All hail to Google!

This is thrilling, honestly. A little idle, displacement-activity googling, and what do I find? Actual photos of my father's actual aeroplane - Blenheim IV Z6163 MK-U - sitting on the sand at Saint-Efflam on 29 September 1941. With accompanying Germans gazing about wondering what has become of the crew of three - Dad, his Canadian navigator and Irish gunner. Who are possibly right at that moment hiding in the attic of a hut in the woods nearby, eating hard-boiled eggs and drinking tea with brandy in it, brought by the wonderful Mme Leduc and her daughters.

They were just the first of a whole community of French people who helped Dad and the others to escape. Most of the people they had contact with were women, but there were men behind the scenes. They fed them, moved them between all sorts of hiding places, from a cave to a chateau, arranged false papers and passports, gave them clothes, and got them to Rennes and to Nantes. Dad said they seemed to enjoy the danger; but they paid for it. Most of them were caught later, the women sent to concentration camps where they died, no doubt horribly. Georges le Bonniec, leader of the escape network who escorted them all the way on the journey to Nantes, was executed in Cologne, where the Germans cut his head off with an axe. Dad was hugely grateful to them all. So am I.

The photos are classic. Look at those bent propellers, all the splashed-up sand, those ridiculous jodhpurs on the stout German, and his nasty high-peaked cap: it's the stuff of scores of war movies - except it's real, and it was my father's life, not some story.

With gratitude to the French

It's Father's Day today, and by chance this week there's been a little flurry of emails about Dad's ditching of his Blenheim bomber in the bay of St-Efflam in northern France in September 1941 - almost exactly 73 years ago.

Thanks to the glories of Google, two model enthusiasts in Brittany have found me and told me about the diorama that one of them is making of the scene of the plane sitting in the shallow waters of the bay, with the three crew making good their escape. The modeller had had another project in mind until his friend told him about this event, which he knew about in full detail, because his grandmother was one of the primary helpers in hiding, moving and looking after the men. I knew her name too, because in the report Dad wrote as soon as he was liberated and returned to England in 1945, he names her, and clearly admires the spirit and bravery shown by all the women who helped them.

When the Germans caught the three airmen six weeks later in Nantes, where the Resistance had moved them, intending to get them to Spain and thence to England, the women were arrested too. They were taken to Ravensbruck concentration camp in northern Germany, which was unusual in being for women and children only. Over 130,000 people were sent there during the war, and only 15,000 to 32,000 survived. There were medical experiments, exterminations, starvation and disease - towards the end, 80 died every day. Knowing that, it's especially hard to read Dad's description of them when by chance he saw them in Angers as he was being loaded into a bus to be taken to Fresnes prison in Versailles and then, eventually, to Stalag Luft III:

Mme de St Laurent's grandson sent me a clipping from the local paper last year, reporting that a plaque was to be erected in the alleyway in St-Efflam that leads to the beach where Dad and his crew waded ashore to hide, initially, in the roof of a hut. And this week I received a photo taken recently of the plaque by a visiting Kiwi who knew the story, and came prepared with an Anzac poppy. It feels so right to see it, and to know that those courageous women have been remembered and honoured for their sacrifice. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have a father. In fact, I wouldn't be here at all.

Lucky numbers

Though it's still cold and rainy, I noticed this morning that there's a light yellow rim around all the puddles - pine pollen, so spring can't be too far away. Still fully focused on Stalag Luft III, which was built in the middle of a coniferous forest, it made me wonder if Dad was glad to see the pollen too, knowing the hard winter must be coming to an end - or maybe he thought, "Another spring, and I'm still here." Probably both, but being the pragmatic sort, it would have been the end of winter that mattered more: Marek told us it gets down to around -15 to -20 in Zagan.

It was already pretty cold when Dad was captured in Nantes in November 1941. When the Germans burst into the flat where he and his sergeants were being hidden, he shot upstairs and laid low all day, creeping out at night when the coast seemed clear. He could have sneaked away but, lightly dressed, all he could think about was retrieving his greatcoat. It was comic-story stuff: he shinned up a drainpipe and in through a window to his room, where in the dark he trod on a Bakelite cup which woke the German soldier asleep in his bed. That winter, when he said, "I shivered for three solid months" (it was the coldest of the War), I bet he thought of that greatcoat often, shut in his solitary cell at Fresnes prison near Versailles, with ice on the walls and only a bowl of cabbage soup and a square of bread to eat once a day. Being a guest of the Gestapo really sucked.

The Luftwaffe were much better hosts - not that any of the airmen were tempted to stay, constantly trying to escape even as they were herded into the camp (like cats). I keep learning more stuff about the Great Escape: while we were celebrating her share of a Lotto First Division win last week, my sister said that Dad had told her once that his number, 129, wasn't the one he originally drew. He was afraid that, being tall and broad-shouldered, he might have trouble squeezing through the tunnel and cause a cave-in (two did happen that night) and hold up the whole operation, so he swapped his low number for a higher one. A book I've been reading, The Longest Tunnel by Alan Burgess, said that the compass-makers were amongst those in the draw for places 50 to 70 - so his original number could have made him one of the 76 who escaped. And, consequently, one of the 50 of those who were shot.

POWs, penguins and P/Os

Again with the coincidences. Here I am, boring restaurant story done and dusted, busily researching the next one about Stalag Luft III, when what do I see in today's paper but a report about the discovery in Fremantle, WA (where I've been) of the grave of one of the Great Escapers, S/L Leonard Trent, VC. [That's Squadron Leader, to you civvies - I'm down with all these abbreviations now: G/C, F/L, S/L... and P/O like my father - Pilot Officer.] I've just been reading about how Trent had got out of the tunnel and crawled through the snow into the trees (a triangulation error meant the tunnel surfaced 10m short of the treeline) when the guard discovered the tunnel and the game was up. He surrendered straight away, wise man.

One of those who got away was another New Zealander, Johnny Pohe, a Maori, who was in the same room as Dad. He was caught a few days later. Just 22 years old, he was murdered by the Gestapo on Hitler's orders, one of the 50 who were made an example of, in contravention of the Geneva Convention. Though only 3 made it safely home, the escape succeeded in its prime objective which was to disrupt the war effort - and infuriated Hitler, who wanted all 76 escapers shot. Surprisingly, it was Goering who persuaded him to moderate that; our guide at the SL3 museum in Zagan told us that actually he got Hitler to agree to 50% of the escapers shot, but somewhere along the line the % got lost - and so an extra 12 men died.

I also learned yesterday, poking through my father's stuff and listening to a recorded interview with my nephew Scott, that Dad not only worked on magnetising razor blades for compass needles, but also did his bit as a Duty Pilot look-out and as a penguin scattering sand from bags down his trousers, as well as taking stints pumping air through the klim-tin pipe in the tunnel - very hard work, that was. And as well as all that activity in the North Compound, when he was in the East Compound earlier, being big and strong, he was one of the men who carried out the vaulting horse that concealed a tunnel being dug there in plain view of the guards: the famous Wooden Horse. It was quite an achievement, to carry it as though it was light, when it was concealing one, sometimes two men, plus all the sand they'd excavated.

I do so wish Dad were still alive, so I could talk to him about all this. Or even, just talk to him.

Referencing Rudyard*

That's it, then. The Stalag Luft 3 story's written and sent, and it's on to the next thing now. I had thought that 3000 words was going to be luxuriously expansive, but in the end I had to leave out so much: the horrible fates of the Resistance fighters, the cruel Long March before liberation, the desperately sad epilogue concerning Dad's youngest brother Mike (and if you're interested in hearing that story, *O Best Beloved, you'll have to ask for it in the comments). Probably though, there's only so much tragedy a reader can be expected to take in with their cup of coffee.

Just before I leave the subject - the helpful man who located those amazing photos of the plane for me also sent some papers that we didn't have, one of them a photocopy of a Top Secret document, which was rather exciting. It was the 'General Questionnaire for British/American Ex-Prisoners of War' and one of the sections Dad had to fill in was 'Did you suffer from any serious illnesses while a P/W?'

His answer included: 'Suffered colds due to defective nose. Nose hit badly in football at Sagan in 1942.' He did have a largish schnoz, and it's not surprising that it got in the way of a football - but I do think it's quite funny that I travelled to Stalag Luft 3 using business class aeroplanes, luxury river boats and first class trains, but walked around the compound with my arm in a sling, still in considerable pain from my dislocated shoulder. Meanwhile, Dad crash-landed in the sea, was on the run for 6 weeks, a guest of the Gestapo for 3 months and a prisoner of war for over three years, and all he got was some sniffles and a bruised nose. (Not that I'm complaining, of course.)

By the way, that form also has a section headed 'ESCAPES attempted: Did you make any attempted or partly successful escapes? (Give details of each attempt separately, stating where, when, method employed, names of your companions, where and when recaptured and by whom. Were you physically fit? What happened to your companions?)' And after all that, a four-line space.

Merde, alors

How lucky is this? You've just lost your port engine to flak as you're on your way home from dropping four 250lb bombs on the U-boat pens at St Nazaire, you're losing height and there's no chance of making it back across the Channel. You don't want to risk a sea landing, because you know how risky they are, and you've yet to hear of anyone successfully getting the dinghy out of a Blenheim bomber. So you circle round, trying to distinguish land from sea on this pitch-dark moonless September night in 1941, and end up bringing the plane down in the bay of St Efflam in Brittany.

Look at this photo: it could be Weston-super-Mare, the sea is so shallow and goes out so far at low tide. Dad couldn't have planned it better. Or done a better job of landing, with no injuries to himself or his crew of two. "We got away with it," he told my nephew 50 years later, with typical understatement. The plane skimmed along the water, possibly on the bottom, and stopped without drama or damage in just a metre of water. They took the time to rip up all their maps and smash the instruments, and then waded ashore to hide in the woods, where in the morning they got help from a young girl walking her dog, and then a whole series of courageous women and members of the Resistance, some of whom later lost their lives because of it.

In 1991, I visited this bay with Dad, but it was a wasted opportunity: a crazy, spur-of-the-moment dash across northern France from Normandy where we were holidaying. It was a very long day of driving there and back again with a leaky baby on my lap and a twitchy toddler strapped in beside me. All we had time for was a look at the beach and a flit through the town before we had to leave again. Madness. We should have planned it, stayed there, met some of the people, done it properly; and I should have taken notes, so that now I could remember what Dad said about it all. Damn.

eBay goom

At the risk of overdoing the subject of my father's wartime exploits, here is another photo of his ditched plane, clearly showing the MK-U call sign - obviously taken before the others, before the Germans towed it out of the water. It's become a bit of a quest, not to say obsession, to track down that other photo to see if I can get permission to publish it in North & South. Who liked my story so much, by the way, that they asked if I could make it a bit longer. How often does that happen?

I do so love that this project has tuned into something so international. This latest photo has been sent to me from Daniel in France, who's compiling the ABSA website to record all that he can about every WW2 plane crash in Brittany during the war - aircraft details, crew, their personal details, information from people on the ground, photos... It's rather a heart-warming thing that he's doing, preserving the stories so that they're not lost, and nor are the memories of the people involved. Then there's Jonathan in England, who's helping him locate the descendants of some of the crews, and who is fortunately much cleverer on the internet than I am.

On my own, blundering around eBay, I located Christiaan in Belgium who had tried to buy the photos, but was outbid in the closing seconds by another person whose details he not unnaturally couldn't remember. I settled in to plough even further through the German vendor's old listings, looking for a description that sounded right in amongst all the photos, medals, helmets and other military miscellany that had been bought by people leaving feedback in German, French, Spanish, English and goodness knows what other languages. Meantime, Jonathan located the item number on a forum - and how brilliant was that - which allowed me to go almost straight to the buyer. Who's in Canada. Only where Dad was born, and where he had a layover en route to Europe in 1941, in Nova Scotia - which is somewhere I've been hankering to go for a while now, mainly because I don't know (or thought I didn't till I got into researching Dad's story) anyone who's been there. Sigh. Again with the coincidences. Fingers crossed now that he gets in touch.

Great escape, but not a great movie

Christmas in England was synonymous with, well, many things - dismal weather, short days making the decorative lights that much more welcome and effective, a free drink at the pub on Christmas morning, and later Zulu on TV to digest the turkey by. I have heard, though, that The Great Escape has become the new Zulu, though not here; so we rented it to watch tonight for the first time, for me, since it first came out and we saw it as a family with my father, for whom it was part of his personal history.

Having visited Stalag Luft III last year and seen what is left of the prison camp at the museum there, as well as reading all about it for the story I wrote, it was a fascinating - if frustrating - watch. Of course, liberties were taken for story-telling purposes, I accept that; but it was a shame the compass-making wasn't shown, and that so much of the men's extraordinary inventiveness was purely background detail; plus that more of the real drama of the actual escape - the cave-ins, for example - didn't feature.

It was annoying too that some important things were wrong that should have been right: in the movie, Harry's entrance was in the shower sump - but that was Dick, which was never discovered; Harry was under a stove, which in the movie was where Tom began, instead of in a hallway. Also, the spoil from the tunnels was bright yellow sand, much more treacherous to dig and more difficult to dispose of discreetly than the brown dirt in the movie. And of course, no Americans took part in the actual escape, as they'd been moved to their own compound by the time it took place.

All the post-escape part of the story was, while diverting, pure "Hollywood ballyhoo" as Dad described it; and I do wonder why the order to murder 50 of the escapers was ascribed to "a higher authority" rather than to Hitler specifically - what, sparing his feelings, were they? Altogether, I'm glad the movie was made, and allowed the public to know something of the event - but it's time for a re-make, one that's more accurate and instead of making up stuff, values the drama of the real-life stories. Peter Jackson, are you twiddling your thumbs now The Hobbit is finished? How about it?

A roar, and a hiss

We woke to sun and snow this morning: the one hoped-for, the other unlooked-for, on the tops of volcanoes Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. They made a bizarre sight with a foreground of coconut palms as we followed yesterday’s path back around the coast again to Hilo. It’s a pretty town, suggestive of Napier, with added banyan trees, but we had no time to explore it. We were meeting Steve of Discover Hawaii Tours, who took us in his mini-bus on a 9-hour ride around the high point of this bit of the Big Island.

There wasn’t quite enough sun for the rainbow to put in an appearance at the Rainbow Falls, and the black sand beach didn’t look its best in the still dull light – but it got better. We drove up the Halema'uma'u Crater road and trailed through the Thurston lava tube (more tunnel than tube – it was big) before having a view over the crater at our lunch stop at the Visitor Centre, where the movie was well worth seeing for footage of eruptions, flowing lava and the blasé scientist scooping molten lava into a bucket, his boot inches from the boiling rock.

We drove down across the lava fields, a vast swathe of black cutting through the vegetation, either shiny black frozen into ropes, wrinkles and cow-pats, or the scratchy shattered rock called a’a – possibly onomatapoeiacally, by barefooted early Hawaiians. Down at the end of the road there are, typically, both dire warnings about safety crossing the lava flow, and instructions on how to do it; and a sea arch which is cheerfully expected to collapse in the not-too-distant future.

After an unashamedly awful dinner at the Kilauea Military Camp (a baked potato from the buffet, served with a pseudo cheese the colour and texture of lava, plus what tasted like boiled mushrooms) where the sign on the shop reads ‘Soldiers, Families, Retirees, Civilians’ – in that order, presumably – we headed back up to the crater for the high point of the tour, The Glow. Steve had built it up in his commentary, and wasn’t at all worried that it might not live up to the hype. Nor did it: the cloud above the hotspot did glow, more and more vibrantly, as the sun disappeared and the night darkened, lit by the three points where the lava was boiling and splashing. Though it was distant, it was dramatic, and a sight to see.

Not that the mother and daughters sitting beside me thought so. Never mind that molten rock from the earth’s core was erupting right in front of them: they were more concerned about not having told Dad to put the trash out, and that the daughter hadn’t kept up with her piano lessons, and the younger one was cold and sleepy, and there weren’t as many stars as they’d been led to believe, and the eruption was smaller, ditto.

Reader, I told them off. And they were subsequently silent.

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Popping the bubble of free travel

The problem with being given free travel - yes, ok, your eyeroll has been noted - is that often it's because the operator finds they have a vacancy on an upcoming trip/tour/cruise/whatever that they feel they might as well fill, often at quite or even very short notice, with a travel writer. That does incur moderate expense to themselves, but the payback is literally that - publicity that will result in more sales to the general public.

Sidenote here: Travel writers sometimes feel/are made to feel inferior to regular fee-paying guests, and subsequently are given inferior accommodation, even made to sit at the back of the bus, that sort of thing. This is wrong. Looking at it in purely financial terms, the travel writer is actually worth many times more in income than that punter, because - if the experience is good and results in enthusiasm - the stories written about it will encourage lots more people to consider that tour/cruise/etc, and front up to hand over their hard-earned. So it's in the operator's interest to make sure that the writer is treated exactly the same as everyone else, and gets an authentic and genuine experience.

Anyway, the problem with trips like the one I've just been on to Maria Island in Tasmania is that clearly it was offered to me because only two couples had booked places, and the tour ideally caters for 10 guests. What's wrong with that, you ask? Don't you get more individual attention, a room to yourself instead of sharing, more food? Yes to all of that, of course.

The thing is, though, that being part of such a small group means that if there is someone there whose company you would not normally seek out, they are impossible to avoid. This has happened to me several times, and it happened again on Maria Island. (We will, for the purposes of this post, breeze straight past the 'it's not you, it's me' alternative explanation.)

On this walk were two Canadians who - well, there's no need to go any further, is there? They were Canadians, so they were mild-mannered and polite and cheerful, and I liked them. There were also, however, two Brits. Now, I have close connections to very many Brits, I lived in the UK for 17 years, I know Brits, in all their many incarnations, and I've liked most of them. These two, though? Yeah, nah.

He was a geology bore who knew he was a geology bore, and yet made no effort not to be boring about geology. I tell you, he went on, and on, AND ON about rocks and minerals and escarpments and batholiths and dolerite and granite and sandstone and many other words I can't remember because my brain gave up in disgust. He held us up while he lectured the long-suffering guide who made a valiant show of interest, he monopolised the conversation, and he bored me STIFF! 

He had been a university lecturer on the subject, clearly going against the general tendency of teachers to want to enthuse their students about their subject. Since then he had worked in the oil business and was a defensive apologist for the industry when he wasn't being boring about rocks, so he was not likely to find me warming to him anyway.

And then there was his wife. She decided early on that she would be the life of the party, and bubbled continuously, and self-consciously, for the entire four days. She made Dad jokes that she laughed at herself, loud and bubbly, and repeated several times. She told us all about her life and career, her children, their children, their house in Cornwall, their yacht, their travels, the big names they knew. She went on, and on, AND ON and - without showing more than the most superficial interest in us - ostentatiously drew the Canadians and me into her conversations, being deliberately controversial, and then bubbling with loud laughter at the awkward silences that led to. She set my teeth on edge.

If there had been more people in the group, it wouldn't have been so bad, but there was no escape at all: they were full-on and undiluted, and it will be some time before my memories of beautiful and interesting and wildlife-rich Maria Island will lose that irritating soundtrack of low, boring drone and high, shrieking bubble.

No such thing as free travel, eh?

"Remember, remember...

... the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot."

It's Guy Fawkes today and tonight there will be lots of bangs and crackles in the sky and trembling animals inside, including our Labrador who's a disgrace to all gundogs everywhere. I don't think that many kids now remember about Fawkes and the plan to blow up the Houses of Parliament - not here, anyway - and it's more usually known as Bonfire Night. It's a damp morning and no doubt firemen up and down the country are crossing their fingers for discouragingly steady rain tonight.

The best fireworks display I ever saw was in Kuala Lumpur, on Merdeka Day, their independence celebration - something Fawkes would have sympathised with, I guess, breaking free from British rule.

It was a huge day: it began with a parade that went on for hours -

>>> Involving 24,000 participants, it included 12,500 marching past where we sat awed by the sheer scale of the production. We had been expecting a fuss as the entire city was draped with flags and banners, but even the huge image projected onto the skyscraper opposite was upstaged by the living flag in Merdeka Square. Made up of hundreds of children dressed from head to toe in red, white, blue and yellow, it occasionally morphed seamlessly into other patriotic shapes. Behind them in the grandstand were more child professionals, who with an arsenal of coloured cloths, streamers, pompoms and banners flawlessly spelled out messages and executed complicated Mexican waves despite sitting in 30 degree sunshine for the whole three hours.

It was a phenomenal display: after the arrival of the sultans, princes, presidents, prime ministers and Malaysia’s own king and queen, there were children singing and dancing, 1000 drummers, military personnel marching with rifles, missile launchers and huge tanks (note to Helen: don’t fall out with Malaysia), veteran soldiers, vintage cars, decorated floats, fireworks, dog handlers and mounted police, bands with lots of brass and a remarkable number of bagpipes, plus contingents representing industry, commerce and the professions all vying to have the most colourful costumes: those in the blue and silver Flash Gordon outfits got my vote. Whenever it began to feel as though the marchers were surely circling round behind us for another go, the pattern was broken by a fly-over of heavy-duty helicopters dangling flags or MiGs and Hornets screaming overhead trailing coloured vapour trails as they did barrel rolls and other aerobatics. Amazed, I turned to our guide Hamida and said, “I’ve never seen anything on this scale before, have you?” and she replied, “Oh yes. You should see when the Formula One drivers come to town: now that’s what I call a parade.”

[Pub. Press 26/11/07]

And that night, over the city, with the Petronas Towers stunningly stark against the black, amazing fireworks scribbled the sky with colour.

Today is also my father's birthday. Or was. Miss you, Dad.

Remembering them

Re: St Michel en Grève , 28 septembre 1941

Message  cuttysark25 Aujourd'hui à 0:45

En cherchant des photos du Blenheim , je suis tombé sur le blog de Paméla Wade qui se trouve être la fille de Francis Reece, pilote

Je vous joint le lien de l'article concernant le sujet de notre dio ainsi qu'une traduction à peu près correcte:

http://www.travelskite.com/2012/08/all-hail-to-google.html

"Ceci est palpitant, honnêtement. Un peu inoccupée et surfant pour m'occuper  et que trouvais-je ? Les photos réelles de l'avion de mon père - Blenheim IV Z6163 MK-U - sur le sable à Saint-Efflam le 29 septembre 1941. Avec la présence d'allemands recherchant ce qui est arrivé à l'équipage des trois hommes , Papa, son navigateur canadien et l'artilleur irlandais. Ils ont eu bien raison à ce moment en se cachant dans le grenier d'une hutte dans les bois tout près de là,se nourrissant des œufs durs et buvant du thé avec du cognac, amenés par la merveilleuse Mme Leduc et ses filles.

Elles étaient juste les premières d'une communauté entière de Français qui ont aidé Papa et les autres à s'échapper. La plupart de gens avec qui ils avaient  contact étaient des femmes, mais  les hommes étaient là dans les coulisses. Ils les ont alimentés, les ont déplacés dans toutes sortes de cachettes, d'une caverne à un château, ont arrangé des faux papiers et des passeports, leur ont donné les vêtements et les ont dirigés vers Rennes et  Nantes. Papa a dit qu'ils ont semblé aimer le danger; mais ils ont payé pour cela. La plupart d'entre eux ont été attrapés plus tard, les femmes ont été envoyées en camps de concentration où elles sont mortes, sans doute terriblement. Georges Bonniec, le leader du réseau d'évasion qui les a escorté tout au long du chemin au cours du voyage vers Nantes, a été exécuté à Cologne, où les allemands lui ont coupé la tête avec une hache.Papa leur était énormément reconnaissant à tous ...

Les photos sont classiques. Regardez ces hélices pliées, tout le sable en haut éclaboussé, ce Jodhpur (culottes de cheval) ridicules sur l'allemand vaillant et sa casquette à visière haute  : c'est le truc de beaucoup de films de guerre - sauf que cela est réel et c'était la vie de mon père, pas une certaine histoire."

There has been a sudden little flurry of interest in Dad's dramatic finish to his war, almost exactly 73 years ago - a cousin in England visiting St Efflam, where the plane crash-landed; an author here in NZ wanting to fill in some gaps in stories he wasn't able to include in his last book; and today a model builder in Brittany blogging (above) about finding one of my blog posts referencing a story he'd already decided to turn into a 3D diorama. It's so great that people are still so interested - I've already been in touch with various sorts of enthusiasts throughout Europe, and here's another. Good for him.

Mainland tour, Day 4 - Over and under

With thanks to NelsonTasman

Today was a mix of old and new, for me. Marahau is sort of in the middle, since I was here in January with the Baby, for her brilliant kayak-expedition Christmas present to me - it began and ended just down the road from our motel. But the first stop of the day took me way back - our Abel Tasman Eco Tour with Fay called first at Kaiteriteri, where I had a number of family holidays in my distant youth. The campground now is very different, much more developed and busy - but the beach is still as sandy and golden as when I crouched in the shallows, desperately trying to learn how to waterski (on clunky home-made skis, behind a less-clunky home-made boat that I'd spent my share of time crouching underneath holding a wooden block against the hull as Dad hammered nails into it...)

We went then to Towers Bay, a classic golden sand beach streaked with black iron sand with Split Apple Rock artistically placed off to one side - a slightly more imaginative name than is usual in New Zealand, but still pretty factual. And then, dear reader, we tackled Takaka Hill again! Just as many curves and corners, just as steep up and down - can you believe it, it's a school bus route! This time, though, we stopped near the top at Ngarua Caves, where we joined a tour with Dave that took us down and through, lights on and off, seeing stalagmites and stalactites, 28,000 year-old moa bones, more recent kiwi and possum skeletons, copperplate graffiti on limestone curtains, stairs, straws and puddles. Stories too - like the woman out orienteering, who fell into a tomo, had her fall broken by a dead cow that had done the same thing, and was saved by her PLB. That's the trouble with a marble hill - it does tend to have holes in it.

After a lookout over Harwoods Hole that would have reminded me of Switzerland if I had ever been there (tch), we dropped down to go see the Riuwaka* Resurgence, a river that pumps out of a cave, the beautifully clear turquoise water originally rain that fell on the hill and has been filtered down through the marble. It makes the sort of contrast with the lime-green moss and ferns all around it that only nature can get away with. Gorgeous. And very, very cold.

And that was it for the tour, after six hours of chat and information, conversation and opinion - very enjoyable. Especially the filled rolls Fay supplied for lunch. They were delicious - as was the mushroom soup at the Honest Lawyer in Nelson that night. Though the excellent strawberry and lime cider that preceded it may have had some influence.

* When my story about this appeared in the paper, an irritated reader emailed me, objecting to my use of [officially accepted, corrected spelling] Riuwaka, instead of [former use, bastardised] Riwaka.

His name, dear reader, was Warrick.

You can never go home again

At my sister's house last night, we were reminiscing about Saturday afternoons with Dad at the ice rink, wearing clunky brown leather boots and whizzing (or not) round in that cold, damp, cavernous space before driving home ALL the way across Christchurch (about 12kms) for tea and Robin Hood on TV ("Feared by the bad, Loved by the good, Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Robin Hood..." - they knew how to write theme songs in those days).

I was in Christchurch a couple of months ago on a car review assignment, and after I'd picked up the sporty little Mazda3 ("Here are the keys. There's the car," said the guy at the yard. No ID, no licence, nothing) I went for a spin around the old haunts. Except they weren't there any more - in Cathedral Square I had to hop out of the way of an unexpected tram, the old University's been gentrified, the hill in the Botanical Gardens where I ate my lunch has been shrunk to a mound - and out in the suburbs, the shopping centre a couple of blocks from my old home is unrecognisable. My intermediate school and the Methodist church opposite still look the same, but where the corner dairy stood, and the butcher and giftshop and sweetshop and haberdashery (haberdashery!) used to be is now a fancy big mall with bars and cafes.

I was past my old driveway before I knew it, and there was so much traffic I couldn't turn around. The horse paddocks I practically lived in, climbing trees and playing long pretend games, are gone under houses; the old church I used to go to, where I developed a love for the words of the 1662 service, and Hymns Ancient and Modern, that has outlasted any religious belief, is just an outline on the ground in the middle of the graveyard alongside some soulless (ha) modern building; and at the end of the road lined by houses all the way, at New Brighton, there was a long new concrete pier.

An old guy fishing off the end saw me with my camera and asked "Are you a tourist?" and I had to say, "Yes, I suppose I am."

Stalag Luft III

A lump of concrete in a forest; a lump of broken brick in my hand; a lump in my throat. Our visit to the site of Stalag Luft III today was moving, definitely, standing on the ground where Hut 103 once stood, walking on sand dug out of the Harry tunnel, looking at things that Dad had seen day after day during his four years in the camp - things like the brick-lined fire-fighting pond, the theatre walls, bits of broken crockery with the Luftwaffe eagle on the bottom. It was a warm and balmy day, but in winter it gets down to -20 degrees, and the pine and young oak trees growing all over the compound now weren't there to cut the icy wind back in 1942-45.

Marek, the museum director, is a man with a mission and enormous enthusiasm, spreading the word of the camps to local people and seeing it as a duty, to honour the memory of the men who were imprisoned here, and the thousands who died here. That was my surprise today: to learn about adjoining Stalag VIII C, where thousands of Russian prisoners of war endured (and often didn't) concentration camp conditions - all because Stalin wouldn't sign the Geneva Convention. It made Stalag Luft III seem a bit like a holiday camp in comparison, with no work to be done by the officers, Red Cross parcels, Shakespeare productions, model yachts on the pond, choirs and orchestras. But of course it wasn't really: there was never enough food, the boredom was epic, the cold was horrific - and the ingenuity, hard work, determination and courage involved in digging the tunnels was totally an inspiration.

Fifty of the escapers were shot afterwards on Hitler's orders, and their names are everywhere; but there was also danger in everyday life in those extraordinary times: my father was one small stroke of luck away from being shot by a guard wanting revenge for his family killed in a bombing raid. That kind of thing wasn't rare. It all seemed very real today, especially as the area is still used by the Polish tank division for training, and as we walked around we could hear gunshots and the boom of tank cannons, and saw one trundling through the trees.

It was a relief afterwards to find Zagan's pretty centre and sit with a beer and a pizza outside in the sun, joking about how glad we were that fast food is an international language; but actually thankful for so much more than that.

Duck!

And they did, the Queenslanders, and escaped Yasi's fury, for the most part: so that's all right. Pretty good result, considering how differently it could have gone; though the thought of the clean up in places like Tully makes me go fuzzy at the edges.

My hens are laying AWOL again, and scouting around their run this evening, I heard birdy mutterings, and discovered in the creek bed just over the fence, an astonishingly large family of mallard ducks - Mum, Dad and at least 14 teenagers (another thought that makes me feel weak) - happily puddling in the mud and the tradescantia that grows there luxuriantly much to the hens' frustration, as they consider it a gourmet snack.

They were too busy guzzling to bother much about me so I watched them for a bit before resuming my egg-hunt. I like ducks - why, I ate one in Tasmania just last week, at Quamby Estate, as part of a delicious meal - and was pleased when I went to Brickendon Farm Village to find lots of them there fussing around the grounds. It was a poultry-lover's paradise: hens with chicks, all sorts of breeds, all over the place; and geese and turkeys too. Also two laid-back dogs, a friendly cat, a pig, goats, horses and cows: Louise, who farms the property with her husband, did mention in passing that she was "an animal person". Oh, really?!

The farm has been in the family for seven generations now, and has just been declared a World Heritage site because of its place in the convict management scheme. I spent ages poking around through the buildings that are very much as they were in the days when convicts worked there: the smithy cluttered with heavy metal, the cookhouse ceiling black with soot, the cute little chapel peaceful, its pews made from iconic huon pine.

The rather grand homestead across the road is surrounded by beautiful gardens, a striped lawn and a highly-regarded arboretum: but I was most taken by the sweet little coachman's cottage, which can be rented, furnished with patchwork quilts and old china. And this wooden settle, with these charming tapestry cushions.

Aw, Hec (tors)

No need to worry about not having a long lens when you go Hector-hunting with Akaroa Dolphins. Out on a two-hour cruise on their fancy new catamaran, the first cute little Hector’s dolphin we encountered was very happy to ride the bow wave right below us, as were several others we found. They’re the smallest dolphin, have a Mickey Mouse ear-shaped dorsal fin, and are found in only a couple of places here in Enzed, so it was a delight to spot them - especially since, last time I did this cruise, in 2016, they were a no-show.

It was still an enjoyable outing then, as today, helped by the onboard dolphin-spotting dog (Albie today), dramatic scenery in this drowned volcanic crater, and lots of interesting commentary scattered with an impressive number of Dad jokes, considering captain George’s relative youth. There were also fur seals, shags and a salmon farm - plus loose chat about not only several species of whale, but also orcas, spit. Regular 😀readers will recall my in-vain life’s mission to spot an orca. And, look, these ones actually hung out with the dolphins!

Despite that, it was a good outing, and an excellent, environmental and conservation-oriented family company. Recommended.

The animal theme continued with a walk up the Children’s Bay track past a crocodile, four penguins, four giraffes and a pig, to a rhino at the top - all sculptures, natch, but there were also real bees, bellbirds and cattle beasts. Plus a view, if somewhat cloudy. And that’s Akaroa, done - for this time. It’s such a lovely place, it’s hard to believe the population is shrinking, down to just 623 permanent residents currently. Tch.

Trains and boats and planes

What a joy it is, when public transport works as it should! And, to be fair, as it usually does, in my experience: so, well done, AT. Today there was a seamless transition from ferry to train, which took me into the trackless (well actually of course not, seeing as how I was on a train) wastes of southern Auckland, to Papakura. There I was met by Gary from Ardmore Airfield, and the rest of the day was all about planes.

Not your boring everyday Boeings and Airbuses, but aircraft full of personality and awesomeness, dating from 1912 to 1964 - famous and iconic planes including Tiger Moth, Harvard, Skyhawk, Mustang, Aermacchi, Fokker, and even a Polikarpov. I first saw one of those at the Flying Heritage Museum near Everett, Washington state, about ten years ago. That was where I first heard the amazing story of the Night Witches, women who insisted on doing their bit for Russia in WW2, and ended up becoming the Germans' worst nightmare, swooping silently over the lines at night and shoving bombs out over the side of their open biplanes. Astonishing.

Regular 😀 readers will recall that I am an airman's daughter, so it was especially interesting to me to follow the rapid progression learner pilots like Dad - teenagers! - would have made, from Tiger Moth to Harvard to Kittyhawk and then into action, with the enemy shooting at them from the ground and from other planes. Getting up close to the planes and seeing how basic and flimsy they are was a real education, and very sobering to consider.

There are two hangars, WWI and WW2, with most of the planes owned by syndicates of enthusiasts, but the whole set-up owing a huge debt - fortunately, just of gratitude - to a man who turned up unannounced one day, saying he'd just won $24 million on Lotto, had set his family up, and now was "going to do what I want". Which was indulge his passion for planes. So what had been a very small hobby arrangement has now become an impressive collection of over 30 assorted aircraft, almost every one of them capable of being flown.

Which is why I was there: to publicise their upcoming Warbirds on Parade event, when there will be a number of air displays including a bi- and tri-plane dogfight, and, star of the show, an actual Spitfire showing off and fixing forever in everybody's memories that unmistakable throaty clatter - which I last heard in 2018 as I walked along the top of the White Cliffs of Dover one bright summer afternoon...