Europe 2008 Part 19

Riviera here we come

After two full days in Aix, we moved on towards our next stopping-place, Genoa, in Italy, where again there is a YHA hostel.

 

We travelled by bus down the valley to Nice Airport, where we hoped to catch another bus to Genoa.

 

There was a bus going along the coast to Italy, but it was only going as far as Albenga, and the driver assured us there were regular trains from there to Genoa.

 

So we set out along the motorway eastwards, following the Mediterranean coast, but a few km inland.

 

What an impressive engineering feat! Bridges alternate with tunnels, some of each a kilometre long, the bridges on high pylons, and the tunnels wide enough for plenty of traffic.

 

Deep valleys and high ridges running down to the sea from the Alpine foothills to the north.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We reached Albenga railway station about 1 pm and had a few minutes to wait for our train, just long enough to buy a coffee and a bite to eat at the station café.

 

The train was electric and took us all the way to Genoa. Unfortunately there are two main stations there and we had instructions to get off at the second one, but our train decided to turn around and go back the other way, up a different line into the hills!

 

We got off at the first stop, and had to wait a while for the next train back to town. This time we got off at the right place, and caught a bus to the point where we had to change.

 

Fortunately some very kind Genoese people showed us the way, coming with us in an amazing lift that travelled horizontally INTO the hill and then vertically up where it opened onto the street above, where  we caught a bus to the hostel.

 

The bus climbed up the hill on streets like the steepest hill streets in Wellington, to our digs for the night.

 

This hostel, high on one of the many hills, was four storeys high, giving magnificent views of the harbour. The rooms were tidy and clean, if sparse as you expect at a backpacking establishment, and the place was well-run, with a good restaurant, great breakfast, and friendly staff. One of the best!

 

 

Europe 2008 Part 18

   Les Baux

 

 

 

 Les Baux is a medieval village on a rocky hill in the centre of Provence. It was a fortress and the ruins of the castle on top of the hill are still there.

 

It is not lived in nowadays but is preserved as a historic site and a tourist attraction. We spent an afternoon travelling there from Aix by bus, walking around looking at the village, and returning to Aix.

 

Les Baux has ancient houses, cafes, an art gallery, shops and two old churches, one decorated partly by its patron, the Prince of Monaco.

 

The village is also famous as the place where bauxite, the ore from which aluminium is made, was originally found. That's why the ore is called bauxite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a corner of the village, with other visitors from our bus party looking around. There was a cold northerly wind blowing and we were eventually glad to get back to the warmth of the bus!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A painting of a Provencal scene on the wall of the village hall, originally the church, but redecorated for secular uses when the new church was built.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summer Poem

Bed of Roses

The middle-aged are easy

To pick off cleanly

Not one pure white petal falls.

 

All it takes is to grasp the golden heart,

Thumb in the floral testosterone,

Index and middle fingers behind,

A quick flick and the flower,

Mid-bloom, drops in the waste-bucket.

 

Only a few brief days of breast cancer will do it,

Or a swerve to the right at speed.

 

 

Sometimes you have to take

The very young, where the heart,

Light golden still,

Is almost hidden from view,

Petals strong, inward-curling.

The really old have a white heart

Speckled with black,

No sign now of gold,

And only if perfectly still

Will they hold on to all the limp petals.

 

You grasp more firmly still,

Gathering in as much as you can,

For the slightest shake

Of hand or breeze

Will scatter the weak pale petals

On the ground.

 

A whiff of pneumonia,

A hint of Alzheimers

Or a tiny stroke

Will snap you off.

 

And leave only

A ring of furry dead stamens

On the crown of a dormant seed-case,

Functional, never ornamental.

 

But at pruning time

When you pick up all the cut twigs

And toss them in the rubbish,

Somewhere in the sap,

Or deep in the little roots

Is the promise.

 

 

-26 January 2015

Home from Pukawa

An incident on the road

We had just crossed the Mokau River Bridge. The bridge is a beautiful, graceful curve, that solves a difficult engineering problem in a way that does not detract too much from the scenery.

For decades, Mokau had a one-way, ugly bridge straight across the river, with an impossible turn at the northern end (speed limit something like 15 kph).

Now you can cross at the normal speed and carry on to the south around the sweeping curve that takes you up to look over the mouth of the river and the beach to the north of the village.

A hundred metres or so to the south of the bridge we were surprised and then alarmed to see two sheep grazing right on the edge of the tarseal. As we gathered speed, we noticed that a further half-dozen or so were grazing in the verge, a few steps away from the roadway itself.

Behind us we knew Matt and Ev and their two children in their SUV, and Andrew and Julia and their baby in their Toyota, were also coming home from the weekend. And there were plenty of other families travelling on the State Highway as well.

Our only other encounter with an animal on the road had been many years ago, and had resulted in serious damage to the car and the animal, although luckily not to us. But the potential for real injury was stark in our minds.

We decided to phone 111 and report the situation to the Police, who surely would have some way of sorting it out. I took out my cellphone and got a first response, but by the time they switched across to the Police line, we must have been beyond the range of the network.

It does seem to me that if a communications company is going to call itself a "network" it should be able to provide a service that will work at least on all the State Highway system as well as in urban areas, and on major country roads.

It was not until over 30 minutes had gone by that we at last had a call from the Police returning our first call.

I explained the situation. The courteous policewoman did not know where Mokau is, so I had to explain that. Once that was sorted she noted the details and said they would contact the Council, who handle such problems, which were not the responsibility of the Police.

Again, I find it incredible that a potentially hazardous situation can be allowed to wait 30 minutes because the so-called networks can't provide phone service, and then hours more because, on a Sunday evening in mid-Summer, it is such a low priority for the Police that they have to find a Council official to get someone in  Mokau to look after their stock properly.

Huge articulated trucks, many heavily laden, pound along that stretch of road every hour of the day and night, and trying to avoid wandering stock even in the light could cause a major incident.

So we are expected, I guess, to cross our fingers and hope that the sheep stay on the grass and that no unfortunate motorist has to take split-second evasive action because a sheep suddenly startles and rushes across the highway.

 

Here we are after our tramp on Sunday morning; Evelyn took the photo. From left:

Julia with Sophie, Aria, Denise, Rod, me, Matthew, Carys, Margie, Andrew with Joshua (Christina and Lito's eldest), Spencer, Lito with 2-month old Asher, Christina.

 

Pukawa Weekend

By the Lake

This weekend we had a family get-together at Pukawa for the Barriball whanau.

 

Pukawa is a bay on the south-west shore of Lake Taupo, in a cluster with Omori and Kuratau.

 

Apart from being a popular holiday resort, Pukawa is very significant in history, as the site of a very important meeting of tribes in the middle of the 19th century to found the King Movement and choose the first king.

 

Other places may claim to be "the heart of the King Country", but Pukawa is really, in history, that heart.

 

Each day I sketched the house we were in, or the view from it. Here is the house  we stayed in. It is about 100 metres from the shore, where we all spent a large part of the day together, paddling, flying kites, eating, snoozing, and chatting. 

  

 

 Sitting on the deck and looking towards the beach, you see the view sketched here. There are large trees all around, and other similar houses down both sides of the approach road, and its side-roads.

 

 

Hidden in the bush are baches (sketch below), many quite large, which are occupied at this time of the year.

 

When we have stayed there in the winter, though, many are empty and the village feels deserted.

After lunch Spencer and Joshua (Christina and Lito's eldest boy) and I went for a walk in the bush, along a track that links Pukawa with the next bay.

 

It is only a 10-minute drive to Turangi, and on Sunday we all met on the bank of the Tongariro River and walked the track down to Turangi for an hour and a half, pushing or carrying the baby and toddlers.

 

 

View from our deck

There were 10 adults, and six children, so there was plenty of fun and games.

 

Earlier in the week, I sketched the Huatoki valley on Vivian Street (see the photo below). I was on my way home from breakfast at the cathedral, where they provide a community breakfast at cheap prices to fundraise for the Ebola Programme of Doctors Without Borders.

We think this is a great project, for a very important cause, so we support it when we can.

 

 

 

 

Europe 2008 Part 17

Aix-en-Provence

We had chosen to visit Aix-en-Provence because there was a YHA hostel there. Here is one of the buildings of the hostel, containing the dining-room where we had breakfast each morning.

 

Most of the hostels we stayed at were very comfortable for their standard, and some also provided excellent breakfasts in the price, but this one was very ordinary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Near the youth hostel, where we caught the bus to town, was this modern art gallery. The district is called Jas de Bouffon, made famous because Cezanne lived there for some time.

  

We found ourselves walking for hours, as you do when you're in these large cities;  here we are stopping for a rest on our way from the Cours Mirabeau to our bus stop to get back to the hostel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part-way through the morning we stopped for a cup of coffee at one of the many restaurants that line the Cours Mirabeau.

 

In contrast to the little streets off the main drag, the Cours is a beautiful wide avenue with two lines of plane trees providing plenty of shade, and tons of room for pedestrians to walk separate from the lanes of motor vehicles.

 

This part of the city is fascinating and beautiful; great for a visit and no doubt exciting to live in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Europe 2008 Part 16

To the Continent

 

On Tuesdays there is a morning market in the main street of the old part of town, the Cours Mirabeau. We wandered up and down looking at the buildings and the market stalls and feeling part of a different culture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At one end of the Cours Mirabeau is the main intersection, called La Rotonde, with one of Aix's many fountains in the middle.

The name "Aix" means "water", so it is natural that there are fountains everywhere, and this is the most prominent.

The Public Information Office is in this 'plaza' and we spent a little while there researching the local sights.

 

 

 

  

 

 The streets of old Aix are so narrow that ordinary buses cannot use them. And many are pedestrian only.

So the city uses this small-scale electric train to show tourists around. Here it is loading up its passengers at the starting-point of the tour, near La Rotonde.

We dutifully did our tour of the city, taking in the sights associated with its famous citizens, including the painters Cezanne and Van Gogh.

 

 

 

 

 In another part of the old city is the Town Hall, seen here, with the flower market in the square nearby.

We also visited museums and galleries housed in some of the old buildings, and found local artists who had produced some impressive paintings.

 

When we were visiting Aix, the railway system was being upgraded to TGV standard, to take the high-speed trains, and the lines were closed for two years. We were unable to use the railways, and had to travel everywhere by bus. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Europe 2008 Part 15

M25

Next morning we set out along the motorway towards London. After a few minutes we realised we were going in the wrong direction.

It took us some time to come to the next off-ramp, find our way across to the other side and head off again, this time travelling north.

It did not take long to reach the junction with the M25, which is the motorway which runs right around the outside of London.

We were heading for Bishop's Stortford, which is on the Cambridge side of the London metropolis, and the nearest town to Stansted Airport, where we planned to drop our car and catch a plane to the south of France.

This meant we had to circle around London and eventually leave to the north-east. We reached our destination in the afternoon.

Bishop's Stortford is not a large city, but it took us a while to work out the system of ring roads and roundabouts which encircle it.

We found the home of our hosts, Debbie and Geoff Raines, and thankfully forgot navigation problems for a while. Debbie's father is a friend in New Plymouth; they have two children, who at that time were both at school. They also had two dogs, one of which was causing trouble, and had to be restrained by a gate at the foot of the stairs from charging up and enjoying our company all the time.

Debbie and Geoff showed us around their home town, including the ruins of a castle in the centre.

 

Next morning we dropped the car at the airport and caught a Ryanair flight to Marignane Airport in Provence, the airport for Marseilles. From there we caught the bus to Aix-en-Provence, where we had booked in to the local YHA hostel.

 

Aix-en-Provence is a very historic city. It was for centuries the capital of the County of Provence, and has a large precinct in the centre which is still mainly sixteenth or seventeenth century buildings and streets. There is also a large modern area; we got lost trying to find the hostel, but eventually found our way home!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Europe 2008 Part 14

New Forest

We briefly visited the Winchester Cathedral, famous from the popular song of that name, but also Jane Austen's final resting place, as she lived her last years there.  The cathedral has many other interesting features, which we did not have time to study in detail, especially memorials to the inventors of some early safety equipment.

 

One unique feature of Winchester is the little chapel of St Swithin in the photo to the left. It is built above a gateway, across a street, so while you are praying upstairs the traffic is moving underneath you.

 

Our tour that day also took us to the New Forest, to the south-west nearer the coast. In the Forest is the village of Brackenhurst, where a hospital for wounded soldiers, largely New Zealanders, was set up during the First World War. A memorial for them is in a chapel in the local church, and Marilyn keeps a watchful eye on it.

Those who died there are buried in a special war cemetery: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Near the Messents' home are several other village homes; this one is right next door to Marilyn and Michael - a favourite of ours - the thatched rooves are spectacular.

 

The next morning we went for a stroll through the neighbourhood to see the fields, village homes and the beautiful level countryside in that part of Hampshire.

 

 

It was great to spend a couple of days in this rural atmosphere; we even had a bit of time to pick blackberries behind Marilyn and Michael's house. This swan was living on the river that flows through the middle of Winchester.

 

 

Europe 2008 Part 13

Winchester

The next day Michael and Marilyn took us to see Winchester, which is a few minutes' drive from their home. One of the sights we visited was Winchester College, which has operated continuously as a school since it was founded in the 16th century.

 

 

 

 

We had lunch at this pub, the Wykeham Arms, where many of the College staff spend their leisure time.

 

The owners of the pub have collected a variety of teachers' canes, which are suspended from the ceiling on display!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Michael and Marilyn took us for a stroll down the main street of the city to the old mill, which is here in the photo.

 

Winchester was King Alfred's capital and his statue stands at this end of the street.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is also supposed to have been the capital of King Arthur, whose Round Table is legendary.

 

A later generation had a model of the table built and erected on the wall of the Great Hall, where until recently the courts sat.

 

Michael is a retired lawyer, and had worked at times in that hall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

6B Pencils

And a couple of others

 

 

The new hotel project, just around the corner from our house here, is now up to the third level, as you can possibly see from this very quick sketch. The crane may have been positioning one of the large pre-stressed floor slabs which are being made by the concrete firm that Andrew works for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From a photo taken at the time, this records our visit to Skipton, between York and Lancaster, when we visited there in 2008.

 

We had afternoon tea there on my birthday, travelling between Harrogate and Preston.

 

This countryside is the setting for the TV programme "Last Tango in Halifax".

 

 

 

 

One Tuesday morning Spencer and I were in Pukekura Park, as we often are on Tuesdays. He was riding his bike and I suggested he ride the path around the outside of the Fountain Lake while I sketched it from one of the park benches.

 

Here is the result, or as much as I could get done while he went round twice! Big white globes were floating on the water, and at night they are lit up in various changing colours while the floodlit fountain plays. The big red gateway is part of the Japanese Garden on the hillside.

 

 

 

 

 

 Most sketches in this period have been done using the 6B pencils, but on one occasion I thought I had better do a watercolour to keep in practice.

 

So here is the result, a copy of a painting done for a Railways Department poster around 1930 by John Holmwood. It shows Lake Wanaka.

 

 

 

 

 The day after our journey through Skipton, our friends Russell and Pauline Rigby took us to the Lake District, and we had morning tea at a café on the wharf at Bowness-on-Windermere, the port of that Lake.

 

Here is the view from the café window. It was a very grey day, with low cloud, drizzly showers, and little wind.

 

The only choice was to turn the photo into a 'white-on-black' sketch: 

 

 

  

Europe 2008 Part 12

 Leaving Salisbury behind

 

Swans beside the supermarket

 

Salisbury cathedral

We were heading for our friends, Michael and Marilyn Messent, (and Tabitha their cat), who live in a village called Mickelmersh, near Romsey, a few kilometres north of Southampton.

 

Marilyn comes from New Plymouth, and Friends Plus used to visit her mother, Marjorie,  when I worked there. Then, while Margaret was working at Rhapsody Rest Home, Marjorie had to move in.  So Margaret got to know Marilyn, who would visit her mother on trips from the UK.

 

We found their house, Pond Cottage, down a little lane off the road running north from Romsey.

 

Here is Marilyn sitting in the garden in front of their house. The first segment was built in 1691. It stands in a beautiful spacious garden, with elves at the bottom!

As the photo shows, this is an absolutely amazing house. Some parts display features indicative of its age such as the large, low beams in the kitchen/dining area, which hold up the ceiling;

 

They made us so welcome; we knew we were in for an interesting weekend with them. Our bedroom was in the upstairs part of the right-hand segment, above their comfortable lounge. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Europe 2008 Part 11

Hampshire

 

We stopped off again at Stonehenge. As you can see we did not go in (there were hundreds already there, and the entry fee seemed steep) but contented ourselves with taking shots from outside the wire. We had heard and read a lot about the history of Stonehenge so it was quite special to actually be at the site at last.

 

We pressed on across Salisbury Plain to the city 

itself, called at the local supermarket and had a look at the cathedral.

 

Like many others we were dumbstruck by the west façade, shown here, with its statues of many saints built in to the wall.

 

We just looked and looked, amazed that such large-scale, multi-faceted work could have been done so many centuries ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the panel below you can see St Christopher, carrying the baby Christ on his shoulder, and, far right, St Margaret; we thought this corner was specially for us!

  

  

The cathedral's west wall was enough for one visit, so we didn't even enter the building itself, but had a cursory look at the rest of the city, and set off again to the south, deeper in to Hampshire, and nearer to Southampton.