Catching Up

Thursday 28 December

This morning was “chores time” –not cooking, cleaning, ironing (we have learnt to live with un-ironed Tshirts) or shopping – we needed to get our washing done before traveling on to Tahiti, mend my kagool, find the alarm clock (mysteriously missing), and sort the accumulated paperwork to send home – more than enough tasks for one day.

When speaking about doing laundry to some other guests at breakfast, they explained there was a problem with the dryer in our block, but we still collected the necessary tokens – NZ$5 for each machine plus another dollar for powder (not the cheapest washing session we will have had). When we arrived at the laundry room, we found the washing machine was in use and had to navigate around the other blocks to find another, perhaps with a working drier. We had quite a large load to be washed and the machine was stacked to the top, but seemed to function fine when operated – like all of Australia and New Zealand they use the old top loader automatics.

While waiting for the cycle to finish, our next job was to mend my kagool – the sleeve seam needed gluing back together. We have heard there has been torrential rain and flooding in Peru and we arrive there in another couple of weeks – let’s hope all those cyclones have disappeared by then, or we may need more than our waterproofs. This was an artistic job with a brush and tube of glue (with that great glue sniffers smell).

Then we sorted all the paperwork we have collected since our last posting home in Melbourne – amounting to a carrier bag full – ready for another visit to the post office tomorrow – and then searched my suitcase for the alarm clock – for some reason it got packed in my bags in Christchurch (not in Colin’s as usual) and has not been seen since – but was eventually found lurking in the spare rucksack in the bottom of my case. By now the washing cycle was complete, just the drying needed – and the driers in this block worked fine thank goodness. So we sat on the balcony and played a couple of hands of cards to pass the time.

It was therefore nearly midday and the sun shining, by the time we headed for the kayaks to relieve the boredom of our morning. The water was clear and warm as we paddled around the lagoon for over an hour spying large shoals of fish As I put my fingers in the water (not too far so I would tip out again) lots of yellow angel fish came to the surface to sniff my fingers, but I quickly removed them when the colourful mini sharks came close – they were gnashing two rows of small pointy sharp teeth as they came towards me. We saw two royal blue star fish, stretched out on rocks, looking as if they were sunning themselves as the sun splayed through the shallows. This really is a great relaxation – I wonder if Juz and Dave could get a canoe so we could paddle up and down the river. . . . . .

The tide does go in and out a couple of feet each day, and exposes some of the rocks further out, towards the reefs. At low water people can be seen bending down to collect some precious morsels (crabs, mussels, other shell fish?) from the rock pools. Strangely the water still churns over the reef at this time in large surfing waves, but doesn’t compensate for the tide – perhaps the lagoon is too big, after all it goes all the way round the island.

Once on dry land and after a couple of beers, we retreated to our balcony and much needed shade, to read and puzzle for the rest of the afternoon, with a glass of wine or two. We tried to make our way to dinner in time to catch the sunset. Last night the sky had been a fantastic vista of orange and reds, pinks and purples, greys and lilacs, as the sun set, but we had failed to capture the large orange ball sinking beneath the horizon on the camera. Tonight looked as if it might be a similar performance. But by the time we found a table the sun was half way below the distant sea, so just got half of it – still there’s always tomorrow – and although as the light dimmed tonight was another fantastic show of colours, the overall picture was not as good as yesterday.

We both chose chicken tonight – we asked for the specials, but they were finished, so we ended up with “chicken tropicana” , a chicken breast (I actually think it was that “boring” turkey breast that Polynesians don’t like – it was too large and dense for chicken – but still very tasty) with mango cream wrapped in bacon and filo pastry, served with mash (read “Smash” – or maybe frozen – they don’t seem to have fresh proper potatoes out here) and buttered sweetcorn. We enjoyed our meal in the fading light. The large television near the poolside was showing a re-run of the disasterous Test Match – and the Australian cricket fans were enjoying another opportunity to gloat.

We returned to our room and watched yet another film – this time “Cheaper by the Dozen” with Steve Martin (not normally my choice, but lots of my tastes are changing, perhaps in movies too) which was quite funny in a farcy sort of way – imagine having twelve children in your family. I did try to blog a bit, but couldn’t concentrate on the words, so gave up, and went to bed instead.