Quite the show for RNZAF's 75th

Because I am anal that way, I allowed myself 3 hours for the 1 1/2-hour drive up to Ohakea. It took 3 1/2 hours because of a vehicular tailback that at one point stretched 31 kilometers from the Ohakea Air Base south and 12 kilometers north.

The last airshow I was at featured a couple of planes doing the loop-the-loop and a few more static displays. This was not that. About 70,000 people turned out for this annual event that had been souped up to mark the 75th anniversary of the Royal New Zealand Air Force.

I don't think there could have been many planes left in the rest of New Zealand. Between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. alone more than 120 planes landed in what is basically a cow pasture outside Sanson.



And the aerial displays came hard and fast and noisily on top of one another. There must have been close to 300 aircraft at the show and many of them - from brand new helicopters to World War I-era biplanes - took to the skies.

The noise was deafening and the massive crowd appreciative.



But back to the earthbound traffic. Amy called me just after I'd left Wellington. I told her I had to pull over because the traffic was so bad. "What's going on?" she asked. In truth, I had no idea. But as the traffic seemed to be heading to the same place I was, it began to dawn on me: this is air show traffic, even though we were still 130 kilimeters away. By 9 a.m. the tailback was more than 30 kilomters - and not moving at all. Luckily everyone remained polite and the "Merge like a Zip" rule still applied for traffic merging in from other roads. But damn.



As I finally approached the air field it seemed as if a plane was landing every minute. Indeed, according to the Manawatu Standard, they were expecting 120 commercial, civilian, and military planes to be landing before 10 a.m. At least the same number of planes was already on the ground. Ohakea had to be the busiest air space within several thousand miles.



The control tower had to be the busiest, most frenetic, and tense place in New Zealand. Planes and aerial demonstrations seemed to be coming from everywhere simultaneously. A few times the old stomach knotted up as decidedly out-of-date planes definitely in private hands came to within what seemed like just a few feet of each other on more than one occasion.



Still, the atmosphere on the ground was relaxed. The smell of burgers and coffee was heavy in the air. By the time I left, around 1 p.m., the traffic queue was "down" to 29 kilometers and many locals had given up. Instead they set up chairs at the side of the road or took their stations atop their parked vehicles and oohed and aahed from afar. It was unlike anything I have ever seen in New Zealand, and that includes the Rugby World Cup.



My favorite, for sentimental reasons from my boyhood, was the old Spitfire. She took to the air with all the grace I remember from my comic-reading days, when the Battle of Britain heroes werre all stiff upper lip and fighting gloriously for King and country.

You can't beat Welly on a good day

It was such a magnificent day that even my crappy phone camera managed to capture it.

Paddy Freaney, Moa Man, is dead

Paddy Freaney, who claimed to have spotted the massive, but long-extinct, Moa in the Craigieburn Range, has died. A publican in the high country he loved and climbed, Freaney’s claim that he and two hiking buddies spotted a 6-foot Moa – evidence he tried to support with a photograph - sparked a cryptozoological mystery that was much debated at the time.

As an aside, I'd like to say a few things about Freaney. To be a hotel owner in Arthur's Pass, the glorious high country between the South Island's west and east coasts, is enough of a life achievement in my eyes. But Paddy was also a former member of Britain's elite SAS squad and an avid mountaineer. He was a man of accomplishment, in other words, not your run of the mill publicity seeker.

But let me also tell you a little about the Moa, and I can't believe that it has taken me this long - about 600 posts - to do so. The Moa, a massive flightless bird, was a legendary part of early New Zealand. There were many kinds of Moa, ranging in size from slightly larger than a turkey to the bad boys coming in at 12 feet and weighing up to 550 pounds. Now that's a big bird.

Common wisdom has the flightless and Emu-like Moa being hunted to extermination by the Maori by the 1500s. But there have been persistent sightings of Moa - and books written about such claims - well after the Europeans settled here in the 1800s. Paddy, who moved to New Zealand and became a well-known mountaineer, claims he and his two hiking buddies came across a 6-foot Moa in 1993.

His claim, because of who he was and because of the photo he took, was taken very seriously at the highest levels of government. Still, many debunkers soon appeared and claimed Paddy's sighting was fictionalized, that the photograph was everything from a fake to a red deer. Paddy was upset and outraged and spent many years trying to regain his good name by launching expeditions to find proof that the Moa was out there.

Paddy was not the only person to claim to have seen signs of Moa, despite common and scientific wisdom denying any realistic evidence that Moas lived past the 1500s. Cryptozoologists like Rex Gilroy claimed to have taken casts of Moa footprints from the Ureweras range or made other claims about their current-day existence. Gilroy claimed these proved the later-day presence of the smaller scrub Moas, measuring between 90 centimeters and about 1.5 meters.

I'm agnostic on this subject, but I will say that the dense, impenetrable scrub and huge isolation of much of New Zealand would be ideal for a species to go undiscovered. Not to go all Nessie or Yeti on you, but this place could hide the Titanic for a thousand years.

There is much literature on this subject (www.pauapress.com), which you are free to read. Paddy, who was by all accounts a serious man, spent much of his life trying to prove that he was not a fraud. But the legend of the still-roaming Moa, so central to the life of early Maori, persists.



Here is a narrative of Paddy's story. "They claimed that the creature they saw stood about 3 feet off the ground and had a thin, long neck, of another 3 feet, ending in a small head and beak. The bird had reddish brown and grey feathers that covered its entire body with the exception of its legs below the knees, a feature Heuvelmans later supported by stating that there was no evidence that the Moa did not have feathered legs.

"Seeing the three men the Moa took off across a steam, Freaney, an outdoor survival expert with the SAS, gave chase and was able to take a photograph of the Moa at a distance of nearly 115 feet. He also snapped a picture of what he thought was the bird’s footprints on a rock and of a similar print in the river bed. The resulting out of focus picture appears to show a large, medium brown bird with a horizontal body, a tall, erect neck and a head that may have been looking toward the camera, a clear view of the creatures legs is obstructed by a rock formation.

"The photo was given to an image processing group at the University of Canterbury’s electrical and electronic engineering department for review. After studying the blurry photograph for 3 days Kevin Taylor, spokesperson for the group, announced that the analysis had gone as far as it could and, in the groups opinion, the object in the photo did appear to be a large bird. The success of this ruling did not last long however as former University of Canterbury postgraduate zoology student Richard Holdaway announced that after he studied the photograph he was able to determine that the object was nothing more than a red deer, stating that the neck was to thick to belong to a bird.

"As a result the Department of Conservation backed away from its announced plan to search the area, Freaney offered to mount an expedition himself, if nothing else to clear his name after rumors that he hoaxed the photo began to circulate, but his offer was declined and the damage was done. Weeks after Freaney’s sighting bad weather in the back country all but eliminated the proof of his Moa encounter, especially the footprints in the river bank.

"On February 22, 1993 Freaney was interviewed by renowned Cryptozoologist Loren Colemen to clarify some points of the report. Freaney stated that he had turned over the original negatives for analysis, but results of that examination proved inconclusive. Freaney also stated that the bird was definitely larger than any emu he had ever seen in Australia and that the light brown feathers appeared to stop at the knees."

From all I've read about Freaney, he seemed like a class act sorely lost. RIP, my man.

Prison to close - and that's about it

Mt. Crawford Prison. Future five star resort? (Dominion Post)

Morgan has faithfully accompanied me on many of my "weird blog outings," though he did put his foot down this weekend at my proposed venture to walk through the Terrace Tunnel. On the occasion of opening the newly renovated thoroughfare, the city was allowing its people to witness said infrastructural upgrades up close and personal.

"That's stupid," he said.

I didn't have a powerful retort to that, because, well, he had a point.

"What about jail, then?" I proferred.

"Oh, OK," as if this were the most natural thing in the world.

The news had just come out that Wellington's Mt. Crawford Prison was being closed. I had read that it sat high up on the Miramar Peninsula on some prime real estate. I don't know what I was expecting, but as faithful readers know, some of my posts have come from far sillier things.

So we headed out on a brisk and windy day.

The prison, which was built in 1927, was recently described as a disgrace by the minister in charge of such things. She threw in "Dickensian" for good measure. This put images completely out of keeping with Wellington in my head. Beggars and debtors and orphans and pickpockets and all that Victorian suffering.

Such dark talk about the prison had turned to optimistic pinings about opening up some commercial land and completing the potential of the peninsula with the news that the prison would close.



We drove up the hill above Shelly Bay and, far from scenes of urban squalor and Victorian filth, it was all rather splendid. The views were decidedly unlike Horsemonger Lane Gaol. Perhaps more like Alcatraz, a lovely spot if you didn't have to stay. There were even sailing boats to be viewed - unenviously on this wind-abused morning.



Then we were up by the prison. The above sight greeted us. It looked like a getaway tunnel out of the jail with a well-trodden path, as if the prisoners were coming and going at their leisure. Turns out it's called Prison Break path and is part of a system of trails through the nearby reserve. Hikers, not convicts, use it.

The fence with what can only be described as a gaping hole didn't inspire confidence either. It wasn't the outer perimeter of the facility, though. When we drove up to the front of the prison - only later did we read the small print of the sign that says we weren't allowed to do that - there was, happily, a big prison-like wall with razor wire and everything.

Not much to see, as I suppose any amount of reasonable thinking on my part would have let me figure out in advance. So we wandered away and paid our respects to the majestic views. I don't know what the plans are for the peninsula, but it sure has a lot of prettiness to it.

So, yeah, pretty much the prison is closing. Like the paper said.

I bet I would have had a better post out of the walk through Terrace Tunnel.

Kiwinglish 8 - the perfect NZ email

This thoroughly made my day - for so many reasons.

A little background first: A few months ago I completed a project with a guy by email. At the time I told him I'd love to come visit his town and buy him a beer. He seemed like a really cool bloke. Six weeks ago he sent me another message, just updating me on things. I completely forgot to respond until this week.

So I sent him a verbose email explaining my oversight, apologizing profusely for it, thanking him, promising him that I hadn't forgotten my offer of a beer and telling him I planned to make good on it. It took several paragraphs.

His response came almost instantly:

"Nah,

Sweet as – we will do just that.

Cheers

Billy"

I will try to translate this masterpiece of terse, precise and affectionate communication. Billy said so much in 10 words. Perhaps some of my Kiwi friends can correct me if I go wrong.

Nah: Absolutely no problem, bro - no, wait, that's too Kiwi. Let's try this: Absolutely no problem, my brother. We're all busy and things get lost once in a while. I understand completely.

Sweet as: Everything's cool. No need to apologize at all. I'm not upset in the slightest. We're still friends.

We will do just that: I know we're going to have that beer and enjoy each other's company. You said it, you meant it; so did I. I'm looking forward to it.

New Zealand English has been a source of confusion and amusement for a while now.

But I can guarantee you that 18 months ago I would have had no idea how to take an email like this one from Billy. Chur, bro.

One more victim of dreaded quakes

Damn you, earthquakes. The threat of temblors looks likely to claim yet another remarkable heritage building.

One of my favorite architectural Wellington ghosts looks like it is about to succumb to the wrecking ball. The building housing what was once Erskine College and which stole my heart one rainy Sunday morning has been given what amounts to a bureaucratic death sentence.

Wellington City Council, deeming the building too dangerous for habitation, has moved to red-sticker the historic Island Bay site next month. The price tag to shore up the building against the power of earthquakes is simply going to be too much for the Wellington Company, the new owners of the building.

"I think it's fair to say that we have absolutely no plans at all to do anything with the building at the moment because of the current market conditions," Murray Anderson told the Dominion Post. The building is going to have to be closed up."

The old Catholic girls' boarding school, which has a Miss Havisham air of distinguished neglect about it, still looks like a grand old dame. Built in 1905-06 by the Society of the Sacred Heart, it closed as a girls' school in 1985. Despite being listed as a historic place by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, the College's days appeared to be numbered. The grand-sounding - but apparently impotent - designation notwithstanding.

Even the wedding receptions, held in the still romantic setting of the chapel, that held out the faint hope of a second act for the building, will have to cease now.

By the time the new Christchurch has been built, many of her heritage buildings will have gone. For Wellington the devastation of the Christchurch earthquake came as an action-stirring wake-up call. It can be said that the city had an eye on the dreadful possibilities of "the big one" hitting here, but has really moved forward quickly in the last year.

The consequences are real now, the alternatives difficult - and expensive. Many older buildings, that mark a city's history like the rings of a tree, will not survive. The required strengthening work will simply be too expensive. Nostalgia is all well and good when someone else has to pay for it. But the price in human costs of doing nothing is all too evident in the rubble of Christchurch and its newly filled graves.

Taking the field to loud roars

Ewan finally got to lead his team out of the tunnel at Westpac Stadium and onto the field in front of thousands of screaming soccer fans.

It was, as they say here, sweet as.

Admittedly it was the team of ballboys, but it was still a rush - for him and for me.

Soccer-mad Ewan, 12, and some of his buddies from the North Wellington soccer club were chosen to be ballboys for the Wellington Phoenix's last homegame. The club really knows how to make a great day for the kids.

They arrived two hours before kick-off, were taken into the bowels of the stadium, given a uniform, and then taken out onto the field for surprisingly thorough ballboy coaching. Who knew it was so serious?



Before the game some band started playing. I was a little annoyed, because the stage was set up right in front of my seat. After a couple of minutes, though, the ballboys were ushered to stand beside the stage. I put my long lens on and started taking a lot of pictures, wishing only that the poncy lead singer would get out of the way so I could take some candid shots of Ewan. Within minutes a security guard came over and told me I'd have to stop taking pictures. The band didn't want photos with long lenses used for commercial purposes.

"Are these guys somebody?" I asked the guard, "because I'm only trying to take pictures of my son."

"Yeah, that's Dane Rumble, mate."

"Oh," I nodded knowingly, wondering who the hell that was when he was at home.

Turns out Dane Rumble is a pretty popular Kiwi artist and he was playing his brand new single - due to be released tomorrow - just for us!


If only that Dane guy would get out of the way, you could see Ewan, back right.

Actually, credit where credit is due, Dane, as I now know him, was pretty good and was very nice to the screeching girls who were bopping up and down in front of him.



After the musical interruption - I mean interlude, of course - the ballboys went back into the tunnel. I was already learning that watching an event when your son is the ballboy is an entirely different proposition. I was seeing things no one else was even watching.

After a couple of minutes Ewan and the ballboys came running out of the tunnel with the teams - right in front of the most boisterous Wellington supporters.



Ewan's station was between the two dugouts, and he was warned that he was going to hear the most ferocious language there. He said he couldn't understand a word the coaches were shouting, which is probably just as well.

It's odd watching a game of footie this way. The only thing I was cheering for was for the players to kick the ball out, preferably around midfield so that Ewan could get some action.

I had to force myself to watch the game. A few minutes in, Wellington defender Sigmund was called for a foul. "That wasn't a foul," the fan in front of me yelled. "He fell over."

"Yes, it was a Freudian slip," I offered - to unappreciative silence. Still, my bon mot kept me giggling for the next five minutes. It's what you do when you're at a game on your own.



Ewan and the other ballboys did really well. Yes, I actually watched how they covered each other and how quickly they got the ball back into play. I also left my seat to get closer to Ewan and spent the entire match trying to catch his attention. When we were leaving the stadium Ewan asked me how I got to the seat I was in. He'd seen me all along but, professional that he is, had heeded the trainer's command that parents were to be ignored.

Damn, he was good at that.



One other observation, and this as a guy who cut his football teeth on the terraces of Ibrox: football is really nice when it's organized like a family event as it is here. Even the supporters' songs, such as the inoffensive "Wellington is Wonderful," are happy and without the hate-filled invective of British football. There were lots of kids, women and families at the game. It had a good vibe.

After the game was over - oh yeah, the Phoenix lost 2-1 - the kids got to wait in the tunnel and get the players' autographs. Ewan left the stadium a happy man.

A happy whale of an obsession

A pod of Orca in Oriental Bay. The Dominion Post.


The whales, my relentless tormentors, were back again this week. They have taunted me ever since we landed in Wellington, swimming into my harbor and my bays. They wait until I'm gone and then they parade around, cavorting as if they owned the place.

I go everywhere with a camera, hoping against hope that one of these days they'll grace me with their presence when I'm running the bays or sailing the harbor or chilling with a water view. My camera-filled backpack weighs in at a good 35 pounds, yet I take it with me on every run, tripping over things as I stare out over the water.

I've rushed down to the harbor at lunch time when the Dominion Post's website has announced the return of the Orcas. They're always gone by the time I get there. Wellingtonians all seem to have a story about spotting the Orcas in the harbor, and they love telling them - especially to the guy with the camera staring off into the middle distance where the ocean is. I often feel as if I'm on a snipe hunt, egged on by all the Kiwis in the know.


A swimmer being escorted into Scorcher Bay by two Orca.

Happily - and I say this with the glee of a very small person - not all of the Orca encounters have been pleaseant here in Wellington; some have been downright scary.

The headline "Orcas in Wellington Harbor" has literally been in the paper a dozen times since I've been here. Even with all my intense staring out to sea, I've only ever spotted one penguin and a dead Stingray. One very small penguin. One very dead Stingray. Yet still I go, camera in hand. Still I hope.

For the third time in two weeks, the Orcas returned, spoiling Wellingtonians with a wonderful, if undeserved, viewing pleasure. I was stuck at work. Envious.

I don't know why I want to see these whales. I've been on a successful whale watching trip in Kaikoura and enjoyed it very much. But it is these Orcas here in my back yard that I long to see. This week they positively gallavanted around the bay, getting close enough to throw a French Fry at, if you were so inclined.


These fisherman were on the shore in Oriental Parade, not on a boat. At the end of the video you can see the seawall where me and the boys have sat on many a warm day eating our ice creams.

My hunt will continue. I am very painfully aware that all I really need to do to catch sight of these whales is to go for a run - just once - without my camera. There they will be, with whale smiles saying, "There you are. We've been waiting for you." But then none of you would believe me, would you?

Carmageddon upon Marmageddon

Even though New Zealand is in the midst of a Marmite crisis, authorities are still planning to proceed with two fundamental driving rule changes this Sunday.

It could be more than order-loving, Marmite-deprived Kiwis can handle.

I must say, I've always liked the give way rule that gives folks turning right the go-ahead before those turning left. (See diagram below.) I thought it quite civilized - especially when Kiwis adhered to it during the awful aftermath of the February 22 earthquake.

Initially it's counterintuitive, but you get used to it. It actually makes sense - until folks going straight come up behind the car that's turning left and giving way to the car that's turning right. The car going straight doesn't have to wait, so often it's ... boom.

While the Kiwis have done a great job educating the public - there have been PSAs everywhere and all the time - they're not overly optimistic about the public's ability to handle the change. The switch was originally planned for Sunday, April 1, but it was deemed that too many people would think it an April Fool's and ignore the change leading to massive mayhem.

Even with the new implemenatation time of 5 a.m. this Sunday, experts are rather unreassuringly saying that, yes, there are going to be accidents. Well, as my friends on "Seven Days" pointed out, by starting it then, it's going to be drunk drivers and over-tired cabbies that will be the test dummies, as it were.

"With a crash every 30 minutes at an intersection the New Zealand Transport Agency says it is inevitable there will be crashes when the new give-way rules come in to force on Sunday, Fairfax Media wrote."

"There will undoubtedly be crashes at intersections on Sunday, because there are dozens of crashes at intersections every single day of the year,'' NZTA spokesperson Andy Knackstedt told Fairfax.

The agency said it was confident that eventually the new rules would reduce confusion and crashes at intersections. OK, then. Carmageddon, if you'll pardon the second bad coinage of the week.

This is what Facebook World thinks is going to happen:



So, the suggestion has been made that we buy a green car before Sunday. That way we will, according to these diagrams, always have the right of way.

A ferry, ferry close call

Believe me, this was a lot scarier in real life than it looks here. On the last day of our sailing course we were happily cruising. We had our spinnaker up for the first time, the wind wasn't too pushy, and we'd had a nice lunch. We sort of saw this ferry leaving its berth, but really paid in no heed. Until, well, we sort of ended up in its pathway. We'd learned all the rules and knew we had to give way - because presumably this bad boy is more than 500 tons and was in Wellington Harbor. But here's the thing about sailing and wind: you can't always control what happens. Next thing we knew (or, nek minit, as they say here), the wind was dropping, the spinnaker was going flaccid and the very large ferry was bearing down on us. Our instructor was slightly worried: "You see that ferry, right?" I'm not saying the tremble in his voice was so pronounced because we had an Irishman at the helm.



It wasn't that the way he said it made it sound like "you see that fairy, right?" that was funny. It was the fact that, well, this was the biggest ship I'd seen in a month and it was getting bigger by the second as we were right in its lane. It honked its fog horn three times. Though it sounded like the maritime equivalent of "get the f&%* out of the way or I'll squash you like a baby seal," our instructor told us - not entirely convincingly - that it simply meant the behemoth was turning to port. As you can see from the above photo, I was desperately trying to David Copperfield the ferry away. In the end, no harm was done, no seals were hurt, and we even received a friendly multi-fingered wave from the bridge of the Aratere.

(Sorry this is a little late, but I only just was sent these pictures today.)

Marmitians in for a rough haul

I never really thought it would come to this. When I wrote at the beginning of February that New Zealand's stock of Marmite was running low, I never actually believed they would run out. I mean this is is a first world country, right?

But it now looks as if in two weeks the shelves will be bare of the black, goeey spread made from yeast extract. I mentioned in my previous post on this subject that, although to normal human beings Marmite is something inexplicably vile, to Marmitians it is something without which they can not live.

Marmageddon.

And this Marmite is made only in New Zealand. So it's not as though the Commonwealth brethren can airlift their version of Marmite to the stricken Kiwi Marmitians. For the New Zealand stuff is truly unique. Those of you who have tried it will not find that hard to believe. Something so inedible would not be knowingly reproduced in other parts of the world.



OK, that last sentence was a bit harsh. I do feel sorry for the Marmitians. It must be truly horrible to have an addiction to something that no longer exists. I'm sure black markets will spring up all over the land - I'm pretty sure existing Marmite will not go off in the next few months. Last night on TV one of the news programs was auctioning off two 1.2 kg jars of the stuff.

This terrible turn of events is due to the Christchurch earthquakes, which have damaged to the Marmite-maker's factory to the point of being unsafe. They have had to suspend production and stock is expected to run out soon.

I hope there is no Marmite hoarding going on out there. The only way New Zealand will be able to get through this crisis is by sticking together, after all.

There is probably enough stock to last through March, but after that it could be July before the factory resumes work. July!?! That's three months without Marmite. Didn't anyone have a Plan B? Or was it just assumed that Marmite, cockroach-like, could not be destroyed by anything?

"We are in the process of talking to food distribution centres to get an idea of how much stock is out there, but it is hard because some supermarkets will have more stock than others," said the president of the company, who wished to remain anonymous. (He didn't actually, I just don't want to irresponsibly give out his name.)

In the meantime, he recommended enjoying the spread on toast, not bread, as the heat would melt the Marmite and stretch it further.

"Some sizes have already sold out in some places. But we urge consumers not to buy huge boxes of it, as it's a Kiwi favourite and people need to be considerate of their fellow Kiwis."

So remember, people, put it on toast. That way it will last longer. Even though this sounds like something out of World War II Britain, I suppose the man is just being sensible. At least he didn't call for calm and urge people to have a stiff upper lip.



He's being serious about the "using toast" business; he mentions it again in the radio news program above.

All I can hope is that there is no mass panic and that neighbors open their pantries to neighbors. Together we can get through this. It's only a few months, after all, and in the meantime there's always Vegemite.

Caught in the act on a drive-by

The boys wanted to train for their track and field events today. So we went in search of a track where I could time them and exhort them onto deeds my tired old body could never manage just by being the stern voice of authority. There was a meet at the first track we went to. So we drove to a second neighborhood park. A cricket match was being played there. The boys ran around for a bit and I took photographs.

Being an astute observer of life, I quickly realized these guys were pretty good. It's the trained journalist in me, I guess. Even though this was in a neighborhood park, with about 50 people watching, it turns out this was a first class cricket match between Wellington and Central Districts. I don't know why they were playing in Karori on a public park, perhaps it has something to do with the main stand at the Basin Reserve being declared "earthquake prone."

As Morgan ran around the track - he later said he "ran circles around the cricketers" - I continued to take pictures. I was surprised when the Wellington batsman S.J. Murdoch was caught by wicketkeeper Jim How off the bowling of R.F. Bradenhurst. It's actually a lot cooler than it looks: to capture the wicket of a first class cricket player on a drive-by doesn't happen often.

If that paragraph didn't make any sense to you, let me pass on a brilliant description of how cricket is played:

"You have 2 sides; a team that's in and a team that's out. Two men in the team that's in go out and when one of the men who's in is out the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out; the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.

"When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out are trying to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game."

That's the wonderful game of cricket

But the boys didn't want to stick around, so we headed off before I had the chance to explain the game further to them.

8 dead in the waters of Foveaux

Tragedy has yet again hit the treacherous waters of Foveaux Strait off New Zealand's southern coast, this time killing 8 people whose boat was hit by a crushing rogue wave.

The storm-prone strait separates Stewart Island from the South Island. More than 20 people have lost their lives there in the last decade, including two in January of this year.

It is approaching the beginning of muttonbirding season and many Maori make the dangerous crossing to take part in the long-standing tradition that is open only to members of the Ngai Tahu and Ngati Mamoe tribes, also known as Rakiura Maori.

Only one person aboard the Easy Rider survived the disaster, which occured after midnight on Wednesday. Search parties, which have located the sunken vessel in 120 feet of water, are still trying to recover four bodies.

For Maori, muttonbirding is an important cultural practice and yields a tasty delicacy that I had during my first visit to a Marae, a traditional meeting house. "It's to do with your identity," an expert from Otago University told Fairfax media about the ritual. "There are certain things we do as Maori. For some their only experience of going to a marae, doing something traditional, might be going to a tangi. For others it's muttonbirding."

There are different ways to catch muttonbirds, young sooty shearwaters, he said. In March and April they take them straight from the holes, later they catch them by torchlight when they come out at night.

Each year generations of families make the journey across Southland's treacherous Foveaux Strait, part of an ancient birding pilgrimage to Titi Island. These voyages are not for the faint hearted. Once the crossing has been managed, the island itself is rough with inhospitable coastlines that sometimes have to be scaled, supplies and all.

But for members of the tribe, these muttonbirding outings are a celebrated ritual, a time, like Christmas, when the family gets together.

It was yet another multi-fatality disaster in a land that has had too many of them recently. The survivor, Dallas Reedy, is here only by the grace of God, having spent 18 hours adrift in the frigid waters, 16 of them clinging to a gas canister praying desperately to be rescued. He was losing strength and hope when he was finally pulled to safety. It's yet another reminder that New Zealand, which can be pretty as a postcard, is a dangerous place with wild weather swooping in at a moment's notice. It is a place you must take seriously. If you don't, it will kill you.

The game you didn't see on TV

My boys very kindly let me drag them to the Highlanders-Hurricanes Rugby game tonight. In return I let them take the photographs, which ended up decidedly non-photo-journalistic. For sports fans, the Highlanders won 19-17 and you can stop reading now. For those of you inclined to see some images that definitely didn't capture the game, here you go:


See, Dad, I told you the line judge was blind. He just walked into the goal post.



Just a little to the right - your left - and you'll be golden, son.



I don't know what you're looking for, Number 9, but I GUARANTEE you you're looking in the wrong place.



Really? You're saying my job is to stand here and make sure no one nicks Captain Hurricane's ride? Really?



OK, guys, be sure to get a picture of any signs of life from the crowd.



Tui two two Tui. Got it? Say it again.

Don't hurl your cupcakes

I came across this heart-breaking – and utterly Irish – sight on my way to lunch today. These gorgeous, but forlorn cupcakes, obviously made with love, had fallen to ground on their way to some spectacular St. Paddies’ Day Party somewhere. They left creamy and desolate skid marks. This being about noon, I can only surmise that alcohol was involved. It is a good reminder to all of you. It is my solemn hope that, as you go forth to celebrate March 17th, you do not toss your cupcakes on the sidewalk nor end up in the gutter. Happy St. Patrick’s Day, y'all. And look after your goodies.

Friedman, the frustrated optimist

Thomas Friedman with former New Zealand Prime Minister Jim Bolger.

Despite comparing politics in the U.S. to shuttle pilots squabbling about the flight plan while the booster rockets are gushing fuel and about to explode, Thomas Friedman still believes America has what it takes to reclaim its formula for success.

Friedman was speaking to a packed house at International Writers and Readers Week in Wellington about his book “That Used to Be Us.” The U.S. is at a tipping point that needs the shock therapy of a third party or an explosion of political leadership that remembers the basics that made America great. The raw ingredients – American inventiveness, drive and optimism – are still there; “The country is alive from the bottom up,” Friedman said.

Friedman, author of “From Beirut to Jerusalem” and “The World is Flat,” is a great one for lists. The ingredients of the “secret sauce” of America’s success were: 1) universal education of its citizens up to society’s needs – which would be post-secondary now; 2) the best infrastructure in the world; 3) the best rules and regulations; 4) An open immigration policy; 5) the most government-funded research.

For a return to the glory days of strong growth and standard of living improving from generation to generation, Friedman said, the U.S. needs to cut spending, raise taxes and reinvest in that five-part formula for success. And because that strategy falls neither purely in the Democrat or Republican bailiwick a third party, a different and hybrid way, is needed. To those who believe that couldn’t happen, he reminded that Ross Perot won 20 percent of the vote in 1992 – and was polling at 40 percent at one stage – “and he was nuts.”

At the moment, though, Friedman believes America has lost its ability to act collectively because we don’t have a shared vision, the political system is dysfunctional, and we’ve had a “values breakdown,” with situational values now allowing us to borrow and spend like drunken sailors.

While China’s doing well – able to construct 230,000 square meter convention center in the time it takes for two escalators to be fixed at the Bethesda Subway station – there are enough Americans “too dumb to quit” who just keep on inventing things and pushing forward. Unfortunately, Friedman believes, their leaders are more interested in winning that day’s news cycle than in getting out of the way of the entrepreneurs who want to keep on keeping on.



To illustrate the pace with which things are changing, Friedman referred to his 2005 bestseller “The World is Flat.” That book illustrated how connected the world was in the age of globalization. Yet, when he recently went through its index, he was shocked to discover that he had written it in an age before Facebook, Linked-In, Twitter, when “clouds were still in the sky and Skype was a typo.” That is astonishing.

Friedman, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winning writer for The New York Times, has been penning his “Foreign Affairs” column since 1995. It’s a scary world he describes, where people have to be willing and able to reinvent themselves constantly, where average is over and the price of genius has not only come down, but it can be imported to you from anywhere in the world.

The marrying of globalization with the explosion in information technology means no place will be unaffected, cut off or able to exist in isolation. And yet it was funny, in this Youtube world, that it was still an evening when a thousand or so people, many in tweed jackets or other business attire, came down to Wellington Town Hall, to hear another guy talk. Kind of like the old days.

Ab-turdity of life is good for stress

Life is funny. People are funny. So sometimes you just giggle.

I've been carrying a bit of work-related stress. I was running a tedious errand today and had sort of checked out, driving along the motorway like a space cadet. I gradually became aware of a noise behind me growing louder. It was a guy on a large Harley roaring up, a little too close to me. As he tore by me I said out loud, "You $#%@ing turd" Because I'm tough like that in my car. Seconds later he was past me.

Can you guess what his license plate was?

"Turd."

Beautiful. I laughed, and liked the guy again. In a wonderful bit of self-awareness, he drives around like that all day, every day.

From the motorway I turned into Lower Hutt where an adult cricket game was just finishing. Heading to his car was a guy in long white cricket pants ... and a Che Guevara T-shirt! Now if there is a game more closely linked to upper-class imperialism than cricket, I can't think of it. Che would not approve, comrade.

Another nice little giggle, and my mood was picking up.

I have already mentioned the rather casual way swearing appears in and on the media here. Nobody fusses too much about it. An incredibly intense artist was talking on the radio in very meaningful terms about his work while I was heading back home. He was asked about how important his son was to him. "If it wasn't for Jack," he said, "I'd still be a complete prick." This came in such a stark contrast to his very soulful and gentle descriptions of his life that, again, I couldn't help but laugh.

Two minutes later I was driving past the latest Tui billboard. It proclaimed, "I take Herbal Ignite - Yeah right." I suspected, but did not know, that this was slightly off color. Yes, I had to look it up, if you'll pardon the expression, and, yes it is allegedly a natural treatment for erectile dysfuntion. What the heck that has to do with beer, I do not know.

But on this day I didn't care. By the time I made it home, the stress was gone.

A small island with a sad history

Mokopuna Island is the small one on the left.

One of the romantic notions I harbored about sailing before the gale hit was being able to sail off to mysterious deserted islands where we would live, Swiss Family Robinson-like, for many happy months.

Instead of dreaming of aquamarine waters lapping on white-sanded beaches, our little gale planted visions of howling winds and towering waves battering our boat hundreds of miles offshore.

But even before yet another fantasy bit the dust, my daydreams never included an uninhabited island such as the one we sailed past on Sunday. As we were coming around the fascinating Somes Island, one of my crewmates told me the story of tiny Mokopuna Island. It sits just 75 yards off Somes in the middle of Wellington Harbor and people are not allowed to land on it.

We could see a number of caves and arches cut out of the island. Part of Somes' sometimes morbid history is that it was used to quarantine humans thought to carry infectious diseases.



A wave of Chinese immigrants, many dreaming of wealth in the newly discovered gold fields, began arriving in New Zealand in the late 1800s. Some put the number at over 100,000. When the Chinese began leaving their shattered dreams of gold beyond measure behind them and arrived in the cities, they were regarded with suspicion. They were also believed to be carriers of exotic diseases.

So when one Kim Lee, who ran a fruit store, was diagnosed with leprosy in 1904 he was sent to Somes. But the terror and the social stigma surrounding leprosy meant Lee wasn't wanted even on Somes. So he was sent to Mokopuna, known today as Leper Island. The isolation must have been devastating. There is absolutely nothing on the island. He was brought supplies by the lighthouse keeper from Somes.

Lee, who had been in New Zealand for almost 20 years, died after just three months on the rock. Later inquiries brought to bear on his conditions seemed to indicate the poor guy was not, in fact, suffering from leprosy; it was probably something more like tuberculosis. He was the only person ever to be sent to Mokopuna.

Today it is a bird reserve, but every time I look out to those islands I will think of the wretched soul who was condemned to serve out his life alone with Wellington in full sight and just a few hundred yards away. At least a large marker has since been placed on Somes Island to pay a little belated respect to poor Lee.