The Story Continues

For more of the continuing saga of Alexander Atticus Trick (with his parents in supporting roles), see the new blog Growing Up with Alexander, which picks up the story at the airport in Auckland as we return to the US.

Quick update

Just a quick note that we are working our way back to Pittsburgh. We had a great time in Disneyland, and are now freezing in Winnipeg. Back to Pittsburgh in a couple of days, when I will finish off the blog for the year, and announce an all-new Alexander blog!

Time to go

It is our last day, and we spent it packing and shipping of course. A few final tasks, including selling our car (to Hannah, our babysitter after Karin), and then a final drive to the ferry (after the ferry, our friend and colleague Andrew Mason very kindly offered to drive us to the airport). At the ferry we were met by a final "goodbye" committee. Shawna was a true highlight of the island. She was nanny to Livvy, Alexander's number 1 girlfriend, and the driver of "Monkey Music" on Monday mornings. She also showed up on the island in various guises through her dancing. Hannah was our babysitter for the final two months. And Karin was wonderful with Alexander for 3 or 4 months of our stay, teaching him a number of bad habits: I fear he will spend years wondering why putting his hands over his head pretending to be a tree does not hide him from others. It was wonderful to see them all before we left.

But then it was time for our final ferry ride to Auckland, ending our year on Waiheke and in New Zealand. I think it will take some time to gain a perspective on our year. At times we loved it here, and at times we couldn't wait to get back home. The sense of community we found on Waiheke in such a short time was unbelievable, and we will miss the people we have met. I think we are surprised at the roots that went down in such a short time, and perhaps we learned a bit about how to strengthen our roots in Pittsburgh, or wherever we may end up. It was wonderful watching Alexander grow from a 2 and half year old to a 3 and a half year old. His resiliency was amazing. I suspect he will never have such spectacular playgrounds again!

At the end, we are grateful to the people we met throughout the year, both on the island and at the university. We felt very much a part of Waiheke and of New Zealand.

Winding down and time for a last swing

With our time almost over, there are only a few things left to do. First, we need to do some packing. Unlike our move over here, we have decided to ship a fair amount back. Unfortunately, the post office no longer sends things by ship (6-8 weeks, real cheap) so we have to send things by air, which is a bit pricey. But it is much better than trying to drag everything onto an airplane. The key to success in this is to work with the older, less attractive worker at the post office. The "cute one" enforces rules a little ... strictly.



The second thing to do is to give Alexander some swing time. The weather has been pretty bad, so hanging out on the beach and swimming is not very appealing. But the swing always works. I don't think we can count the hours on swings Alexander has spent in New Zealand: it is easily in the hundreds. On the plus side, you will never find more spectacular scenery around playgrounds than in New Zealand.




We also went back to our original home in Onetangi and visited with Don and Gayleen. Although the house did not work out for us, they are a delightful couple and we are very happy to have met them. One thing they put in was a ramp up to the laundry lines. I fell down the hill early in our stay when collecting the laundry, but the ramp will make it easier for others. We'll call it the "Mike Trick Memorial Ramp".

Our final days are also filled with final visits with people we have met on the Island (Ilona and Judith are pictured, with Judith being a member of the Historical Society Committee). I think it is a sign of our sense of community that we put an ad in the Gulf News thanking the Island for our year here.

Busy Final Saturday

It is our last weekend on the island, and we are trying to make the most of it! The morning started off beautiful, so we did a beach morning. We have found a boogie board for Alexander, which he loves, though he won't play with it "properly". He loves to stand on it, which requires two of us to balance him and to hold the board under his feet. But, by the end of the outing, he was sitting on the board and letting the waves take him to shore, which is a bit closer to the accepted usage.





Next up in the afternoon was the Christmas parade on the island. It is really hard to hear Christmas carols ("Dashing through the snow...") right after baking on the beach, but this is the Christmas people are used to. The parade was the height of island life: bellydancers (including our friend Cat) and schoolkids, and people on motorcycles, and protest signs. The highlight was a group of men in gumboots (rubber boots) with wheelbarrows, doing a choreographed routine involving spinning the wheelbarrows and moving in complicated patterns. Very kiwi! But there was a Santa at the end, sweating in his heavy coat. Alexander thought about this a long time, and the next day declared that the Waiheke Santa is not the real Santa, since the real Santa is in Pittsburgh: I'm really happy that we scheduled our trips so he can see the "real Santa" at the Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh on December 23. I've put together a quick movie of some of the pictures we took of the parade.








Finally, we invited over a number of island people for our final goodbye drinks at our house. Lots of kids playing around, and Alexander in the middle of it all. We will definitely miss the sense of community we have found on this island.

The day ended with a beautiful rainbow (which never comes out in pictures, which is a shame: the rainbows in this country are glorious).

Dinner at the Mason's

Now that our time is nearly up, dinner invitations are coming fast and furious! Andrew and Catherine Mason, on whose catamaran we sailed a few weeks ago, invited us to their place for dinner and "messing around with boats". The Masons are really blessed. Andrew's dad bought a spectacular water-side house years and years ago in what was a pretty shady area, but the area has transformed and they now live right on the water (the Masons live in the former boathouse on the property), surrounded by boats. We had an embarrassment of choices: kayaks or rowboats or sailing dinghies. We decided to put a small (2.5 hp) engine on one of the dinghies and putter around the area. For non-boaters like us, that was pretty exciting (Andrew sent us off on our own). Beautiful area, at least at high tide (low tide apparently reveals the discarded trollies and other junk). One boat got in our way, so naturally we rammed it and it sank (actually, it has been sinking for a few months now). Even 2.5 hp is enough when you are right at the water, and it feels like every turn will capsize the boat. After our puttering about, we had a wonderful dinner on their deck, literally right above the water: when one of the kid's toys fell over the edge, Mike had to wade out to get it. We are very glad we got out to see the place (just like Mike and Alexander saw the Ryan's place last weekend): it is good to see how people live in Auckland. It is a lot different than Pittsburgh!

Less than a week to go

We leave New Zealand on December 12, so there is less than a week to go. Since there is packing and cleaning to be done, naturally Mike went off to a conference (Melbourne, Australia), but he did try to come back quickly. The weather is terrible with lashing rain and high seas. We hope it gets better before we go: we need more beach time!

Despite the weather and the fact we are selling or giving away his toys, Alexander is still in pretty good spirits.

Yard Sale

Our year is coming to an end, and now we have to get rid of all the stuff we have obtained throughout the year. We decided to hold a "garage sale" (we would call it a yard sale, but that is not the normal phrase here) and we did about $350 worth of business. It is rather heartbreaking to see books that we bought for $30 (or about US$24) sit on the $5 shelf and still not sell, but we did get rid of quite a bit.

Alexander found it hard to see some of his toys get sold off, but we comforted him by saying that we were just making room for new stuff. We also warned him not to let the "Mickey's" near the sales tables, so he had something to concentrate on. It also helped that his favorite nanny Karin came back to stay with us for the final ten days.

Published photographers!

Today we were delighted when we opened the Gulf News and saw that our dolphin photos had been published in a two page spread. For the record, that means that Ilona and Alexander each appeared on the cover of the weekly, Ilona had a five page article on her, Mike and Ilona got photos published, Mike had a picture of him with a Harry Potter book in another weekly, and there were numerous other times when our names (particularly Ilona) were mentioned in one of the three weeklies. We really do feel part of the Island community!

Through Alexander's eyes

Pretty well every day, we walk down to the beach so Alexander can have a swing. Today, he took the camera and snapped a picture every few steps. I thought it would make a nice little movie. I took the pictures once he was on the swing, but he took all the rest. A regular Orson Wells in the making!

Night time over Waiheke

Some of the best scenes are on quiet nights with a moon over the bay, reflecting in the water. Taking a photo of that is more skill than I have (and perhaps a tripod and special lens/filters are needed), but perhaps this gives a bit of a hint.

More dolphins

The dolphins were back this morning, bouncing and jumping about. At one point, they all disappeared into a frothing mass, when they must have been feeding on something. This time we raced down to the beach to get some closer up photos.

Walk to Fossil Bay

Now that the weather is better, we are taking more advantage of the numerous walkways available on the island. These trails are somewhat controversial, since they often skirt some of the multi-million dollar houses on the island, whose owners prefer not to see the smelly trampers. But New Zealand egalitarianism holds strong, and there are some beautiful walks in the area.

Today we went to Fossil bay, the next bay to the west of our house. The fossils found there are perhaps not that exciting (being bivalves: things that look just like the stuff you find on the beach every day) but Ilona's paleontological interests draw her there.

The first part of our walk is through private land (Ilona got permission), leading to a "stairway" down the cliffside. Mike (and Alexander) could not do the stairway down (it was essentially vertical with ropes to hold on to that prevent plummeting to one's death) but Ilona went down and found a fossil or two (the actual site is halfway up the cliff but enough falls down to be collected at the bottom). Ilona notes that these are Paleocene fossils.



We then took a walk through vineyards to a nice outlook over the coast and water. Alexander was a trouper for a while, but eventually his little legs gave out.

Dolphins!

We have had the worst luck with dolphins during this year. If you talk to anyone else, when you visit New Zealand, you practically have to kick dolphins away if you want to go for a swim. Not for us. Two major areas for dolphins are the Bay of Islands and the area around Kaikoura. We visited both, and saw no dolphins. Up to now, only Mike has seen a dolphin, and that only at a distance.



Today changed all that. A pod of four dolphins entered Oneroa Bay and put on a show right in front of our house. They jumped and danced about for more than an hour. They were perfectly happy when people jumped in the water to play with them. After these pictures were taken, Mike went down to the water and stood with them (not quite side-by-side: they had moved about 30 feet off the beach). Two of them promptly did a "Sea World" style, side-by-side looping jump out of the water.

Between the stingray on the weekend and the dolphins today, we are really checking off the "to do before leaving New Zealand" list.

Sailing around Waiheke

The Masons stayed overnight on their catamaran so we all went out sailing this morning. Karin (our former nanny who says she went off to Stewart Island but since she never updates her blog, we aren't sure) arrived last night for a one day stay, so she joined us on the outing. One highlight of picking Karin up at the ferry: we saw a four-foot wide stingray in the shallows (read: beach where kids often swim) by the ferry. Ever since Steve Irwin was killed by one, it is hard to look at stingrays as weird, but essentially harmless sea creatures. But they really are.





We began our sailing day with breakfast in Sandy Bay around the corner from us, where Mike and Alexander went for a quick row. It was great to see Oneroa and Waiheke from the water: it does look a lot different. We then sailed back around the island, to end up at Matiatia, where the ferry arrives, to let Karin go back to Auckland and the rest of us take the bus back home. Beautiful day, with enough wind to keep the boat going, but not enough to make it hard to sail. Alexander loved being on the boat, but was a bit disappointed that we all insisted on doing the sailing, when he obviously could have handled everything on his own.

More Waiheke Sailing

Party on Waiheke

Ever since we moved into our place in April, we have been meaning to have Mike's Auckland colleagues over, but we kept putting it off. With less than a month to go, we could delay no further, so we invited the crowd over for an "Afternoon on Waiheke". It was a glorious day, sunny and warm. Many came over on the 11AM ferry, and most walked from the ferry to the house. We took a long-cut through a "reserve" (a public park) leading up a steep hill to views over the island. Even Alexander put his little legs to good use getting up the hill (wearing a Santa hat: he is back in Christmas mode). One group (the Masons, Andy Philpott, and Hamish Waterer) "sailed" from Auckland, though a lack of wind mainly meant motoring.

Once at the house, we had the grill going for sausages and chicken and veggies and so on. Ilona's potato salad was a huge hit, and Mike's caesar salad also went well.

Most of the people spent the afternoon at the beach. The best part for Mike and Alexander was messing around in the Masons' rowboat. The wind was up a bit, leading to some fun waves. It took Mike some time to get the rhythm, but he eventually made it out to sea, though, truth-be-told, Andrew Mason did most of the rowing with Alexander.

We ended up with about 30 guests for the day.

Rainy day

Summer can't quite take hold. Today was a rainy, gray day: I even canceled my sailing lesson. But here is a time-lapse video of Alexander playing for about 10 minutes to see if I can can get short clips working.

Olive Festival

While Whaiheke is known for its wines, it also has a thriving olive industry, with perhaps a dozen groves producing highly sought-after olive oil. The producers got together today for an Olive Festival. This is what the Wine Festival (which we thought was a rip-off) should have been: cheap, fun, family oriented. Alexander had a great time running around with the other kids, and we enjoyed the food and music. We even came back with four bottles of olive oil for our own taste tests.


The festival was held at Rangihoua Estate, which has some amazing sculptures made from swamp kauri. If that bench was for sale, I think we would be figuring out how to ship it back to Pittsburgh.

Summer!

Definitely felt like summer today. We spent the morning splashing about in the ocean and playing on the beach. No pictures: only videos (that Mike is still figuring out how to put online). A glorious day!

Summer yet?

Summer keeps trying to arrive. Everytime I think it is here, we get another "Fine with gale force winds" day. Today was beautiful day. Ilona took Alexander over to the "Playground with a Beach" (Little Oneroa, about a 15 minute walk away) to play with one of his girlfriends. We had thought the school ran a play-circle involving pirates, so he dressed as a pirate (as if he needs an excuse!), but the play-circle did not materialize. Oh well, plenty of fun on the beach!