Smurfs Abroad - 2

8/13/2019 Smurfs Abroad - 2

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S m u r f s A b r o a d - 2

Travels to New Zealand and Singapore inNovember and December 2013

Bill Cairns


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So let's start Volume 2 with some overallimpressions of New Zealand and New Zealanders.(This was written way after the trip and after theimpressions had had some time to mature!)

New Zealand is expensive. Very, veryexpensive. We did expect it to be expensive of

course: it was expensive ten years ago. But inthe past ten years, the New Zealand dollar hasappreciated against other currencies,especially the US dollar against which it hasalmost reached equality, while the South

African Rand has depreciated. (New Zealand isa country which is nearly completely dependenton agricultural exports and I would havethought a strong dollar was bad news for theireconomy, but what do I know of economics?)

But the gigantic prices we met in New Zealandcould not just be explained by the exchangerate. Even after converting prices at the rate of

$1 = R9, prices were very high: often 50% ormore higher that they are in South Africa. Someprices: Petrol was R20 a litre; beer was fromR45 (at the Burnside club where it was cheap)to R135; a run-of-the mill restaurant dish wasR350.

It was not only impoverished southern Africanswho complained about the prices: it seemedthat everyone in the competition thought thatNew Zealand was very expensive. (Theexception being the Australians who also seemto live in a very expensive country). Our

American friend on the train complained that acoke (a bottle of pop) cost twice as much inNew Zealand as it did in Nevada.

New Zealand is a beautiful country. We saw a lotof New Zealand on this trip and a lot of(different parts of) New Zealand on ourprevious trip and were impressed. Thecountryside is lovely, the coast is lovely, thedesert is lovely, the indigenous (native) bush

is lovely. We remembered the mountains arelovely although we did not see many this time.

New Zealanders are friendly and helpful people.Everybody seems anxious to have a chat andseem genuinely interested in what one thinksabout their country. Our experience with thefriendly bus driver in Auckland, who drove out

of his way to help us, was not exceptional butrather typical.

New Zealand is a very egalitarian society, whichis good, but at times one gets the impressionthat they are turning into a bit of a nanny state,which is not so good. We were impressed bythe little we saw of their schooling system. Notall is fine and equal though: we saw quite a fewsigns of poverty especially in the North Island.In Taurangua we saw a few drop-outs fromsociety squatting on the curb and I certainlysmelled marijuana as we walked past.

We saw a lot of Maoris in the Bay of Plenty areaand they are big people. Perhaps there arenormal sized Maoris, but we did not see any.No wonder the Springbucks have trouble withthe All Blacks.

We did not see very much of Auckland althoughI am sure that it is a big city pretty much as anyother. Wellington is an attractive city which isnot built on the level. Christchurch is alsoattractive although I think that the psyche of theplace has been badly affected by theearthquake.

But the thing that struck us about New Zealandas a whole is that not many people live there.The population is not large to begin with andhalf of the people live in Auckland: this does notleave many for the rest of the country.Taurangua is a small town; Whakatane evensmaller; Picton is a small platteland dorp aswere the majority of the towns we travelledthrough with the exception of Rotorua andPalmerston North.

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Last night we asked reception for a wake-upcall at 06h00 but were laughed to scorn. This wasSunday and they don't do wake ups on Sundays. Idon't know if they do wake ups on other mornings,but they don't do them at 06h00 on Sundays. I

can't say that I blame them.So we tried to set the alarm clock that comes

with the room, but that was too high tech for us. Jillset the alarm on her phone and I set the alarm onmy watch. It turned out that using Jill's phone as analarm clock is not a good idea as it goes beepevery time there is a Facebook message. So weturned the phone off.

Actually it was not a problem waking up andwe woke up easily with the sun at 05h00. Weupped, ate our yoghurt, drank our coffee and

bounced over the road to the bus at06h50 with plenty of time to spare.

Our bus driver was Lionel and offwe set over the bridge and past themount and on towards Rotorua. And on and on wedrove

It was a long trip. The bus got fuller and fulleras we travelled on and it was quite packed by thetime that we got to Wellington. There were a lot ofpeople who got on and a lot got off, but more goton than off. Some incidents:

- We passed a sign saying Biggest virtual bee

hive in the world. My mind boggled.

- We were held up in Rotorua by the start of a

marathon. The start was just past the bus

station and the bus driver had to wait for the

field to pass before he could pull into the

station. I looked for Peter Brunt among the

stragglers but did not see him.- A bunch of African kids in their early twenties I

suppose came on board. I chatted with two of

them and they came from Mozambique and

Mali. I could not quite figure out what they

were doing here.

- A very huge Maori got on to the bus with his

big muscles not fitting into his shirt at all. He

had Love tattooed on the back of his neck and

wore a nose ring.

- We were adopted by a nice lady who pointed

us in the right direction at Wellington.- The trip was hard on the bottom and the

knees. We stopped for toilet breaks a couple of

times and for lunch at Flat Hills which is a caf

in the middle of nowhere. Not enough breaks.

- The bus drivers swapped at some point and

Lionel was replaced by the bearded and

friendly John. At a little town south of

Sunday 24th November 2013

The start of the marathon in Rotorua

Red-billedgull

Thebusfo

rWellington

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Palmerston North, John slowed down and

opened the door and in hopped another young

chap who sat in the courier seat (a sort of extra

seat next to the driver) and talked bus drivingpolitic with John.

- There was snow on the mountains next to the

desert road.

- We saw Llamas once and deer twice. The

country changed from cattle to sheep and back

to cattle again as we drove south.

- Wellington must be the hilliest city in the world.

The smallish down town area is moderately flat

but the rest of the city is all built on hill sides.

There is a suburban railway along the sea front

and each station has big bike boxes.- New Zealand is certainly a lovely country and

it is full of scenery. A lot of it does look like a lot

of other of it though.We arrived in Wellington about 17h30 and

walked the few blocks to our hotel, the Ibis. Wewalked and we walked and did not find it so Iasked a taxi driver parked on the side of the roadhow much further we had to go. I did notunderstand his Kiwi accent until I realised that itwas an Italian accent. He told us that it was 200metres further and I suppose it was although bynow it seemed further.

The Ibis is a typical city hotel that could havebeen in Minneapolis, Johannesburg or Lagos. Wewere on the 2nd floor (Ground 1 2 this time) inroom 219 which was as far from the lifts as couldbe. The hotel was completely card driven and eventhe lifts would not work without a card. The roomsopened with the card. The lights only came on withthe card. Good security I suppose.

We relaxed in our rooms for a bit and thenwent and used the free Internet in the lobby for abit.

We asked the nice lad at the counter for arestaurant recommendation (the hotel caf wasvery expensive) and he sent us off to a gourmetpub called the General Practitioner. It was anotherfew blocks of walking but at least this time we didnot have our luggage with us. It turned out to be anexcellent pub. Jill had their two course meal (two

courses from their three course menu) and hadsteak and meringue. I had scallops which was astarter on the a la carte menu and two excellent

Monteith Black beers. $66 in all but very good.We were back in our room by about 19h30. I

wrote my diary while we caught up with thesporting news. South Africa beat France in therugby and Australia has nearly won their Ashescricket match.

Fairly typical windbreaks - protecting kiwi

fruit.

Jill making friends with some old peopleduring lunch

A square in Wellimgton

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There is a lot of lovely natural bush in NewZealand and it is lovely: their Podocarps

are very similar (and closely related) to our

yellow-woods and are lovely trees. The

Phutukawa were just coming into bloom

in the Bay of Plenty and they are very

beautiful.

The down side were the thousands of

hectares of exotic pine plantations that

dominate so much of the North Island.

They are not as bad as their equivalents

in South Africa in that there theundergrowth remains lush (whereas here

the trees grow in a virtual desert).

However, the destruction of the natural

environment must be very serious.

We saw a fair number of New Zealand birds and

appreciated them. We saw some of the

attractive endemics: the Paradise duck, the

New Zealand pigeon, the Pukeko, the New

Zealand kingfisher and the Tui. We also saw a

number of their coastal birds including theirspecial dotterels. We saw both the New

Zealand falcon and the New Zealand harrier

and were glad to see that they both seem fairly

common.

The bad news about New Zealand birds is the

number of introduced species that have

become naturalised and have begun to be

dominant: we kept on seeing Blackbirds,

Mynas, Sparrows, Chaffinches, Starlings, Black

swans, Crows, Magpies, Canadian geese. A

sad situation when exotic species are more

common than the indigenous ones.

New Zealand birds are also under pressure from

the ridiculously large number of mammals that

have been introduced and gone feral: weasels,

stoats, ferrets, hedgehogs, goats, and pigs.(There are even feral horses and deer,

although they probably aren't much of a

problem for birds). These mammals are

ruthlessly hunted and exterminated but seem to

be winning the battle and some species of New

Zealand birds (and reptiles) are only safe on

isolated islands.

New Z ealand Trees andBirds

Unfortunately not my picture of a Tui - taken by Matt

Binns and licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution 2.0 Generic license.

Blackbird

New Zealand pigeon

Paradise duck

Shag


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Monday 25th November 2013

All the alarm clocks went off together at06h00, but I beat them all to it and was alreadyawake. We upped and went down to get somebreakfast. We had a choice of a Continentalbreakfast, a full breakfast or a hot breakfast. We

opted for the hot breakfast which was threechoices from the hot food buffet. I chose bacon,poached eggs and mushrooms while Jill had thesame but had grilled tomato instead of themushrooms. Add in toast, tomato juice and coffeeand it was a pretty good breakfast.

During breakfast we watched the replay of theAll Blacks playing Ireland. Ireland should have won:they were 22-10 with 20 minutes to go and still 22-17 at full time. But they blew it and lost about threeminutes into extra time. Silly Irish.

We went upstairs to finish packing and collectour luggage and then waited for the shuttle to comeand take us to the ferry. In the end, the shuttlecompany sent a taxi to take us instead and so wemet Noel who wanted to know everything about usand South Africa and what we thought of NewZealand all in the ten minute drive to the ferry. Itturned out that the ferry works just like a plane you check in your luggage and get a boarding cardand you stand in a long queue to get on board.

We immediately went up to the 10th floor (or

deck if you want to be nautical which the ferry didn'tseem very) which is open and where there areseats to watch the sea go by. There were greatviews of Wellington and the harbour and later awind farm. Nice as sitting out there in the open was,it was also rather windy and so, after the ferry wasproperly out to sea, we went down to have coffeeon the 7th deck. Then, as we entered QueenCharlotte Sound, we went back upstairs again.

Scenes from

the FerryCrossing

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There were more beautiful views as went intoPicton.

The ferry crossing is one of the highlights ofany trip to New Zealand. We have done it twicenow and it was as good the second time as it wasthe first.

Disembarkation took some time. The shipsays that it can carry a maximum of 940 peopleand I suspect that it was pretty full with both anormal quota of passengers and two bunches ofschool kids. We were in no hurry and watched thecars and trucks being unloaded the ferry doestake some huge heavy vehicles.

Eventually we got our luggage from acarousel. That took some time because there wereso many people trying to get theirs too.

We were booked into the PictonBeachcomber Inn Hotel (yes really). It was not a

very far walk nothing in Picton is a very far walk and we struggled our way there with our bagspast the museum, the aquarium, some paradiseducks and the yacht marina. We checked in at thehotel and our room was ready although we werevery early.

By now it was lunch time and so we wentback to Seamus's Pub which we had passed onour way to the hotel. Except they did not servelunch which I thought was a bit strange. They didserve beer and coke and a platter of fried stuff forsnacks potato wedges and chips and chickenand fish things and samoosas and egg rolls andwhatnots. It was ok I suppose but it was moredeep fried greasy food which is probably not thebest for me or my cholesterol. The beer was goodthough: Speights Golden Ale.

We wandered further into the town centreand had a look at a supermarket and thoughtabout buying cheese and rolls and some tomato

Scenes from

the FerryCrossing

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for supper tonight and lunch toimorrow. In the endwe decided that it would be a hassle carryingleftovers all the way to Christchurch and so wedidn't.

Back to the motel and a sleep and a cup ofcoffee and diary writing and all.

We were very lazy for the rest of the dayand sat around doing the minimum. We watchedsome snooker on television (the Champion ofChampions won by Ronnie O'Sullivan). Thosesnooker players are brilliant.

We ate dinner in the hotel. Again therestaurant was on the top floor of the hotel. Weboth had a light meal of a steak sandwich andasked the nice lady (actually a pretty young girl) toskip the chips and give us a salad instead. Theycomplied and the meal was very good.

Our ferry

Beachcomber Motel

Beachcomber Motel

Paradise duck and Black-billed gull

Restaurant

Mr and Mrs Mallard in puddle

Picton

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We woke up to a miserable morning with the

temperature down in the low teens and the wind

blowing and the rain spitting. It must have rained

quite heavily during the night because there were

puddles of water on the lawn outside and Mr andMrs Mallard were sitting in one of them. The hotel

fire alarm went off just as I was getting into the

shower and I though that I might have to go out in

the rain with nothing on, but fortunately it turned

out to be a false alarm caused by someone

burning toast. I had my shower and we went

upstairs to have breakfast only to find that the

hotel does not serve breakfast. It is difficult to get

anything to eat in Picton.

We asked the nice lady in reception where

we could get breakfast and she directed us to

Da's on the High Street. She lent us an umbrella

to sustain us during the walk. Da's turned out to

be almost opposite the supermarket where we

had been yesterday. We had not noticed Da's

because obviously everyone knows where it is

and so they have no need for signage.

We found Da's to be very decent eatery

whic h is New Zealand for a place to

eat. It is decorated in Picton nostalgia with old

photographs and radios and stuff like that. A big

computer screen acts as a electronic frame and

shows pictures of people dressed up having

parties and other events which must mean

something to the people who know what they are

about.

There was a chap reading the paper when

we arrived and he waved us towards a menu on

the counter. We ordered poached eggs on toast

and he shouted the order through to a gigantic

young man in the kitchen. Both of them appeared

frequently in the slide show. When the poached

eggs arrived they were perfectly cooked. If we had

known about Da's, we would certainly have eatenthere last night.

We went back to the hotel and ordered a

shuttle to take us to the station. The station is

within easy walking distance, even with our

suitcases, but it was raining and winding and

misering and it was more comfortable to be

driven.

(These shuttles in New Zealand are a sort of

cheap taxi service that goes from the hotels to

designated stopping points like the station and theferry. I think they are a great idea).

We checked in our suitcases and left our

backpacks at the station and had a choice

between the Maritime Museum and the Aquarium

or both if we were fast. We decided on the

aquarium. I was glad we did. The aquarium was

very well done and interesting. First there was a

big tank of big fish and then

a shallow tank with littler

fish. There were separate

tanks for sea horses and

lobsters and crabs and

shell fish. There was a

cage full of very pretty

Kakariki, which are one of

New Zealand's rare

parakeets. There were

cages full of Tuatara which

are a prehistoric reptile not

unlike an agama in looks but very different in

everything else. There are not many tuataras left

in the world one of their problems is that theyonly breed when they are more than a hundred

years old ad lots can happen to a tuatara before it

gets to 100.

After we had wandered for some time a

young curator chap came and gave a bit of a

guided tour. He fed the tuatara and explained to

us that there were two different species of the little

Tuesday 26th November 2013

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beasties and that the one species only lived on

one island in the sound and was very rare indeed.

He then fed the turtles and then went and got two

little Blue penguins and gave them a swim n the

shallow fish tank. The Blue penguins are very cute.

They are about half the size of our African penguin

which are small enough. They were fun to watch.

One was an adult female that had been injured

and was badly undernourished when she was

rescued. The other was a juvenile that was going

for its first swim. They both went bobbing around

the pool and had a great time.

Eventually it was time for us to catch the

train and so we went back over the road just as the

train was coming in. we had a little time before it

left so we had a sandwich from a sandwich shop

called Subland at the station. Subland seems to be

a chain throughout New Zealand (we also saw one

in Singapore later) and they do make decentsandwiches.

Off we went on the train. We had comfortable

airline type seating with more legroom that most

airlines. There were four carriages in all: two

normal passenger carriages, a refreshment coach

that sold drinks and food and had extra seating,

and an open observation carriage that was great

for looking at the scenery but it was so cold and

miserable that we could not take more than five

minutes of it at a time. There was a crew of two tolook after us: a friendly, chatty lady and a

remarkably cultured young lad who spent his free

moments with his nose buried in a Stephen King

novel.

Some observations:

- New Zealand has a lot of scenery.

- The trip was not quite what we expected

because not very much of it was on the coast

line. The pictures advertising the trip all

showed the train running along next to the sea.

Well it did run along next to the sea for some

time, but it did even more running through the

country.

- Lots of hilly Balgowan type country. There

were more sheep than cattle and there were a

few llamas and deer. In the north, around

Blenheim, there were huge vinyards.

- We did get our share of travelling next to the

sea and very pretty it was too even if cloudy

wet and miserable. The route we followed is

known for dolphins and whales but they were

elsewhere keeping warm. We did see a lot of

seals on the rocks.

- There were a very noisy group of women

sitting behind us talking at the top of theirvoices to make sure that the whole train heard

everything they said. New Zealanders do have

this strange habit of using an interrogatory

type inflexion at the end of a sentence which is

not a question but I feel that it ought to be.

Some American accents do the same thing.

This particular group used the words like and

yeah (a three syllable yeah) with about

equal frequency and about 50% of their total

vocabulary.- There was a young chap with a laptop

computer and a hands-free cell phone whospoke business to his colleagues the wholetrip. If I was an industrial spy, I could havelearned a lot about his plans for the Brazilianbusiness and how they aimed to impress aBrazilian visitor just by sitting where I was andtaking notes.The train

The station

Blue penguin

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- There was an American in the caf carriagewho talked and talked whenever we escapedfrom our yeah women? and our un-secretivebusinessman. I suppose he was lonely. Hewas from Minnesota originally and now lives inReno. He had left his wife at home workingwhile he had a holiday by himself. He wasremarkably ignorant about New Zealand for a

chap who had taken the trouble to come andvisit. It was interesting that he too thought thatNew Zealand was very expensive.

- We had earphones given to us and there wascommentary on all the interesting places thatwe went through. Some of it was interestingwhile much was repetitive.

- Altogether it was a good trip. Travelling bytrain is a very civilised way to travel and is farmore comfortable than travelling by bus orplane.

We arrived at Christchurch about 18h30 andtook a shuttle bus to our motel 315 Riccarton(yes, that is the unimaginative name of the motel).The shuttle driver took us to 215 Riccarton whichis also a strange name for a motel and easy toconfuse if you don't listen properly. The

arrangement had been that we would phone themotel and they would arrange for us to be fetched,but it was actually much simpler to make our ownway. Besides Jill only remembered thearrangement once we were already there.

Patrick and Grace had been in the motel forthree nights already, but had been in a single unit.We were now in a family unit which had two

double bedrooms and two bathrooms. All verycomfortable. When we arrived, Patrick and Gracewere still at the bowls so we made ourselves athome and grabbed the downstairs bedroom for ourown. We went off on a shopping expedition to abig Countdown supermarket in a little mall downthe road and bought some chicken and rice forsupper (with a packet of Thai curry sauce) andsome bacon, eggs and bread for breakfast.

Back we went to the motel and I wrote mydiary and drank some whisky.

We waited and waited for Pat and Grace toarrive, but it was nearly 22h00 when they finallydid. It seems that they had been stuck at the bowlsclub waiting for transport. Patrick said that thetournament was not being run at all well and was a

bit shambolic especially when compared to theAustralian indoor tournament.

I made the curry and it was good. So late tobed.

Coastline from the train

Countryside from the train

More South Island countryside from thetrain

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I woke up far too early which was silly and rattled around until it wastime to get up. We had a decent breakfast of bacon and egg and mushroomsand toast all with some nice plunger coffee and that was good.

Then we walked over the road and met some of the bowls people whowere staying at the same motel. There was Alex, the huge and friendly CookIslander, and Saskia the cheerful Netherlands player.

The shuttle bus, driven by volunteers, arrived and took us to theBurnside Bowling Club. It is an impressive club with a smart double storyclubhouse, three greens with their ground-cover surface that makes themlook like carpets (and play like concrete), a row of the flags of all theparticipating countries.

Patrick played two games today beating Jackie Wong from China andlosing to Tom Bishop from England in a very close game.

Patrick's last game finished after 18h00 and we took the shuttle back tothe hotel and then walked down the street to find somewhere to eat. Weended up in an Indian restaurant and had a meal that was not spectacular

but quite edible. The trouble with the Indian restaurants that we have been inin New Zealand is that they have all had an identical and ratherunimaginative menu. It is as if there is a master master restaurant in

Auckland somewhere that has decreed what may or may not be on themenus. Not only are the names of te dishes all the same, but the textures aretook. There is nothing other than a curry on the menu: ie all the dishes arestewed meat in sauces. There is not a dry dish in sight.

We were home not too late but went to bed quite early. I was quite sorefrom sitting around on hard benches all day.

Thursday 28th November 2013We were up at 07h00 or so and had some nice bacon and eggs for

breakfast.

Then over the road again to catch the shuttle to the bowls. It is fairlysimple to undertand the way the buses take us home again in the evenings,but the way that the take us to the bowls is a bit strange. They come from thehotel on the other siude of the road from the clubhouse. Someone hasdecided that it is not safe to turn into the club's parking lot, so they do a U-turn and drop us off on the main road outside the club. Why a U-turn on a

busy road is consideredsafer than turning acrossthe traffic I have no idea,but I suspect that it is thenanny state mentality gonebonkers.

Patrick played twogames, against Ken Changof Hong Kong and RaySher of Israel, and wonboth of them. Lebo won allthree of her games so itwas a good day forBotswana.

We made and took cheese sandwiches for lunch and some tea bagsfor tea so we were a bit independent of the high prices.

Peter Brunt arrived in the afternoon and it was good to see him. He hasbecome engaged to Jan Macnab and we are looking forward to meeting her.He promised to bring her to the bowls after he has fetched her from theairport tomorrow. We had a beer together I have found Speight Golden Aleto be very drinkable. We sat and talked about all sorts of things as people dowhen they have not seen each other for some time.

Evntually it was goodbye to Peter who is staying with his daughterLauren in Lyttleton and we left fairly early on the shuttle. The nice ladyillegally dropped Patrick and me off at the shopping centre and took Graceand Jill back to the hotel.

So Patrick and I bought some chicken thighs and some korma curry

sauce, some onions, tomatoes and bread. That should keep us going for abit. We walked home and had the chicken korma which was not too bad.

We were all tired and early to bed.

315 Riccarton - we had the upstairsdownstairs apartment on the right

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Wednesday 27th November 2013


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25th NovemberLostto New Zealand (Shaun Scott) 6-10 1-19

Grace's comment: Actually Paddy did much better than these scoressuggest!

26th NovemberDefeatedSingapore (Bernard Foo) 5-8 12-4 4-2

Grace's comment: It's OK. Bernard says he will still take us out to dinner inSingapore.

Lostto Spain (Russel Marks) 11-6 8-12 2-3

Patrick's comment: I should never have lost this.

Lostto Wales (Robert Weal - the Commonwealth Champion) 5-12 3-10

Patrick's comment: It was a privilege to watch the brilliant bowls that Rob

was playing. Unfortunately, he was playing against me.

27th NovemberDefeatedChina (Jackie Wong) 8-4 8-4

The first game I watched. Patrick beat Jackie very easily.

Lostto England (Tom Bishop) 9-3 8-9 2-3

A great game. Tom won on the very last bowl with a drive. After a measure,he had won by less than a millimetre!

28th NovemberDefeatedHong Kong China (Ken Chan) 9-8 6-5

Patrick played very well in this game. Ken played well, but Patrick never losthis nerve.

DefeatedIsrael (Ray Sher) 8-6 8-7

Another tight game against another South African ex-pat.

29th NovemberDefeatedGuernsey (Matthew Le Ber) 4-10 10-9 3-2

The conditions were appalling. Patrick was not expected to win this. Hestarted off very poorly but came back strongly in the end.

Lostto Cyprus (Robert Manso) 5-7 4-11

Robert played very well and Patrick was never in this game.

Lostto Netherlands (Dennis Mijnhijmer) 8-7 5-13 0-4

Both Patrick and Dennis were absolutely exhausted at this stage, butDennis held out better and deserved a good win.

Patrick's Bowls Results

How it Worked

The countries were divided into two sections of 14 teams(there were some late withdrawels) and each team played around robin against all the other teams in that section. The topthree teams in each section went through to the play-offs: thetop team went straight through to the semi-finals while thenext two teams were placed in a draw and played off for thesemi-final birth. (This was a bit silly as, in the menscompetition, teams ended up playing against teams in theirown section and the only inter-section match ws the final).

Each match consisted of two sets of 9 ends. If the sets were

equal, there was a tie-breaker of three ends. This too was abit silly, in the league stages especially, because a three-endtie-breaker can easily be decided by luck (and often was).

A score of 8-6 4-10 3-2 means that Patrick won the first set 8-6, lost the second 4-10 and won the tie breaker 3-2.


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The weather was miserable. If it wasn't raining andcold and blowing it was raining or cold or blowing. At onepoint there was water standing on the green but they

just carried on playing. We are much smarter at Kokanjeand would have all gone home if conditions were likethat.

It was nice to meet up with Lebo Mascarenhas, the

Botswana lady player. She is a real honey. I started offby greeting her in seTswana and made her day. Sheplayed very well throughout the tournament. On the firstday her last game finished at the same time as Patrick'sgame with Jackie Chang and I was rushing betweengreens trying to see both of them. She won on a tiebreaker, but did it quite easily and did not need her lastwood.

Lebo came within an inch of getting through to theplay offs and came fourth in her section.

World Bowls fed Patrick although not very well

by the look of the food but we plebs had to buy ourown. Grace said that she had eventually decided to gowithout lunch rather than pay the prices that were beingasked for food. On the first day, Jill and I bought andshared a sandwich but we decided that in the future wewould bring along sandwiches to tide us over. So wemade cheese and cheese and marmalade sandwichesand ate them instead.

The clubhouse has a big lounge upstairs with bigwindows overlooking the greens in front. Many peoplewere so discouraged by the weather that they watched

the bowls from upstairs. I preferred being next to thegreen when I could be, but it was nice to watch playersother than Patrick from the more sheltered environment.There was the advantage that one could watch anddrink beer in comfort and in the warmth! I grew quitefond of some of the New Zealand beers, especially theirdark ales.

The standard of play was brilliant. During the

whole week I think that I only saw about five shots that Iwould describe as downright bad by that I mean thekind of shot that I play so often. I saw one head whereall eight balls were within a radius of metre from the

jack! I did see two wrong biases and Patrick would notlike me to say that one of them was his - the woodended up two lanes away.

The greens were lightning fast. I tried a few ballsand put most of them in the far ditch. New Zealandersdo not use grass on their greens but some ground coverthing that looks lush and green but plays like concrete.They are proud of their greens and I am sure that theyare right, but I would not like to play on them on aregular basis. If nothing else, very fast greens limit thechoice of shots almost to drawing and driving: I did notsee a single attempt at placing a blocker to protect thehead and I saw very few attempts to pick up the jackand move it.

The players did not adapt all that well to theplaying conditions. They could hardly be blamed for notplaying well in the rain when there were puddles on thegreens. It was amazing that the standard of bowlsremained so high. The last day was the worst, when theplayers were exhausted and the wind was blowing inrandom directions. I am sure that I saw at least onewood being blown to the right in the beginning of its runand to the left at the end of it.

Patrick did very well in our judgement and endedseventh in his section and fourteenth overall. He can bevery proud of himself and Bowls Botswana can behappy that he represented them so well. Lebo did evenbetter in the Ladies and came fourth in her section andseventh overall.

Patrick - the Botswana Master'sChampion. (He is wearing themedal here - Lebo brought it allthe way from Botswana to give itto him!)

Patrick with Smurf parents


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Friday 29th November 2013

We had to be at the bowls club even earlierthan usual because Patrick had an early game at08h30. So we had a quick breakfast of boiled eggsand toast and over the road we went to catch theearly shuttle.

Patrick won the game he might not have and

lost the two that he should have. So goes bowls. Theconditions were awful with the wind blowing inrandom gusts. Actually, by the time it came to playthe last game against Dennis of the Netherlands,both players were so exhausted that I am surprisedthey did not fall asleep on their feet.

Peter Brunt came in the morning and thenrushed off back to Lyttleton again when heremembered that he had forgotten to close awindow. He went on to pick up Jan from the airportand introduced her to us as promised. It was nice to

meet Jan and we were able to have a bit of a chatwith her as we watched the bowls.

Lebo did not win either of her games either andmissed 3rd place by a whisker. She is rightfully a bitupset. Patrick ended up 7th in his section and 14thoverall and I think that is pretty good. (If they had notplayed tie-breakers but simply scored on sets won,he would have come in 4th which is very good). TomBishop of England ended up on top of Patrick'ssection: it will be strange supporting England inanything, but Tom is a nice guy.

The day ended with a barbecue organised bythe club. We paid $10 which covered a plate of foodand a drink from the bar. The meal was a salad witha hamburger patty and a sausage. (We rememberedBoysie's comments about New Zealand sausagesand confirmed his judgement that New Zealanddoesn't do sausages again. We could add our owncomments about their hamburger patties). It was nota memorable meal in any way, but, given the price of

Flags at Burnside Poster

The Botswana Players - Patrick andLebo

Patrick with his mate Tom Bishop ofEngland who was the eventualchampion

The club house with windowsoverlooking the greens

The Botswana Champion and hismanager having a hug

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things in New Zealand, I suspect that the club lostmoney on the food though they hopefully made uptheir losses on the drinks that they sold. The clubcaptain / chairman / chief honcho ran a few sillycompetitions which were a bit juvenile but did get theparty spirit going.

We did not stay late at the party but took one ofthe first buses home and went to bed.

Patrick against Tom was a very close game. Patrick was lying one - but then Tomknocked him out and went three up.

Burnside Bowls Club Sunset

The greens were not grass but aground cover - they were lightningfast.

Lebo

Jan and Peter

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We slept late and felt that we needed it. Wehad bacon and eggs for breakfast and I phonedaround trying to rent a car for the day. It was notthat easy because the cheap companies did nothave a car to rent and the expensive companieswere expensive. Eventually I ordered a car from

Shoestring Rentals (Shoestring meaning thatthey were cheaper than, say, Budget but moreexpensive than say Rent-a-Wreck). I arranged forthem to bring the car around at 12h00.

We then spent a very lazy morning. Jill andGrace did some badly needed washing whilePatrick read his book. He is both physically andmentally exhausted. I walked to the shops and hada good wander around. There was a nice littlebookshop where I did not buy anything, showingmy moral fortitude. I did buy more bacon and eggs,

some batteries (four for $32!) and some fancy paw-paw ointment for Jill.

A nice and very chatty Cameron appearedwith a Toyota something and Grace and I signedon as drivers. We took him back to his depot andlistened to him all the way. Grace drove back to themotel and we had a chat with Peter and arrangedto meet him at the local Westfield Mall which isdown the Riccarton drag a bit.

Grace drove us there (just because I rentedthe car does not mean I want to drive it) and

eventually found parking on top of the roof. It was afairly typical mall from anywhere in the world perhaps a bit more pleasant than South Africanones because the hallways seemed wider and thenumber of people certainly smaller than a placelike Cresta in Randburg.

They had a pretty decent food court in themall: as far as I know, the concept of food courts

has not quite caught on in most South Africanmalls. This one had a choice of Thai, Indian,Roasts, Japanese, Sandwiches and so on. Peterand Jan joined us after getting lost on the wrongfloor of the mall and they opted for sushi from theJapanese stall. Jill and I shared a very good chick-

pea curry while Patrick and Grace shared a Thaichicken and nut curry. I think that everyone waswell satisfied.

While we were waiting for Peter and Jan, Inipped into an electronic cell phone sort of shopand a young lady asked me if I played bowls. Shehad picked this up from the Kokanje Rolbalshirtthat I was wearing. She said that she played bowlstoo and was coming to the finals at Burnsidetomorrow.

After lunch we went on to the Botanic

Gardens and spent an hour or two wanderingaround them. We had to re-establish contact withPeter and Jan because he parked at the museumand we parked in the Botanic Garden parking lotwhich are not adjacent. While we were waiting forhim we had a highlight: there is a small lake next tothe gardens where the Christchurch Model BoatClub was having a sail and we watched the radiocontrolled yachts sailing around.

We finally met up with Peter and Jan whohad walked from the museum. We also met Mikey

the Maltese who had been banned from the gardenby a garden dog-banner and had to sit out the visitin the back of our car. Together we wanderedthrough the garden: we saw a bunch of kidsplaying a Scandinavian variation of jukskei (Kubb)that I have read about but not seen before; we sawthe excellent (and very odoriferous) rose garden;Peter gave us a guided tour of the New Zealand

plants. I was impressed.We tried to get a cool drink from the caf but

it turned out that the caf had been damaged inthe earthquake and was still not functioning. Wehad an ice cream from an ice cream stall instead.

We said goodbye to Peter and Jantemporarily and went on into the centre ofChristchurch. We were already almost in the centre

Saturday 30th November 2013

Model yachts

"Jukskei" - Kubb - in Christchurch

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of Christchurch but the last little bit was not easy tomanage: most of the roads are one-way roads in thewrong direction and the ones that go in the rightdirection are all dug up and being re-constructed.Presumably the locals are able to navigate their wayto and from work, but it takes foreigners quite a longtime and a detour around the whole city.

We parked near an attractive arcade andwandered around the centre of town a bit. Most ofthe city is under construction because of theearthquake and we could see the damage that hadbeen done to the Cathedral and to some of the otherbuildings in the area. The Cathedral is really a mess

I think that if it was not for sentimental and

historical reasons, they would have just knocked itdown and started again.

Despite all the damage and the construction,the centre of Christchurch is very attractive. The oldtram service is running again and that certainly addscharacter to the place.

After our wander we drove off to Lyttelton

which is the port of Christchurch and lies a little tothe east through a tunnel. The tunnel is quite anengineering feat.

We had an excellent dinner in a little restaurantcalled Freeman's. We met all sorts of people there:Jan's ex-sister-in-law (if there is such a relationship)popped in for a drink and then Peter's daughterLauren and her husband and daughter Clara came todrink some champaign. It was good to meet more ofPeter's family. Peter had planned the dinner as a sortof premature celebration of my 70th birthday and we

drank an excellent bottle of Piper Heidsieck as acommendation and that is very good muti indeed.

Everybody had either pork cheeks (which

looked good and I was envious) or salmon (which Ihad and was good) except for Patrick who hadchicken to show his independent character.

We were back in the hotel after 22h30 and sowere late to bed.

I have wondered whether Lyttelton in NewZealand and Lyttelton, the suburb of Centurion,are related. I still don't know, but the NewZealand Lyttelton was named for a GeorgeWilliam Lyttelton, 4th Lord Lyttelton, Baron ofFrankley. George had lots of sons, one ofwhom was General Rt. Hon. Sir Neville GeraldLyttelton who served in South Africa during thesecond South African war. I suspect that our

Lyttelton was named after Neville. So, if I amright, the New Zealand Lyttelton is the Daddy ofthe Centurion Lyttelton.

I am a great fan of Botanic Gardens andhave been to excellent ones all over South

Africa as well as in Singapore, Madrid, Dunedinand now Christchurch. This Botanic Garden wasno exception: it is tastefully laid out with a hugeselection of trees and flowers to walk around inand admire. I philosophised about Botanicgardens as we walked and decided that overtime they must have changed their function: theolder gardens (like the mother of them all, Kew,but also like this and the one in Dunedin) seemto be a collection of plants from all over theworld. Newer gardens (like the ones in South

Africa) seem to be devoted to collections of localflora. In the Christchurch garden there is a fairlysmall section devoted to native New Zealandplants. It is a very good collection, but it seemedlimited to me. Compare that to South Africawhere, for instance, the Pretoria Botanic garden

is devoted almost entirely to not only SouthAfrican plants but to South African plants of theHighveld and Bushveld eco-zones. (OK so thereis a small section of Madagascar plants, but it issmall). I have no idea whether my philosophisingcame anywhere near to the truth.

The party in Lyttelton

The Christchurch CathedralPage 18 of 20


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We were all up late again. I was the first tosurface at 07h30 and the rest struggled out slowly.We had a good breakfast of bacon and eggs.

Patrick and Grace volunteered to take thecar back to the depot at the airport. They gotdone: having dropped off the car they walked to

the airport proper to catch a bus and bought aticket at $8 each. They found out that if they hadwalked in a slightly different direction, they wouldhave been able to catch the same bus for $3.50.Worse was to come: they asked the bus driver todrop them off at the closest point to the club andhe did drop them off where Patrick thought wasnot the right place. They then ended up walkingmore than 2 km to the club. This was further thanthe bus had taken them!

While they did car duty, Jill and I waited for

Peter to arrive at about 10h15. Peter verygenerously paid for two nights of ouraccommodation at the motel and that certainlyhelped reduce our costs in New Zealand. He tookus to the bowls and dropped us off there while hewent on to fetch Jan who has been staying withher sister somewhere close to the club.

The Ladies final was well under way whenwe arrived with Karen Murphy of Australia playingLorna Smith of Scotland. It was a bit of a one-sided match with Lorna a bit off her game and

Karen winning comfortably.Jill and I sat on one of the stands to watch

the game. It was dry and the sun was shining, butthere was an icy wind blowing from behind us.Despite these rather unpleasant conditions, therewas a good crowd there and the stands andbenches around the green were all full.

Patrick and Grace arrived to watch the end

of the game and Peter and Jan arrived duringlunch. We chatted with Peter and Jan until theyhad to leave on their long trip back to Nelson. Itwas good to see Peter and good of him to travelso far just to see us. We were glad to meet Janand wish them happiness together.

We ate our sandwiches and the Men's finalstarted at 13h00. Young Tom Bishop of Englandplayed Alastair Forsyth of Scotland. Alastairstarted off well and was 3-0 up after three ends,but then Tom found his length and direction andthat was about it. In the second set, Tom was 9-0up after 6 ends. He dropped 3 points and Alastairwas still in with a faint hope of winning if he wonthe last two ends by a 3 and a 4, but he was onlylying 2 when he came to his last ball: he was shortand so Tom won the game and the championship.

It was not great bowls in general, although therewere some great shots at times. Tom won onehead with a wood at least a metre from the jack:we do better than that at Kokanje!

We had the presentations after the Men'sfinals. They played the Australian national anthemwhen Karen was presented with her trophy, butwhen it came to Tom's turn they played Land ofHope and Glory! I heard two Kiwis behind medeciding that the Poms must have changed theiranthem.

We had a nice beer after the game and thenwent back to the motel where I had my firstafternoon nap since we left Boysie. No wonder Ihave been crabby and miserable. When I woke upfrom my sleep, Patrick had gone back to Burnsidefor the end of tournament party, but Grace hadbeen comfortable to stay at home.

When Patrick came back, he said that the

party had been the best organised event of thetournament and had been very pleasant.

I had an omelet for supper while the rest hadscrambled eggs. Grace had noodles with herscrambled eggs which is different.

Sunday 1st December 2013

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Christchurch to Singapore that aboutsums up the day.

I was up at 07h00 and the rest managed tojoin me by about 08h00. Patrick and I went to pay

our account. I took Patrick with me in case theyhad mucked it up and they had. Not that they areentirely to be blamed because it was prettycomplicated: Patrick had paid for hisaccommodation in advance on the understandingthat he would claim the amount back from WorldBowls. Meanwhile World Bowls had forgottenabout this arrangement and had paid the moteltoo. So Patrick's account was double paid. Then,of course, Peter had come and paid for twonights Sure enough the motel had messed itup and lost Patrick's original payment. Well notexactly lost, they had just not credited it to hisaccount. So it was lucky that Patrick was with mewith all his paperwork and could show the receiptfor his payment.

We had oats for breakfast. One of thosefairly tasteless instant oats things which are nottoo bad but not really very good either. Mine wasimproved by a dollop of yoghurt.

One of the friendly volunteers from thetournament came and fetched us in the shuttlebus and took us to the airport. There was a bit ofa party all going off together: the four of us, thetwo Netherlanders who were staying in the samemotel. Then we stopped at College House, theUniversity Residence where many of the singleplayers had been staying, and there we pickedup two of the Hong Kong visitors and the NorfolkIsland lady.

We arrived at the airport and checked

ourselves in and then looked at the shops andbought very little. We then walked to the end gatefor our plane and boarded for the long boringflight to Singapore. It was good that it was a dayflight so that we did not have to try and sleep(although I did doze a bit). I watched some of thein-flight entertainment especially the Smurf 2movie so that I could understand why I waswearing a blue hat. (Actually the Smurfs are blueand wear white hats, but if they had blue hats Iam sure they would wear them).

We arrived at Changi and were not onlymiles from where we should be but we were inthe wrong terminal. We went through theformalities quite easily although it was the firsttime in all my arrivals at Singapore that customs

actually checked my bags although it was with amachine.

How to get to the hotel? Should we take theshuttle or a taxi? The shuttle was $9 per personand we had been told that a taxi was between$30 and $50. We decided on the taxi and ourdriver was Joe and he charged us $36.50 so thatwas the right decision. Patrick got lost when wegot into the taxi and he later explained that Gracehad sent him off to get vouchers.

Into town and Joe got a bit lost finding thehotel but his GPS finally sorted him out. If he hadused the GPS earlier he would haver been evencheaper than the shuttle.

We had a clean up and went for a little walkup to the Little India Arcade and had fun lookingat lots of shops. They have lots of touristy junkbut also a lot of nice cheap clothing.

We thought about getting some food but we

were actually quite well fed still from the flight andended up skipping supper completely. Back tothe hotel and to sleep about 22h00.

Monday 2nd December 2013

One of the things that welearned from Peter is that theminimum wage in new Zealandis $13.50 an hour. I supposeeverything balances out compare $13.50 to R10, ourminimum wage, and it is notsurprising that we find NewZealand so expensive.

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Smurfs Abroad - 2

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