“It’s retro night in Kiwiland. This place hasn’t been here 400 years, but the spirit of it is older.”
PlanningThis was just a short hop — three weeks in NZ and a couple more in Oz. The plan was to nail down my ancestors in Gisborne, then back to Oz to check out the job scene in Sydney before heading up to brisbane to see how Mom was settling into her new home.
Itinerary ...
I’d have liked to go north and see where great-great grandfather Arthur Parnell tried his hand at farming, but I wasn’t sure I could find the spot.
It felt odd not to be going to Wanganui. For obvious reasons a stop there had been mandatory on all my previous visits.
As it happened, discoveries put Eketahuna on the itinerary. Something had to go, and it was Te Aroha.
It was almost the worst time of year to visit NZ — certainly the wettest — but that’s just the way the timing worked out. By the end of the year, just when the weather was due to start coming good, I would have to start thinking about working. However, at this stage I wasn’t sure where I wanted to work or live. I thought it might be time to say goodbye to Melbourne and seek warmer climes, and I was thinking Sydney, hence my reconnaisance there on this trip.
There’s a lot of family history in this; I’m probably doxxing myself more than is healthy. I’ve avoided including details of people born less than 100 years ago, or who died less than 50 years ago.
Contents
ChristchurchBy late August, the cherry blossoms were out. In a couple of days, Autumn would begin in the northern hemisphere, and in some past years that meant I would be preparing to chuck stuff in a pack and head north for the Forever Autumn. But not this year. I had already been to Europe this year, during its wet and dismal Spring. Now I was going to New Zealand, during its wet and dismal Spring. For me, 2008 was The Year With Two Springs.
September 1st dawned dry and sunny, the sky scattered with puffy white clouds. Pacific Blue flight NZ792 bore a painted image on its cheek, a shapely blonde woman in a blue bikini top and denim cut-offs, flying like Superwoman, trailing a blue flag declaring “fly pacific blue”. Beneath her was the plane’s name, “Bewitching Broome”. We took off to the west at 09:00 then curved left to head east, passing above central Melbourne at 09:19. I enjoyed the rare perspective. Normally I’d be headed north-west for Europe or north-east for North America, or else Melbourne would be clamped beneath clouds.
By 13:42 NZ time (11:42 Melbourne time) NZ’s Southern Alps were in sight. Five minutes later, we were passing above them. Five minutes after that, we burst out over the Canterbury Plains. By 14:00 we were above Christcurch, the first time I had seen that city from the air. We were on the ground on time at 14:20.
I took the Red Bus into town and checked into Charlie B’s Backpackers, in the former YWCA Building in Madras Street. It was well located, a few minutes walk from Cathedral Square. Alas, the building suffered damage in the February 2011 earthquake and was demolished for safety in March 2011. It’s an empty lot today.
All this was prior to the two devasting earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 that tore the heart from the city, and Cathedral Square was looking its best. The Cathedral, apparently indestructible. The Citizens/Soldiers War Memorial gleamed darkly. A signboard said “chess” (people were playing the game on a massive board set in the pavement). The little 2.5-km tram was running. The statue of John Robert Godley, founder of the Canterbury colony, had a seagull standing atop its head.
I headed northeast to Victoria Square, where Captain Cook’s statue was gazing daggers at Vickie’s unamused back. On a monument to the River Avon’s weeping willows, a mallard duck looked startled as I pointed my camera at it.
I followed the Avon south to the Courthouses, crossed, then headed north on the other bank. The duck was still on the monument.
I wandered the city a while longer, but have no memory of the evening. My last photo was Trades Hall at 17:19, and alas, I did not keep a Budget spreadsheet on this trip.
I started my day with breakfast in the Square, amused by a pair of seagulls playing dominance games outside for the non-existent pickings at the vacant tables there. Then I headed to the Museum.
What brought me to Christchurch was an account of the voyage of a ship that brought some of my ancestors to NZ. They were the McKinnons, from Ayshire in Scotland. From a passengers index I found the family at the time comprised “McKINNON John 29 wheelwright Ayrshire, Isabella 27, James 5, John 4, William M. 2, Sarah Infant.” Those who've read Part 1 (Europe) of Fathers’ Footsteps will recall John and Isabella from my visit to Ayshire. The John McKinnon here is the one born in 1849, who emigrated to NZ in 1879.
The account of the voyage is clean and crisp, and helps understand my ancestors’ experience at 145 years remove, so with your indulgence I present an abridged version of a summary that I emailed to my family in 2008. The ultimate author is unknown but appears to be male.
On 4th June 1879 many passengers were taken out from Plymouth aboard the steam tender Sir Francis Drake to the Glen Lora, which was anchored in Plymouth Sound. The GL was “a very pretty iron barque” of 773 tons.
Berths were segregated. Single women were placed aft and the poop deck was reserved for them. Single men were placed forward, in a bunkroom with 9 or 10 men sleeping alongside each other separated only by a thin board. Married people and families were placed amidships in messes of 8 to 10 each. They slept in bunks that looked like shelves, with more shelves above them to hold their everyday items — there were no tables or chairs.
About daybreak on Thursday 5th June 1879 — perhaps 5 AM — the anchor was weighed to the sound of clanking and sea chanties. About 6 AM the steam tug Secret towed them out of harbour. She cast them off in a heavy swell a few miles clear of the breakwater and by the time the Eddystone Lighthouse appeared, seasickness had already broken out aboard.
On Sat 7, they sighted a large troopship. A few days later they entered the Bay of Biscay. On Fri 13, they saw whales in the distance. On Sat 14, the sailors improvised a band — potato tin drum, marling spike triangle, tin whistle, fife, and accordian. They also had their first fire drill. On Sun 15 they sighted Madeira.
The next few days were spent bowling through the NE trade winds in beautiful weather. The account says, “If it is beautiful in the day time it is even more so in the nighttime especially if it is moonlight. The glorious constellations shining above, the moonlit sea, the gentle ripple of the water under the bows, around which dolphins are to be seen disporting themselves and leaving phophorescent tracks of light behind and the sails, which, filled and expanded by the breeze are so motionless that you could almost fancy them cut out of marble.” Since the moon was a waning crescent by the 15th, with New Moon on the 19th, the author was obviously indulging in a little romanticism here.
On Thu 26 they passed the Lass of the South bound from Rangoon to London, and the GL passengers were given 15 minutes in which to scribble letters for the other ship to carry to England. The ships passed close enough to see monkeys climbing in the rigging of the Lass, and to give each other three hearty cheers.
By Sat 28 they had lost the trades and were into the horse latitudes, with repeated thunderstorms and torrential rain. When it rained the hatches were covered and the belowdecks suffocated. “The only thing I can compare it to is a bakers oven and the smell of boiling human flesh heightens the illusion as you can fancy they are sunday dinners being cooked in it.”
About 4 AM on Thu 3 July they crossed the “mysterious line” (the Equator) and by Saturday were approaching the coast of Brazil. The weather had improved and the passengers had indulged in improvised concerts and dancing, particular interest being added to the latter by the roll of the ship. On Sun 6 they sighted the Brazilian coast from a distance. On Thu 10 “an entertainment was given by a troupe of Minstrels styling themselves the Snowdrops and whose adieux was proclaimed by extensive advertising.”
On Sat 12, they sighted the ship Appendix of Liverpool, bound for Madras. But the winds had turned against them and the voyage was expected to be “Materially lengthened”.
On Sat 19th the author found “nothing much of interest” to note — obviously the long dull sea leg was starting to bite. However, having noted that nothing of interest had happened he then noted that on the 16th the Snowdrop minstrels performed again and that on Fri 18, whales sported around the ship, close enough to jump on their back had the passengers felt so inclined. They were also now well south and the days were getting shorter and colder.
On Sat 26 the author commented on the colder weather and noted that a 12 mth old baby had died after a long illness and had been buried at sea the next day at 6 AM.
On Sat 2 Aug the author noted they were “experiencing winter in real earnest” and had passed the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope the previous day. The ship was pitching and rolling badly in a chasing sea. They sighted a clipper ship (name apparently unreadable) out of London that quickly outdistanced them. It’s worth noting that the immigrant ships routinely went far south in the Atlantic, in order to pick up the Roaring Forties, which significantly shortened the journey time on the long leg east.
After this the author went into decline for a while, because his next note was Wed 27 Aug, and began “Land Ho!” The bad weather obviously broke, because he noted that “since my last entry” they had experienced splendid weather and strong westerlies that pushed the ship along at an average 250 miles per day. They had sighted the Prince Edward Islands about the 13th. In the whole voyage “no very bad weather [was] experienced” and there had been one death and one birth. But now “the Snares which is the name of a group of barren rocks to the Southward of New Zealand are in sight”.
The final entry was dated Sat 30 Aug 1879, noting that about 7 PM they sighted the lighthouse at Lyttelton Heads, but that as it was a dead calm, they had to wait to be towed into port by a steam tug. About 9:30 PM, the Glen Lora dropped anchor in Lyttelton Harbour, fired a gun twice and let off a couple of rockets to signal that an English vessel with Emigrants had arrived.
My only regret here is that I got so absorbed with looking up other stuff that could as easily have waited until Wellington, that I forgot to actually go down to Port Lyttelton to see for myself the bay where the Glen Lora anchored. Street View just isn’t the same as the naked eye.
My last day of research in Christchurch was my most productive for genealogy, but I’ll spare you the detail. I spent the day in the Library and have no photos. I had been unable to find out more about the doings of the McKinnons in Christchurch (I was still getting used to the records system), but other investigations were more fruitful. I had tracked down many ancestors and filled out my itinerary.
PictonAt 07:00 my InterCity coach pulled away from its Worcester Street stop and headed north — in the rain. The vehicle was modern, it was warm, and best of all, it was perfect for killing a cold, dismal day on the Kaikoura Coast while moving base from one city to another. We stopped for a half hour meal break in Kaikoura around 09:30, which gave me the opportunity to admire some whale-rib arches that recycled material left over from the whaling days and to see an old settler house. Continuing on, we encountered roadworks about 10:40 where the rain had brought down a slip over the road. By 10:45 we were racing alongside the TRANZ Scenic train service. The bus won, narrowly.
We arrived in Picton around 12:20 outside the entrance of the Interislander Ferry Terminal. I had already picked out a nearby backpackers.
I kicked the afternoon away, watching the inter-island ferries and visiting the local Museum. I also walked up Wellington Street, where my great-grandmother lived in 1916 after divorcing my great-grandfather. My grandfather was 20 at the time and was soon to go off to war. I knew she lived in Wellington Street because that was the address Grandad gave the army as next-of-kin, but I was not sure where in Wellington Street she lived. Presumably at the time Picton was less built-up and street numbers were not required. Even today the population was only around 4,000.
13:38 Picton. Was waiting to watch the ferry go out at 13:15 but I’d say it’s actually due out at 14:00, so due to persistent rain I’ve decided to hide out in a café to pass the time. What’s the equivalent of “chilling out” when you’ve come in out of the cold? Defrosting?
The Museum had an extensive collection of whaling odds and ends including "go ashore" pots, whaling guns, whale cochlea, scrimshaw on whale teeth, and implements. I was impressed by tooth decay evident in the roots of some orca teeth.
There was also a display and antique specimen of the Pederson Bicycle, a device still manufactured today. Of limited utility in the hilly Sounds, I thought.
On Friday I took the Mail Boat Tiri Cat out to Torea Bay, the dock for the Portage Hotel.
The Portage was the source for some pleasant memories from 1985, from my time working on a mussel ranch. Back then it was a popular drinking hole for the local farmers and fishermen of the Marlborough Sounds, still slightly rough around the edges. Today it had gone upmarket and called itself a “Resort”, but without much effort I found the same terrace I remembered from all those years ago, though now it was backed by an expensive restaurant rather than a bar. But it was the food that was expensive — you could still drink the afternoon away there quite cheaply.
I’d had plans of doing some short walks in the area, but it drizzled all day, only easing up a bit when it was far too late to walk anywhere. Still, I had fun and managed to transcribe my Christchurch notes from paper to silicon, so it wasn't a wasted day. I relaxed, watched the rain over the Sounds, sipped beer, tapped industriously on the iPaq, and generally enjoyed myself.
All in all I am in high spirits and feeling very, very relaxed. :)
Tomorrow I was booked on the mid-morning ferry to Wellington, where I planned to spend almost a week on geneological research and extracting birth, death and marriage printouts for key ancestors. Today was just for fun.
Next day started with sunshine and blue skies. How did that happen? The place looked all bright and sparkly, and the surrounding hills stood out. But all too soon, the clouds began drifting in between the peaks. I retreated to the Museum, where I perused their dispays of pictures of Old Picton, including several focused on Wellington Street.
My ferry was Kaitake (Challenger), the former Isle of Innisfree / Pride of Cherbourg / Stena Challenger, the largest ship in the inter-islander fleet. The 10 AM sailing of a smaller ferry had been cancelled due to rough weather in Cook Strait. That wasn’t an issue in Queen Charlotte Sound, and the cruise up the channel was exquisitely beautiful in the sunshine.
Lookout Bar aboard the Kaitaki. I was originally booked on the 10 AM ferry that was cancelled. At least the weather finally dried up and even turned sunny!
Wanted a beer. Found out that the largest beer sold on the Kaitake is 425 ml; for some reason, if you want 500 ml you need to catch the Arahura!
15:29 Out in Cook Strait at last. It’s not as rough as some people have been predicting, but the ship is moving a bit despite its size — a long slow roll. I have retreated to the Karori Rip to thaw out. The wind chill on deck is ferocious — it sinks into the bones. It was worse before I discovered that a minute or two under the hot air hand driers in the washrooms works wonders.
The weather continued sunny as we ground our way along the rugged edge of the North Island and up into Port Nicholson, docking about 17:00.
WellingtonI found a backpackers place literally two minutes from the Library, which was convenient. My next five days were very exciting, for me, but would make a dull travelogue so I’ve omitted them here. Wellington was long-known territory for me, so I did no touristy exploration. The main immediate consequence of my research was that I dropped Te Aroha from my itinerary and put Eketahuna into it. I mostly ate in Courtenay Place, Cuba Mall and other nearby places, but I remember no details that I can pin to this visit.
Most of the family is becoming clearer, except the McKinnons. John McKinnon has a talent for hiding that equals that displayed by Edward Parnell. Every so often he pops up a child, but I haven’t been able to positively identify him anywhere.
Actually he had left lots of traces that I found later; I just hadn’t looked in the right places. However, I did have one key location: his grave.
Next stop Eketahuna, an overnight stop to visit the grave of John McKinnon, then a long run through to Gisborne.
EketahunaOn a rain-swept hillside in Eketahuna, I found the graves of great-great grandfather John McKinnon and his wife Isabella, parents of the Major Hugh McKinnon whose grave I had seen at Le Quesnoy. The stone had been broken off and was lying face-up in the enclosure, but it was still legible.
IN MEMORY OF
ISABELLA wife of JOHN McKINNON,
who died Aug 31st 1907, aged 55 years
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
also
JOHN McKINNON
died at Auckland April 22nd 1925. aged 76.
“UNTIL THE DAY BREAK”
The Song of Solomon was popular with my ancestors. Robert Golding Hills used the same line on his grave in Maidstone. They had lived in the Wairarapa from at least 1899, first in Carterton and finally in Newman, 3 km north of Eketahuna. I have no idea why they decided that Mangaoranga Road Cemetery at Eketahuna was the place they wanted to lie, perhaps they just liked the spot, but I had chased them across half a world. This was closure. I stood at their graveside and I wished them peace.
Eketahuna. What can I say about Eketahuna? There is a pseudo-place in New Zealand, Waikikamukau (Why kick a moo-cow). It's that legendary place that every country has, where the sheep grow knitted wool and cows have two long legs on one side to help them walk along the hillsides. Eketahuna is generally understood to be Waikikamukau’s reality-shadow.
As Wikipedia says, “Eketāhuna has become synonymous with stereotypes of remote rural New Zealand towns, with New Zealanders colloquially referring to the town in the same way other English speakers refer to Timbuktu.”
Eketahuna means “stuck on a sand bank”. It’s a pleasant town, population around 500. You know you’re there when you see the two giant Kiwi — one is a statue in the round, the other (see title picture for this report) is a flat board construction that, in 2008, was above the Information Centre. I wish I knew who made that: it is superb. (For scale, that red bar across the left foot is the back of a park bench. I couldn't edit that out without leaving a gap or having to fake the missing gam.)
Eketahuna’s not even remote; it’s in the Wairarapa on State Highway 2, about midway between Masterton and Woodville.
Friday night was pub night.
19:25 White haired gent and girl about 10, obviously grandfather and granddaughter: she wide-eyed at this night on the town. Bunch of rough farmboys playing the Kiwi Krane. One with dreads and hat wins a teddy, comes across and gives it to her. A middle class couple sits at the far table and he pretends indifference while she people watches.
The juke box tells us the lion sleeps tonight. She looks at me with big brown eyes and says, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet — sittin’ on the dock of the bay. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle. My porterhouse steak is half an inch thick, and the salad has red radish.
It’s retro night in Kiwiland. This place hasn’t been here 400 years, but the spirit of it is older.
Yeah, I liked Ekatahuna; but attempting to live there would drive me crazy.
GisborneOnward in the morning, first to Woodville, then on to Napier, a break in Waikare, and an evening arrival in Gisborne.
The sunset looked promising, so I went for a walk to James Cook’s October 1769 landing site, then up a path on the hill behind it to where statues of Cook and his seaman Young Nick made strange shapes against the darkening sky. There’s a memorial nearby built by the local iwi to honour their ancestor Te Maro, who was shot and killed by one of Cook’s men.
I got a couple of good shots of the nearly-full Moonrising over the hill. Venus was bright in the sky. I tried to get a photo of the planet balanced on Nicks's fingertip, but it came out blurred.
I finished my perambulation with a quick check of the Williams Memorial Library opening hours for tomorrow.
I hired a bicycle for Sunday. My first stop in the morning, after a quick reprise of the Cook and Nick show, was my Hills great-grandfather’s home, which was long gone and locked behind a gate besides.
On to Matuheru Cemetery, where I ferretted out the grave-site of my great-great grandparents, Arthur (“AP”) and Frances Parnell. Alas, the site had been vandalised and the stone removed, a common problem in that part of the cemetery, but I was able to more or less locate the spot based on the stones on surviving plots. I then crossed a bridge and found the relatively well preserved graves of my great grandparents, Charles and Rose Hills, parents of that CFRG Hills whose grave I had seen in Le Quesnoy.
That cleaned up three of the four graves I had been seeking this trip. The fourth, for Batten, was in Marton, and somehow I overlooked it in my planning and excution in both 2008 and 2009. Someday …
I then cycled out to Patutahi, where the older half of the migrant Hillses had settled, but that touches living relatives, so I’ll elide it here.
I sought out the locations of AP’s store and home. The store may be (or may not be; I couldn’t find the records) the original building. His house had been demolished and the section I looked at was empty. Except I’d picked the wrong address!
On Tuesday I found my grandfather’s house, and the houses where my grandfather had lived and my father was born.
Corrected some research errors, notably that of the address of AP’s house. In fact, there was a house on the corrected section, but it was too new. The erasure of the Parnell footprint in Gisborne was nearly complete.
AucklandAfter a friendly farewell from the hostel’s tailless cat, I was on the road again early in the morning. The bus passed through Opotiki, Ohope, Whakatane, Kawerau, all placenames from my personal or family past. Just after noon, at Tikitere (“Hell’s Gate”), just outside Rotorua, the bus blew a tire, causing an almost two hour delay. If I had known it would take that long, I could have visited the therml area. Even so, by 17:47 we were in Auckland.
Walking through Auckland, I found a memorial to the Rev. John Frederick Churton. Shame about the typo. “His work^s do follow him”.
I have little to say about Friday through Tuesday (all spent on genealogy research), but I did spend part of Saturday sightseeing in central Auckland. I was paricularly taken by a clever visual gag on an old building in Lorne St, opposite the Auckland Public Library. Five of six windows were cemented over; the sixth appeared to be an open window, with a young mother and child peering from it, but in fact it was a window frame backed by a charming mural. The building is gone now, but is still visible in 2008/2009 Street View.
At the Library I filled in more of John McKinnon’s backtrail, and read details on the resolution of a squabble on my side of the family over intestate inheritances.
I filled in details of AP’s first years in NZ, from the voyage to buying his farm, to ending up in hospital with a broken leg, and thence going south. His brother later turned up to unsuccessfully claim the abandoned land, and wrote a letter that was most informative — placing the events in a whole new perspective.
Below is a considerably abridged summary of a tale of this voyage of the Merrington recorded many years later by an ancestor. I don’t own the original. I’ve corrected some errors and obscured family names that are not relevant. AP here is Arthur Parnell. Contrast with the tale of the Glen Lora.
The Merrington, converted to a passenger ship, set sail 8 Apr 1867 [departed London 10 Apr], Captain Graham commanding. AP, his wife and brother were in Steerage. They had apparently tried for First Class on another ship owned by the same company, but somehow that fell through. Unable to get a refund, AP decided to travel steerage rather than wait for a later boat. The journey lasted five months.
Boarding passengers had to climb up a narrow rope ladder hung over the side. AP’s wife was dismayed by the accommodation, which was a long cabin with a table down the centre and seats either side, dimly lit by tins of tallow with a wick in the centre. Wives prepared the food, men cooked it in the ship’s galley in “ook pots”, shaped like a jug with a hook where the spout would be, that hooked on the ledge of the galley stove.
“The weekly rations included flour, oatmeal, salted butter, dessicated potatoes (never fresh ones), peas, tea, raisins, sugar and preserved milk. It was reported that the Captain had an interest in the ship and as his next voyage was to India he was afraid of running short of provisions, so he rationed the rations. They were without oatmeal for four weeks, another time entirely without lights, and on another occasion one candle had to last for one week. For several days in the tropics they were one quart of water short each day and two quarts short from August 23 to the day of landing (11th September). No preserved meat from July (no fresh meat at any time). The coffee was unground and unroasted because the coffee mill was broken. For puddings they grated hard ships biscuits and mixed them with raisins and preserved milk. They were told that any extra provisions they required could be purchased on board, but the only item was cheese at 2/6 per lb.”
Off the long cabin were lattice doors that slid back to enable married couples to get to their double bunks, partitioned off in fours, the partitions the same height as the upper bunks. They had to sit on their bunks to dress and undress as there was no standing room. Children shared these bunks with their parents. AP protested the conditions, and the Captain consented to allow him to move, for a price. Some cargo was moved, and the ship’s carpenter built a small cabin next to the Purser. “Occasionally a small welcome addition to their rations came this way.” There were also about 70 young women emigrants aboard, who had separate quarters.
The ship was becalmed for three weeks in the tropics for three weeks. When crossing the line, old Father Neptune came aboard. This degenerated into a riot when the sailors got drunk on the grog some passengers bought them in a failed attempt to avoid participating in the festivities. “One day in a fit of temper, the Captain threw the Cook’s dog overboard. The Cook was overboard like a shot and there was a cry of “man overboard.” The ship was stopped and both Cook and dog were saved.” On another occasion someone chucked AP’s wife under the chin, leading to more pandemonium as a knife-wielding AP hunted for the offender, who hid among the livestock until things cooled down. Concerts and dances were held.
On 11 Sep [28 Sep] the Merrington arrived in Auckland. “It was a very hot day.” The Parnells stayed first at a boarding house called “The Blue Flag”, and afterwards moved to a cottage in Abercrombie Street [modern St Paul St] “on the left hand side of the wharf”.
If you start at the modern ferry wharfs and walk up Queen St, you do indeed veer left into Wakefield St to reach St Paul St after about a 20 minute walk. I have been unable to locate the site of the “The Blue Flag” boarding house.
While researching, I even found an amusing note about the Merrington. It seems that while she was being unloaded in Auckland in early September 1867, a case of booze slipped from a sling and 4 bottles of “Old Tom’s” were broken. Captain Graham wrote a letter petitioning — successfully — for a tax recission on the broken bottles, 7s2d.
All in all, a pretty satisfactory few days’ research, although e.g. the Merrington account above came to me through family sources; this was simply the logical place to fit it in.
I spent most of Wednesday out on the harbour, riding the ferries. In Evergreen Books at Devonport, on the north shore, I found a copy of M J G Smart and A P Bates’ The Wanganui Story,ending a multi-year quest for this excellent history of my home town.
I don't care for Auckland much more now than I did last time I was here (1985 I think, not counting a change of planes at the airport in 2000). In fact, I stayed in the same area, too. But I didn't visit a massage parlour this time. ;)
About 17:30, NZ707 lifted off, and I said goodbye to NZ until another year. About 19:00,q I landed in Sydney.
SydneyI learned a valuable travel lesson at the baggage claim. Security came through with the sniffer dog, and the wretched beast went into a veritable orgy of sniffing at MY day pack! It didn't sit down, but there was obviously something getting up its nose. Since I had nothing to hide and was totally at a loss as to what could be interesting the beast, I voluntarily unzipped the bag. At which point the dog lost interest.
And then I remembered. I bought my lunch from a Subway store in central Auckland, figuring it would be cheaper than an airport meal. I had carried that roast chicken Sub in my day pack for several hours, eating it shortly before passing through security to board my flight. I'd kept my bag zipped up during the flight. The dog smelt the fresh chicken! Once the bag was open, the aroma dispersed and of course the dog lost interest. I explained the situation. “That’d do it,” said the guard, and moved on.
But I was sweating there for a moment. You see, they had signs up. The TV show Border Patrol was being filmed that evening — and I had horrified visions of “starring” in a future episode!
SydEny hadn’t changed much in the decade since I’d last been here. Centrepoint Tower, the Monorail, parks, fountains, the Opera House, and bin chickens. Yep, yep and yep. I said so in an email:
Sydney. Big, brash, full of itself. The grubby area north of Central station, once bursting with seedy hotels catering to down-at-heels carpet baggers, now bursts with seedy backpacker hostels catering to well-heeled backpackers. They're all so young!
The place seems smaller. I remember an enormous city with throngs of people and booming traffic. Perhaps it has shrunk. I went down to the Opera House and there was the Harbour Bridge, sticking out of The Rocks, just across Circular Quay, astonishingly close. Contrast this with Auckland, which was much larger than I remembered. Auckland is of course actually rather smaller than Sydney, but it has a wider, shallower harbourfront and the central attractions are scattered about a bit more.
In Sydney, there was sunshine and no rain. I spent most days deep in geneological research, but on Saturday, a little cabin-crazy from research, I finally did a tour of the big coathanger, which was an excellent investment of my time. The weather was perfect for the excursion. I went on to explore The Rocks and to ascend Centrepoint. Fun day!
BrisbaneOn Tuesday I flew out of Sydney at 20:05, and landed in Brisbane at 21:35. I made my way to what turned out to be an unsatisfactory backpackers.
My mother was staying in a caravan in a southern suburb, and I shall draw a translucent veil over the next few days. We went out to Daisy Hill to walk some tracks and visit the Koala Centre. I spent some time in the State Library, cleaning up genealogical details. I admired the mechanical roo street art. We visited a casino with fish tanks. We went down to Surfer’s Paradise. We did not ride the Monorail. I mocked Qld’s attempted claim on the Man From Snowy River. Somehow they forget to mention that they’re several thousand kilometres north of where it supposedly happened. I had a ball reconnecting with my mother.
HomeboundAnd then it was over. I flew out of sunny Brisbane at 12:50 a week later and touched down in dull grey Melbourne at 16:15. I recall nothing of that day.
The tumultuous year 2008 went on. At the end of October, my Chinese friend Evelyn that I’d met in Istanbul in 2007 flew in for a few days in Melbourne, which gave me the opportunity to play tour guide on my home ground. In November, my mother flew in for the Melbourne Cup. And then in December, I went to Tasmania to walk the Overland Track and then to chase ancestors in Hobart.
But that is another story.
I have finally realised the truth. My family are genetic gypsies. They wander. It's in the blood. There are two sorts of people in the world: those who move and those who stay. Forget the stayers. Of the movers, again there are two types, those that move once, then stay; and those who keep moving. I am a mover and the descendent of movers. You can of course explain it as simply one end of a bell curve. Some people will always stay and others move. By selecting your data sets, you can easily isolate those whose ancestors moved, only to find that they themselves are really no more likely to move than anyone else. I look at my family. Ignoring minor changes of address in the same area, my grandfather moved once. Then he stayed. My father never moved. But all his children have moved (and some have moved again, and some again and again), and so has my mother. Perhaps the gene skips some generations.
I travel because I must.
