Rob and the fisherman

Facebook users will be familiar with the Memories function where they remind you of what you posted on this day in past years.

After a prompt from Facebook, at the moment I'm being reminded of the road trip I did with my sister, Tricia along the Queensland coast in 2018.  We started in Cairns, went north to Cooktown and as far north as one can venture without 4 wheel drive.  Then turned around and went south down the coast to Brisbane with many enjoyable stops in between.

Thanks to the reminder, I've spent a lot of the past few days thinking about Rob.  Someone I've never met but I have visited his grave and it made a lasting impression on me.   Rob is buried in Cooktown, in far north Queensland, right in the back corner of the cemetery.

Who was Rob I wonder?  Did no^-one really know his full name?  Obviously someone cared enough to put a marker there for him.  I wonder if there is a back story to why his grave is adorned with sticks?  I threw on a couple extra.  I got the feeling Rob wouldn't have wanted flowers.

He is listed on the FindaGrave website as Rob Unknown, with birth "unknown" death "unknown".    Maybe that is what he would have wanted.  I just think it is incredibly sad but is it any sadder than the dozens of other graves in that cemetery where, for cultural reasons, the graves of Chinese and aborigines were not marked in days gone by.  Maybe it was the simplicity of his 'headstone' that captured my imagination. 

Oh, and along with my morbid fascination with the Cooktown Cemetery I discovered that it is indeed a cemetery as compared to a graveyard which primarily refers to a burial ground within a churchyard.   Who knew?  Not me.

 

Another man we met on our travels who sometimes springs to mind is the fisherman at Hydeaway Bay in the Whitsundays.  He was pretty ancient and I say that kindly as he may not have been much older than me.  He carried evidence of years spent in the sun, a retired cane farmer, perhaps, or maybe he had always been a fisherman.

After my sister and I had enjoyed a happy  lunch and afternoon with old friends, Bill and Linda who were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary at Dingo Beach Hotel we'd gone with them and other friends to their accommodation at nearby Hydeaway Bay for a bit more celebrating.   We stayed with them the night and the next morning after they had rushed off back to their home at Airlie Beach with prior commitments, Tricia and I had a leisurely drive further around the coast and then stopped on our return for a stroll along the tree lined beach with wonderful views across the water to Gloucester Island, Saddleback Island and many more. 

It was still reasonably early, probably around 8.30 am and we were in no hurry.  Although we planned to be on the road south again that day we didn't have accommodation booked for that night so had no schedule to meet.    When we came across the fisherman putting his tinny into the water we stopped for a chat.  He was in no hurry either, explained he was waiting for his mate to turn up and go fishing with him.   But after a while he said it looked like his mate wasn't coming, he's have to push off, get going before his wife came past and saw he was heading out to sea alone.  We gathered that wouldn't be a welcome scene and gave him a wave as he headed off in that lovely sparkling sea.  There weren't any subsequent reports of men missing at sea so he must have returned safely.

Time for a change

I wonder if it's always been this time of year when I've felt this restlessness, the need for change. In some ways my spirit, my personality is solid, grounder but there's another side of me that gets restless now and then. 

A restless me to drift and roam

A quiet me to stay at home.

The quiet me has been settled the past few years but I think her cage is being rattled a bit right now.  For the past few days I've been fighting feeling rebellious, which at my age exhibits in a craving for chocolate and cream donuts and anything else that is forbidden under my current strict eating regime.  I've resisted so far but only because I know I'll suffer and be sorry if I don't.  Yesterday in the supermarket I got quite excited when I  found some gluten, dairy and lactose free chocolate biscuits.  Egg free, too, but I'm OK with eggs.  They taste like flavoured - hard to decipher which flavour - chaff.

If I had the funds I'd be off to a far away place, arctic blue or tropic green.  The places I've seen and loved - and other exotic places I've only seen in my dreams. 

I'll just have to keep focusing on the two happy occasions on my horizon until the feelings drift away.  They will.  And maybe when they return again I'll handle them better.  Who knows?  It could happen.

At the end of June there will be a happy reunion with most of my siblings in Australia.  It's been so long since we've seen each other!

And, breaking news, in November my son will be coming home from Brasil for a couple of months.  And I will get to meet and spend Granny time with little two year old Emilia.   I cry with joy every time I think of it.

Town Basin

I haven't spent as much time along the Town Basin as I used to before I retired.  It was always a good place to fill in time or to meet someone for a cuppa or a meal.  It  has been a pleasant place to spend time but the recent redevelopment has made it even more so.

The most recent addition has been the Undertwasser Art Centre, a project dedicated to Friedensreich Hundertwasser, an artist, visionary and ecological activist whose work in Kawakawa we Northlanders have been familiar with for quite some time.  The common themes in his design are bright colours, organic forms, strong individualism (to say the least) and rejection of straight lines.

A cupola covered in $50,000 worth of gold leaf sits on top of the building.  I'm pretty sure I lack appreciation of art, I just can't see the point of it, to me it makes the whole structure look sort of comical. 

 

You can see the little red boat that took us for a trip down the harbour to Limestone Harbour last week berthed nearby.

 

 

Below is the toilet which I think was built first to prove we had the craftsmen capable of completing the creation. Maybe that is an urban myth but the idea appeals to me so I choose to believe it.

 

 

 

Beyond the structure below lay landscaped grass terraces leading down to the harbour edge, making a very pleasant seating option.  There is also an interactive water feature (where, last week,  several children were having loads of fun) and a children's play space.

 

I've always been a bit hopeless with Labels on my blog.  I know I've twice before shown photos of the Waka Wave, one of the sculptures along the waterfront.  Now I know this artwork is best viewed from the water.

Sorry about the large blank space.  I left the draft for a few days hoping I could fix it but ...

 

Limestone Island

Thanks to my friend, Chris, I had the opportunity to go on a boat trip to Matakohe-Limestone Island, which sits in the Whangarei Harbour.  

 

 The M.V Waipapa docked at the island

All the boat day trippers were senior folk so the trip wasn't planned for physical activity. I would have liked to have a bit more time to wander around but I enjoyed the talk by the ranger and the time we had amongst the ruins of the old cement works. Also on the island are a couple of shipwrecks, the remains of an old school and cement works manager's home.

Originally the island was a strategic Maori Pa (Maori village defensive settlement). The little island (37 ha, just over 90 acres) has an interesting history. It lays claim to the first cement made in the Southern Hemisphere being produced there 1881 and being a thriving cement works until around 1918, when most of the buildings and equipment were moved to nearby Portland on the mainland. The island was then farmed before passing into the ownership of the Northland Harbour Board.  Portland Cement, which can be easily seen from the island, is still a major sponsor for ongoing rehabilitation on the island.

The old and the new - Portland Cement in the distance, on the left.

At one stage there were 250 workers at the cement works, 200 residents on the island.   The only human resident now are the ranger and her partner who kayaks back and forth across the harbour daily to his job off the island.  There is a flock of half a dozen sheep which keep the grass down around the ruins.

 

All that industry and later neglect left the island much worse for wear - in 1960s the island was in a degraded state with only a handful of trees remaining. Its main visitors were ships coming into port who dropped off their rubbish to be burnt in the quarantine incinerator located on the island!

Luckily a group of passionate members of the local community came along with a vision of seeing Matakohe-Limestone returned to its former glory. They became Friends of Matakohe–Limestone Island Society and have transformed the island into a regenerating forest habitat. They have planted 155,000 native trees to date and their work continues. Mammalian predators have been eradicated from the island, meaning this ‘new’ forest is now a safe home for a growing variety of threatened native fauna that have been re-introduced.

 

Angels galore

The scenic location of the HSBC building on the Auckland waterfront was lost on me.  I usually enjoy the sight of the old ferry building looking so staid and solid amongst all the high-rises.

My memory was having a good day, I remembered the Australian Consulate is on the 7th floor.  I was hoping it was the 7th floor of their current location and not the previous one.

Going up the escalator to the foyer I passed this colourful hanging artwork.  

 photo by Tiffany Singh

Had I stopped and asked for directions from the concierge I probably wouldn't have got past that point.  It didn't even enter my mind.  Somehow I knew when I'd reached the lifts but what had the shape of lift doors appeared to be more artworks.  Artworks that matched the hanging installation.  And there were no lift buttons near them.  So there I am, not even realising I'm doing my bewildered old lady act again, trying to admire these artworks whilst thinking nah, too much for me, don't like them and another female voice asks what floor I'm going to, and wouldn't you know it, she's going to the same floor and says, "Come with me."  And as if my magic, one of the artworks parts and reveals itself to indeed be a lift.  My new guardian angel explains how the lifts work, seems awfully complicated to me.

When we get out of the lift (another minor miracle she works on the same floor) and she learns I'm visiting the Australian Consulate and have no appointment she tells me I have no chance of getting in there, their security is "next level" and no-one gets in there without an appointment.  That is news to me.  I think I've followed the directions on the webpage and have come to lodge my passport renewal application in person as it says.  And anyway, I've tried for three days to ring hoping it was possible to arrange to post my application and each time after holding for over an hour a voice tells me they are unable to service my call today.  I might add that their on hold music has almost robbed me of the wish to proceed with my application.

Anyway...the consulate office is through glass doors off to our right and a large (very large) and rather surly looking security guard can be seen on the other side.  I tell my angel I'm going to bang on the doors until he looks up and sees me and she becomes quite agitated and beseeches me not to set off the security alarms.  What's left of my common sense comes to my rescue.  I stand in front of glass doors and wave my arms in the air instead.  My angel, still by my side,  is a bit disturbed by this.  What did she think might happen?

The guard hauls himself to his feet, scowling, comes over and presses the button to open the doors and my angel starts to beg for my entry.  I think she has underestimated me, I've still got it when it comes to talking.  Eventually the guard gives up explaining there's no admission without an appointment, says he will see if he can find someone to interview me, my angel says she will wait for me to take me back down in the lift again.  And the guard - did I say he was surly? my mistake - puts an arm on my shoulder and tells her he will take care of me.  And that he did.  A very nice lady came from somewhere in the depths of the building to take care of my application.  And when I was ready to leave the guard escorted me back down in the lift.  It did dawn on me that maybe he just wanted to make sure I was gone.

But the thing is.  I keep thinking about those lovely people who helped me.  Where have they all been in the past when I've been lost?   No-one rushed to my aid when I was in Thessaloniki airport in Greece trying to understand the announcements, hoping like hell I was lining up for the right flight.  Or when I was trying to get a flight attendant to understand me in Uruguay. 

Do I really look that old and helpless now?

 

Here's my passport photo, taken the day before my expediation.  I think I look more like someone who shouldn't be messed with.  And it would take a brave person to tell her she shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition.

It's a whole new world

It's a whole new world!  Progress does not stand still while I live my quiet life in the sticks.  Which if fine with me, I'm all for change and improvements.  But then comes the day I need to re-enter that brave new world and I find that the years that have been quietly passing by have stolen some of my confidence for venturing amongst those changes.

I knew I'd never find a carpark in downtown Auckland so took an easier way out.  I'd catch a train from a suburb with which I used to be very familiar.  I'd been to the building I needed to visit before and knew it was just around the corner from the downtown train terminal.  (And it was the terminal so I couldn't miss the station.)  Couldn't be a better plan. 

And then I met the first obstacle.   And the first of several kind people who came to my aid. The carpark was all changed and there were roadworks outside, I couldn't find the entrance.  I took a side road and stopped to seek assistance from two young ladies having a chat over their prams.  One gave me a withering look, obviously patience with old ladies is not her strong suit. But the other lass was lovely, walked with me to the corner so she could point out exactly where the entrance was, explained how tricky it was, and even offered to come with me if her friend would watch her pram for a few minutes.  I wasn't going to bother her grouchy friend again, that's for sure.

Next new experience was buying a ticket for the train from a machine.  Normally I think I could manage that but the arrows on this one did not respond to my touch and I was desperately trying not to punch it when a teenage Asian girl came along who knew exactly how to deal with it.  She spoke to it in very terse language (don't ask me which one) then gave me her opinion, very politely, of the Auckland rail service.  Somewhere in that conversation she decided I needed a guardian angel and she stayed by my side until she reached her station just a few stops short of mine.  Which is just as well because I find I am no longer equipped to travel city public transport on my own.   My pint size companion had no hesitation telling an old Afghan man on the other side of me to, "Leave her alone," when he invited me to go to the mall with him and when I declined said he'd come with me instead.  Three youngsters who I'd guess would be around the same age as her bumped my leg with their bikes and she told them to apologize.  Which, bless them, they did.  I wanted to give her a hug when she left.

With a definite "I've got this" attitude I left the train and headed towards the building that housed the Australian Consulate.  Note I say housed.  As in past tense.  I don't know if I could give a repeat performance of the stunned look I gave the board that tells which business is on which floor.   It appears the whole building is now private apartments.  I think this is when I started muttering to myself.  Any ageing friends, take it from me, this is the best way to get help when you need it.  Just mutter to yourself and look around in an utterly lost, bewildered fashion. 

Luckily a very beautiful, upwardly mobile looking youngish lady was passing me heading for the lifts and made a detour to the letter boxes when she spotted me.  I sometimes object when people call me "dear" in a condescending fashion but I let this one get away with it, I was so thankful that she knew where the Consulate was (were?) now located - and it wasn't very far away.

A visitor is expected at any minute so will tell you later about the next level security at the Australian Consulate.