheer germ/all around good guy and the German girls Sarah and Laura were just so easy to host.

Dad loved to say that I collected these travellers “off the street”, whereas there is a website and a good process of references so you get a pretty reasonable idea of what your visitors will be like.

Ready for a break from Motueka I hung about until the last surfer left and then drove south.

…

Heading for Dunedin to see the girls, I decided not to bust a gut driving long distances, so a mere two hours from Mot, we returned to the Kiwi animal park at Murchison. It’s now a favourite flopping place, especially cosy cabin 13. Lynn who runs the place is so friendly. It was her birthday so I made a card and gave her the book I’d just finished about women travellers. I particularly liked the story about the woman who traded her only pair of sandals for some tobacco leaves. In Africa! Yes, I know how that can feel.

To each his or her own: Murchison ducks go their own way.

Always intrigued by place names, I noted Rainy River Rd, Macbeth and Blackadders Road before the Lewis Pass. The sign at St James (sic) Walkway asked that visitors Toitu te whenua (leave the land undisturbed). All very DOC-PC: pity people who organise the signs can’t do apostrophes.

We stopped at Tophouse, an old watering hole above St Arnaud, famous for someone topping himself way back and for being NZ’s smallest pub. On the pass itself, there is a small settlement of maybe 12 dwellings at the Boyle River Settlement. These were all modest unlike those in the Alpine village of Hanmer that attracts so many campervans and scads of generic young people. By the last statement I mean that they all look the same not just because they’re young but because they tend to favour the same mode of dress.

…

Kate and Ken’s home, an old church at Oxford, was ideally placed for my travels. It was easy to find for someone who is geographically challenged (I find Christchurch a challenge). Lily and I were treated to a beautifully comfortable bed in K and K's big bus. Kate, my ex Jim’s younger sister is a fabric artist par excellence. She was busy negotiating a long-term supply of carded wool for her felting. It’s not so much the wool; it’s the carding process that’s turned awkward for small traders.

It appears that NZ’s carding plants are scarce, since some of the hugely expensive carding machinery has been taken to China. Think brands like Icebreaker that manufactures in Dragon Land. Kate’s home-based business Heavenly Wools is set to go up a notch as a result of this sourcing problem. It’s a wise trader who knows how important it is to fulfil orders promptly.

I was sad to leave after just a night because they had made me so welcome; they even invited me on an excursion to Lake Sumner that I had to decline. Ken said the fact that I could not be flexible with my time means that I am not entirely “free” yet. But then there’s the old adage to keep in mind that visitors start to stink after two days. We all had a hilarious session with artists Mark and Areta. The latter turns out to be the niece of Liz Wilkinson, a good pal from Bethells. NZ is such a village!

Apropos of nothing, Ken makes some mighty fine scary looking knives.

…

Lizzy Kramer's new Doc Martens.

I was welcomed back to the Christchurch Kramer whanau where my sister Bridget, husband Simon and their three children are so hospitable. The Ks have just returned home having their house fixed by the earthquake commission. Number 8 Trent Street has had a fresh coat of paint, new paths and plumbing fixed to the tune of around $40,000.

The family is in thrall to Oscar the Cairn terrier.  Oscar was an inspired buy during the season of earthquakes. He and Lily are pretty good friends. Miss Fancy Pants is getting nastier as she ages, but Oscar is such a force of nature, he eventually overcomes all objections. Lily’s personality is glacial compared to Oscar’s; he thrusts himself about.

Bridget and I shared some thoughts about our Dad’s continued well-being and the pitfalls for him living alone.  What is to be done? When?

…

I’d always heard about the Canterbury town of Geraldine. People say how pretty it is. I felt it was a bit on the “all fur coat and no knickers” side of things: a bit showy for my taste.

I liked Waimate better. Six kilometres from the Highway 1, just before Oamaru this small town hasn’t had the “Resene colour palate chucked at it.” So says my son-in-Gilbert. I found the town’s drabness refreshing in a landscape of tourist trap towns. Waimate the wallaby town says take us or leave us. (Later on I will pass through the “town of opportunities”.  Such breathtaking hyperbole in Milton! But I’m getting ahead of myself.)

Found a superb $10 duvet and cover in the Waimate’s Red Cross shop for Louise. That night's lodgings was another animal park but I couldn’t be bothered paying the $6 fee to see the animals, as I wanted to leave early to see the girls.

It was pleasant to linger in courteous Oamaru long enough to have several passers by asking if I was lost. It’s OK I just look that way. I stumbled into an imposing Oamaru stone building on main street and only later realised it was the Opera House. Down by the sea Bobby Sands lives on in graffiti.

.....

A lone bagpiper plays outside the Scottish Shop in George Street. The night after Guy Fawkes I spot two burned couches in one street. This must be Dunedin! (To be continued.)