Monday 19 January 2009

Blades of Glory

Helen: C and I are now the proud owners of Pank crafted knives. Ok, so we had a bit of help, but I reckon we made at least 60 % of the knives ourselves - everything from forging the metal in hot coals and bashing the hell out of it on anvils (C was very good at this part - I was a bit pathetic and the man (with lopsided shoulders) had to come and help me out). Then we made the handles (from late 19th C wood no less) and spent hours and hours grinding the blades into shape and then polishing them. Mine is long and curvy and C's is short and stubby - you can definitely tell which is the girly one and which is the manly one. Unfortunately they didn't run a sheath making workshop too, so our beautiful new knives are now being stored in carboard tubes held together with packing tape!

Other than that we haven't done much exciting for the last few days - Greymouth was pretty grey and uninspiring and now we're in Ch-Ch, which, although not so grey, is also not very inspiring. You can punt on the river, and the botanical gardens are lovely - but they're not a patch on the real thing in Oxford or Cambridge. But...none of that matters too much just now as we have other things to keep us busy - Bob, Laura and Will arrived yesterday :) I don't know what the collective term for a group of Panks is, but we are now it. They are remarkably un-jetlagged and we're heading out of town tomorrow to start some proper sightseeing along the south coast.

Will write more when I've got something more interesting to report!

Hxx

PS forgot to tell you that when we were on the Abel Tasman walk we saw lots of marble. I know that sounds like a daft thing to add as a PS, but I think it's super cool - the whole of the park is made of limestone, but some of it got so pressurised in the earth's crust that it turned to marble, and now there are great lumps of it just lying around on the path - proper white shiny marble with veins in it - I just couldn't get over it, considering how expensive marble is at home - I wanted marble kitchen works surfaces til I found out how much it would cost!

PPS you'll be glad to know I now have another sewing project on the go. After all, as C pointed out what is an old sew-and-sew do do with nothing to sew... (I got some Maori print material to make a dress with sleeves - trying to get C to help me choose which print to buy was like pulling teeth. Getting material was the last thing on our very strange shopping list: pipe cleaners (for cleaning the camp stove), liquid fuel (for stove), red plastic (to help with C's colour blindness - if you look at a red light through red plastic you can still see it; if you look at a green light through red plastic it disappears. V important for sailing so you can tell which way the boats are going!), strong thread for fixing my shoes, some parcel tape and a big laundry bag).

Wednesday 14 January 2009

Abel Seamen

Helen: No news for a while because we've been at sea or up hills. It was odd being back on board again after so long on land, but we settled back into the routine well enough (the routine including mandatory sea-sickness for the first 24 hours) and had a great week. Our sailing instructor turned out to be my friend Eva's uncle Johnny (I swear there aren't many people in NZ, or the world for that matter, who Eva doesn't know by some roundabout way or other) and he was about as different from our last RYA instructor (who was an arrogant knob-head) as it is possible to be. He laughed and encouraged me through 5 days of sailing and manoeuvring leaving me feeling much more confident about our exam on Feb 9th. Still not sure I'm going to pass...but at least I feel I have a chance now. C did really well too – but he was always much better at all that stuff than me anyway. He bought himself a 'Drizzabone' hat so he looks like a professional now too!

Nelson is a friendly wee town – not as much character as Wellington, but nice enough. Got some yummy cherries from the road side on our way in, have met our yachtie friends Pagos and caught up on all their news, and are feeling very smug as we've booked the next leg of our journey... C is mortally embarrassed about this but we are going on a CRUISE from Sydney to Singapore from Mar 19 to April 4. Yes, I know it'll be full of blue rinse old bats, but it's way way way cheaper than getting a cargo ship (weird, huh?) and it means we don't have to fly – we've got this far without flying (ok, technically we did fly a teeny weeny bit in the Caribbean, but not much), so it would be a shame to start now. We're also deep in discussions with Igor and Anastasia (I kid you not – I bet their real names are Darren and Tracey) in the UK who are going to sort out visas and train tickets for us for Russia, China, Mongolia and Khazakstan. Just so long as I don't have to do it!

We've also been hiking in the Abel Tasman National Park (top of the south island) – the place is crawling with tourists, but 95% of them do the easy walk along the coast – we opted for the inland route and got the place mostly to ourselves (we saw 13 people for 3 days, apart from the last half an hour which is along the popular Coastal Route where we saw 49!)

OK, got to go now – just put Star Wars 1 in the CD drive (I know it's awful, I know, in fact I'm sure the first time I saw it I swore I'd never see it again, but we want to see 2 and 3 again and they won't make sense if we don't watch this one first, so we'll grit our teeth and bear it. All particularly galling considering we could have been watching Erol Flynn's Robin Hood this evening at an open air screening – but it's too far away and C's not feeling well – sore throat – so it's Darth Maul instead.)

Okey Cokey – that's all for now,

Lots of love

H&Cxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sunday 4 January 2009

South Island

Helen: Woke up this morning in Wellington...and now we're in Nelson - have gone from the south of the north island to the north of the south island! Was sad to say goodbye to Eva and Den and the boys - has been lovely having a good friend just down the road - but good to get back on the road again. C said going on a ferry always makes him feel like he's going on holiday as he always went on the ferry to go camping in France when he was little.

Wellington has great galleries, museums and gardens. And lots of cafes, bars and shopping. And hills. And walks. And the sea. And quirky wee buildings. All in all, our favourite place so far in NZ. Reminded us both of San Fran. You won't believe it, but we both quite enjoyed 'cat-sitting' for Noodles for the last week or so - we're both so definitely dog people and not cat people though it was quite a revelation to find that somehow we'd ended up with a ball of purring fluff on our laps every evening! We won't miss the telly though - we watched loads while we were house-sitting - just goes to show that if it's there we'll watch it - we're only human!

Nelson, from what we've seen so far, is great. More later when we've done some exploring. Won't be for a few days though as we're off sailing tomorrow - we have 5 days with a sailing school to prepare for yachtmaster (and then the exam on Feb 7 - yikes!) So, will likely be incommunicado til the weekend (I can't wait for Friday night - we're going to go and see an open air screening of Erol Flynn's Robin Hood - I've been trying to get that on DVD for years now)

OK, time for bed. C is already passed out with the lights on - he had 2 pints of strong stout/dark beer from the independent pub over the road! (The pub had oodles of charm - it had black boards on all the walls with quotations to read, cross words to fill in, points to argue (who would win a 'no-holds-barred' fight - Emimem or Elvis) and things to make you think (can you name 10 body parts with only 3 letters - abbreviations like bum, pec and ass don't count - C and I finally managed it in about 12 minutes - the record is apparently 3.5. Don't worry, next time I write I'll tell you the answer and put you out of your misery...)

Lots of love
Hxxx