Louise laughed, “Oh, you Victorians.”

“What?”

“It’s Castlereagh,” she said.

“Huh?”

“It’s your accent. So Melbourne. “

I laughed. “Didn’t I say it right?”

“It’s Castlereagh.”

I heard no difference and I said so.

“Oh, you and your Victorian accent,” she laughed and waved me away.

Yes, there are quite distinct regional accents. It’s the aahs and the ehhhs, apparently. Louise tells me she knows a Melbournian by the vowels.  I still can’t tell the difference between NSW-lian and Victorian, but a Queenslander is easy to ‘spot’.

Michael practices the art of bookbinding in a  late Victorian era storefront on Tyne Street in Oamaru’s Historic Precinct.  His workshop is an amateur photographer’s delight, crammed full of interesting, old-ish looking things which elicit wry smiles, like these words of wisdom.

Oamaru’s Historic Precinct is a collection of beautifully intact late Victorian era buildings. It’s the only town I’ve heard thus far, that attributes its current (touristic) success to a downturn in economy in the first half of the 20th century. It meant that the these buildings, near the once-thriving port, was left untouched for many decades, thus preserving a little slice of architectural history. 

The Historic Precinct is now under the care of the Oamaru Whitestone Civic Trust, who organises Victorian-themed events like the annual Victorian Heritage Celebrations.

In January, Melbourne feels lazy.

It’s summer.

It’s the holidays.

It’s hot, too hot to do anything too energetic. We go to the beach. We watch the cricket on tv, with a stubby in hand. Or we head to the tennis and watch others exert themselves in the heat.

The city slows down, a little. Traffic is just a little bit less frustrating. Cafes and restaurants in the quieter suburbs close down for a few days, maybe a week. It’s quiet and still. There’s a lot more meandering on the streets and less power walking.

At work, it is sleepy. Many people are away, and those who remain say things like, “I’m going to use this slow time to plan, to file, to tidy up, before things heat up again.”

It’s slow.

I love it.

But I dare not give myself up to the beautiful lingering feel of January, this year. This year, January is a new chapter in a book that’s already begun.

The day has been unseasonably cool, which has been a blessing since I have been sorting clothes, books, DVDs, and all the many little things that make me happy. Stuff was strewn everywhere, and several times I looked at the heaped things and half-wished I hadn’t said yes.

But I’m almost done now with my piles. I think I have everything.

“If you don’t, you can buy whatever is missing when you get there,” a friend who was helping me, quipped.  ”Sydney is not the middle of nowhere.”

Yes. I am moving to Sydney.

For a year.

Tomorrow.

Wish me luck.

Salzburg, December 2009

As I write this, the sun is beating down with cheery abandon. The sky is blue, and there is not a cloud in sight. It is a pretty typical summer’s day in Melbourne. So the picture above is quite at odds with what I’m seeing out my window.

But it reminds me that Christmas is best spent with family and friends. I spent December 2009 alone, thousands of miles away in cold, snowy Europe. I was lonely and miserable. I missed my family. I missed the almost obsessive planning (on my part) that goes into Christmas lunch, and the subsequent eating of it. I missed the ‘never again, there’s so much food’ moans.

I vowed then never to go away during that period again. Not without my family.

On Christmas Day, we’ll head off to mass. This year is especially meaningful for me, because I have a lot to give thanks for, on top of giving thanks to the birth of our Lord. Then we’ll go to my brother’s house for Christmas lunch and we’ll eat. Then eat some more. There might be some gifts for the little ones. There will be a Skype call to my parents and my youngest brother who live a continent away, unable to join us this year. Then some sleepy, desultory conversation.

My Christmas is small, simple and quiet. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Happy Christmas to you, and to all. May you have a blessed, safe and joyful Christmas with your loved ones.

1. A very fine collection of Victorian era buildings built from local limestone, down by the harbour.
2. Penguin spotting – there are two species that make their home nearby.
3.  Janet Frame (no, had not heard of her before this trip).

I’ll tell you about the penguins.

“You won’t be able to see them up close at Bushy Beach,” said the girl at the i-site in Oamaru, when I asked. “The viewing area’s quite high up. You’re probably better off going to see the blue penguins at the Blue Penguin Centre. The viewing area there is quite close to where they come up.”

But it costs $25 to see the blue penguins at the Blue Penguin Centre. In summer, they don’t come ashore till 8.30pm-ish.

I’m sleepy by 9pm.

Yellow-eyed penguins (the hoihos), on the other hand, come ashore much earlier than the blue penguins, at Bushy Beach, 2kms from town. It’s also free.

No contest.

So late in the afternoon, I made my way to Bushy Beach. It’s short drive from town, up a very steep hill. A terrific hill to coast down later. It gave one a stupendous view of Oamaru but it was a bit nerve-racking to drive up.

The bird hide at Bushy Beach is high above the beach, facing west. It’s a squat green shack, with a sloping roof and has a large opening facing the beach and the ocean. So you get this terrific vista of the beach, the cliffs and the paddocks strewn with sheep, slightly obscured by the salt bushes.

Bushy Beach, Oamaru

A track leads down to the beach, with a Department of Conservation sign at the start of the track, asking that people not venture down to the beach after 3pm. It’s a conservation/protection measure. The penguins won’t come ashore if they see people on the beach. Meanwhile, their babies would be mewling with hunger in the cliff side burrows.

So I don’t go down to the beach.

I sat quietly in the bird hide for hours, watching the beach and chatting with some of the visitors that came to watch too. In 3 hours, 12 penguins came ashore. They body surfed in, then popped up suddenly like meerkats, to waddle up the beach into the bushes. When they meet a fellow penguin on the way up, they squealed to each other and flapped their flippers. Sometimes, it looked like one was waiting for another. Some penguins, for reasons I couldn’t discern, would stand stock-still on the beach. Just stand there and not move for about 5 – 10 minutes. They’ll get going again, only to stop for another 5 – 10 mins.

Bird hide. Bushy Beach, Oamaru

I scribbled madly every time a penguin popped up. I wrote down the time, and where the penguins come up. I wrote disgustedly of the idiots who wandered down to the beach as the penguins came ashore. I noted the people I spoke to, the position of the sun, the sheep on the paddocks.

“Are you doing research on the penguins?” asked one visitor, noting my scribblings.

“Oh. No, not at all. I’m just making notes.”

“What type of notes?”

“Oh. Just notes.”

The wind teased at my hair and at the pages of my notebook. People came and went, mostly to the open viewing platform but some walked further along to the bird hide. Everytime a penguin popped up from the surf, fingers pointed, excited murmurings escaped from lips, cameras went to faces.

Me? I sat on, until a deep golden hue came upon the coast and the wind brought with it a chill I couldn’t tolerate for long. I went, then.

Spotted this cranky looking yellow-eyed penguin close to the access track to the viewing platform at Bushy Beach, Oamaru

But when I got to the end of a circular overpass winding down to the port, I found Caroline Bay. Thoughts of edgy industrial shots went with the wind that greeted me when I stepped out of the car.

Charmed, I strolled. The container facility next to the wide, sandy beach was duly noted and ignored. I feasted my eyes on the mountain range that rose above Timaru and smiled at the young ones playing along the esplanade.

One little tyke on his three-wheeler watched me approach with wide, considering eyes.  He slyly rode up to me, and stared.

I smiled uncertainly at him. His frank gaze was expectant. His mum and dad was close by, packing up their van.

“Watch himself,” said dad.  I looked up, inquiringly.

“He’s a bit of a camera flirt.”

I produced a strangled laugh, rusty with disuse, but chose to walk on. When I looked back, the little charmer looked back at me with a touch of disgusted disdain.

I caught sight of these two boys soon after. They looked like they were about to seek adventure on distant shores.

Marching towards the sea with my brother and our boat

Come on, into the boat

We're paddling to China. Bye, Mum!

The absent watchers

Caroline Bay, Timaru

I could have stayed a while, letting the waves smooth out the rough edges. But I didn’t. Like the boys, I wanted to paddle on, to see what was around the bend, beyond the horizon.

So I took one last long gaze and left.

“Malaysians,” I thought. “Or Singaporeans”.

They had that slightly brash confidence that is missing from the Japanese and Koreans, but not the blithe arrogance of mainlander Chinese. But as with most East Asian travellers, they travel in packs – most large, some small. I was to see plenty of these small packs on my way up to Auckland.

They shared a 1.25 litre bottle of L&P as they munched their chips and shooed away the interested sea gulls.  The boys had Canon SLRs slung around their necks. The girls had jumpers tied around their hips, and were quite the stylish types.

I spared a moment to think about the scruffiness of my black cardie and the yellow knitted beanie that saw me through one of the coldest winters in Europe. I fade into the background magnificently, despite the canary yellow beanie. No-one ever gives me a second look.

The quartet moved on after a while, while I sat on savoring the warmth of the sun in the chill of the late afternoon air.  Young families stroll on the esplanade. I spotted an older couple I had seen earlier on a short walk, the ubiquitous cameras around their neck. I shouldn’t scoff. I have my Nikon slung over one shoulder.

Another quartet wandered past. They were older women, two of them with American accents. They paused and considered pre-ordering their tea. Their deliberations receded into a comfortable hum, as I drifted back to my book.

By the time I broke for air from the book, the quartet had disappeared.

I cannot, I find, write of the vacant touristic charms of Akaroa, on the Banks Peninsula, this “slightly twee”, or so said a guidebook, township that has French accents. I cannot, because I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not about reportage. It’s not about telling you I’ve ticked off all the must dos and should dos. It’s about communicating the journey, and not the destination. The growth lies in the journey, does it not?

The time in Akaroa was spent unconsciously tuning into a blessed, nourishing silence. I wandered the hills above the township for two days, looking at sheep on green paddocks and boats in the harbour, thinking of nothing but what I was going to eat for supper that night. I walked a little here and there. But mostly, I sat and people watched in an absent-minded way.

I withdrew into myself to be with myself. You can see it in these images. There’s also, I think, a hint of something buried deep.

Waves coming home

I go home tomorrow.

I am very glad to go for I have been longing for home in the last week.

I have had enough of the nomadic life. I want my things around me. I want to wake up in the morning and know where I am. It was fun for a while and enriching, but I am not cut out to be in constant flux. I lose myself in the uncertainty, and that causes utter confusion and despair.

My month of  idyll was not however, idle.  It wasn’t all lightness, joy, and being carefree.  Somewhere between exclaiming over scenery and indulging in ridiculously cheap live mussels, I came to a belated realisation.

I have been running away.

I am running away from things I know I must do but do not know how to do. Running away to distract myself from the fear. Running away in hopes that it’ll go away, or that I might outrun it.

It won’t, will it?

The month of idyll that is at its end has born some useful fruit. In the running away, I have re-learnt the process of journalling. I have gloried in being imperfect on paper. I ignored grammar, spelling, structure, of making sense. In those words I put down on paper, I have found the very beginning of self-acceptance.  That could only be good.

So.

I go home tomorrow to face the fear, still afraid. Only now, I have a little bit more courage to face it.

It’s not the end of writing about New Zealand, though. There will be retrospective posts. Stay tuned.

In my notebook, I’ve made no attempt for continuity, accurate spelling or precise grammar. Notes are not meant to be perfect. They are memory joggers. For when I am able to sit down in silence and craft a meaningful story from those scattered words.

Right now, I find that I cannot. I’m too distracted by the conversations in the hostel common rooms, the changes in the landscape, the uprooting of a base every two, three days to be able to craft something I can be proud of.

So, can I show you some pictures instead? For the time being?

I saw the first shimmerings of a mountain range not long after I drove out of Dunedin on State Highway 1. But it was too far away, too distant to make much of an impression. I played peek-a-boo with them all morning and into the early afternoon. One minute they’re in front of me. Then disappearing to re-emerge on my right.

Mountains far off yonder

In the foreground, many hundreds of kilometres from the base of those mountains, pastures dominate – mostly holding sheep. Then I saw deer. I pulled over, wheels squealing on the gravel shoulder. A herd watched warily as I stepped carefully on the squishy soft ground, weaving through the tall grass to the fence that separated them from the road, camera in hand. But they needn’t be afraid. There was a fence, a hill and a sharp dip between us.

Deer herd watching me watching them

I pulled over again, when I saw calves frolic happily in a paddock. I smiled as one calf did a little hop and skip with its herd mates. Then, I gawked from my car as the cows, one by one, joined a stream of other cows on a path beyond the calves. I strained to spot a cowman or a dog nipping at the heels of the cows – but I couldn’t see any. The cows, by their own volition, were going home.

Cows go home

Then, half an hour before I sped into Lumsden, the mountains stood up and let themselves be known.

“Well, hello,” I said. “There you are, at last.”

Mountains, ho!

By the time I rolled into Manapouri, I was in love.

Lake Manapouri