As I said, we had a lovely time. We caught up with friends with babies (thanks Tim & Sharon and Ian & Katie for letting us get clucky with your wee ones); we caught up with family (hordes of Pembertons, my sister and her new husband back from Mongolia); we ran a rembetiko workshop, played at the Takaka market and gave a house concert (huge thanks to Hennie, Pat, and Joachim for the music and the encouragement and for letting us in on the market gig, to the workshop folks for your enthusiasm, and to Jessica for the opportunity and the marvelous venue for our wee concert); Olga made flax weavings and I made a mess of some gorse with the scrubcutter; we met Paul and Jenny’s pet pukeko and I helped put a roof on Paul’s chookshed-to-be; I got a scenic flight over Golden Bay and bits of Kahurangi National Park and even took control of the plane for what felt a very long five minutes (thanks Ian!).

There is documentary evidence of lots of this, which will probably trickle online at some point (Olga has an album up already). Especially we have promises to keep regarding the rembetiko: original recordings to send to people and videos of the workshop and concert to tidy up and put somewhere visible. Luckily, we’re waking up at between 2 and 4 every morning, so we have lots of extra hours in the day to do it. Yay?

We’ll be pretty internet-deprived (not that that’s a bad thing); last I checked my folks were on dial-up, and the only place I got mobile reception on my last trip home was on top of a hill it almost killed me to climb (it wasn’t worth it for the reception; the view was pretty neat though). I’ve scheduled a few posts so the tumbleweeds don’t pile up too high, but it’s going to be even quieter than usual around here.

In Golden Bay I stayed with my folks, on their farm. Despite this, there are no photos of sheep. We did lots of other traditional Golden Bay things though. For instance…

• Beaches
  • Tata (and a shag)
  • Wharariki (walking on trees, and a seal)
  • Bainham
  • on the Abel Tasman (more shags)
• Haymaking (you can see how two blokes marry in the Bay, if you’re interested)
• Swimming in
  • the (upper) Takaka
  • the Abel Tasman
  • the swimming hole up the road

In Wanganui I stayed with Ian and his fiancée Katie. Ian is a pilot and flying instructor, and I finally (after many years of promises, of living in different places and of foul weather when we did coincide) got to fly with him, in a wee four-seater with Katie and a friend in the back. We went looking for the Bridge to Nowhere but didn’t find it (we were looking on the Whanganui River, whereas it turns out the bridge is across a side gorge). From the air the texture of the stands of punga (tree ferns) is incredible, but unfortunately I couldn’t capture it on camera through the window of the plane.

A couple of days before I left Ewan turned up, and we took ourselves off to the beach for a bout of bridge-building — most of the photos are from that day.

First up: The Golden Bay Agricultural and Pastoral Association Show (the A&P show). The annual show combines a fair (ferris wheel, candy floss, “everyone’s a winner, lotsa lucky numbers” and all) with a livestock show and competitions, competition wood-chopping and speed shearing, a steam- and traction engine show, a grand parade (complete with stunt motorcyclists and the local brass band), and plenty of other stuff also. It’s an institution, and no Kiwi small town would be the same without it.