On the Road Again

 So we headed south. This was to be a leasurely drive, so the first stop would be at Omarama, about three and a half hours from home, and just the other side of Lake Tekapo. There’s a funky cafe called the Wrinkly Scrotum that we like to stop at for lunch. 

No wait. That’s the Wrinkly Rams. As you were. 

After a wee break, it was off to Clyde. Only an hour and a half down the road. The first two thirds are through the Lindis Valley, and the rest is down the length of Lake Dunstan, a man-made lake created by building a dam on the Clutha river. It’s a beautiful lake, and a brilliant place if you’re into jet boating or jet skiing. 

Apparently there was a lot of consternation and angst during the late 80’s and early 90’s, when it was being built. A lot of homes and orchards were to end up under water. Worse, there were bugs and caterpillars that could only survive along that riverbank, so the greenies got their panties in a bunch and did a few protests  

To be fair, there was a guy who wrote a song about it, and it was really good. Look it up; John Hanlon’s “Damn the Dam”. Clearly showing my age. 

Damn.

Water water everywhere…

Before Sunita arrived, she had ordered bottled water to be delivered. Apparently she can only digest Artisan water (whatever that is), with a high Ph level, and most importantly, bottled at source. 

Don’t. Just don’t. 

It took a while to arrive, so Sarah was sent out to find another local brand which satisfies the requirements. So a couple of cartons of 1.2ish litre bottles were waiting for her in the garage. 

Just before our departure, the first of 4 cartons arrived from the original online order. Regardless, they went out water shopping, and picked up more bottles, as well as a couple of 10litre cartons. You know the sort? Like the cask of really classy wine of my misspelt youth. With a little tap you can pop out at the bottom. We referred to it as Chateaux Cardboard. 

So we have a box of Chateau Aqua on our bench. Another one went into the car, for her to park in her hotel rooms  

Clearly darling sister-in-law was oblivious to the facts of New Zealand water. Up until fairly recently, most tap water in the country was better than the gay French shit you buy by the bottle. Then the government decided to pay for adding chlorine to the water instead of investing in the upkeep of reservoirs and pipes. 

Even after that, there are 1001 bottling plants around the country hawking their local water as gods gift. 

It may be different in Singapore, but here, pretty much every bottle of water on pretty much any supermarket shelf complies with her stringent standards. Along with a lot of taps. 

Tourists!

 

And so it Begins

 Sunita arrived into New Zealand on Dec 11th. Her NZ  flight was running late due to being held up into Singapore from Auckland. This meant that she missed her scheduled flight to Christchurch. She was moved to the next fligh, but that was cancelled. All of this happened before she landed in Auckland. 

Like most airlines and most industries around the world, Air New Zealand is more susceptible post pandemic to cancellations and delays than before. This is due to staffing shortages. With fluctuating sickness levels, we no longer have the buffer of standby staff to fill those gaps.

This happened with the B777 aircraft that Sunita flew into Auckland on. The return flight to Singapore was cancelled due crewing, so the aircraft was available to fly disrupted passengers from multiple flights Auckland Christchurch. 

She ended up flying down on the same aircraft that she had just been sleeping on. 

In answer to the obvious question, there must have been crew available for a day trip to Christchurch, but not for the 3+ day tour required to do the Singapore trip. 

Back on Schedule

 To be fair, there was a lot of conversation and debate about moving ahead with the Christmas holiday. 

Eventually, Sarah and Sunita both decided that it would be beneficial to have this trip, and not wallow in their loss. 

Sarah knows people who have done this. A close friend of her mum went into perpetual depression when her husband died. This was literally decades ago. 

The family was so proud of their mum when she didn’t follow suit when Sarah’s dad passed away. She stepped up and took charge of the missionary school (CDC), to keep herself busy, and because the people were relying on her. 

The girls did the same. During their mums absence, CDC transitioned into a more local management structure, so there was no pressing need for one of the children to take up the reigns. Regardless, they all wanted to honour their parents by moving forward.

A Funeral In Dhaka

 So we flew to Sydney on NZ, then on to Bangkok with QF to help with the final preparations. Then we were off to Dhaka on TG for the funeral. A few days later we reversed that to come home. 

The funeral trip may be the focus of another blog. We’ll see. 

We may need to cancel

 Unrelated to all of that, Sarah’s mum has been stuck in Australia for over two years. As I’ve mentioned in the past, she lives in Bangladesh, running a Christian Missionary School, that she and her husband set up many years ago. 

Since he passed a few years ago, she would come down to Australia for a few weeks every year, to stay with Sarah’s brother and her family. 

This time she arrived in Australia just before COVID did, so borders slammed shut behind her. By the time borders were opening again, she was desperate to get back to her home and to the people she was missing. 

She started traveling in October, accompanied by Sarah’s brother, Sam. Traditionally, she would always stop in Bangkok for a few days to rest, either coming or going. This was always necessary, because traveling has became problematic for her health over the last few years. She had also used this stopover to check in with her medical specialists, who tracked her health through the years.

This time, she had developed the early stages of pneumonia in Sydney, but did not want to delay her trip so didn’t mention it. By the time she arrived in Bangkok it had progressed. When Sam realized the severity, he had her admitted into the hospital that she regularly visited.

For some days, it looked like she would be up and about any day now, but that never happened. Sunita went over from Singapore to give Sam a break from his vigil.

For a time, there was discussion of spending some recovery time in Thailand before going home to Bangladesh. This would have overlapped with our holiday, so Sunita would have cancelled to be with her mum. Sarah would have cancelled the whole thing and gone there too.

When it started to become clear that there may not be a positive outcome, the calls with Sarah increased. She was asked to go over and see her.

At the time that her dad passed, Sarah had decided that she would not visit him either on his deathbed, or after. She had clear memories of him alive and well, and would not tarnish them with hospital memories involving tubes and cables in uncomfortable places. So she didn’t go until after her dad died, and preparations were under way to repatriate him to Dhaka for burial. Coincidentally, he also died in Bangkok. He had been airlifted from a Dhaka hospital to Bangkok, but had died in transit.

Sarah made the same decision about her mum. She has wonderful memories of being with or talking with her mum, and didn’t want to add any traumatic memories.

So on November 13th, Sarah’s mum passed away, and we began preparing to travel, first to Bangkok and then to Dhaka for her funeral.

When her dad died, it only took a few days to arrange to return his body to be buried at their Dhaka compound.

With her mum, it took 12 days before she could be repatriated. COVID certainly added some beurocratic hurdles. It didn’t help that they were Indian nationals on religious visas in a Muslim country.

The party is Growing

 So a few weeks after Sarah books the accommodation, her sister Sunita decides she wants to come over from Singapore for Christmas. 

So Sarah contacts Millbrook and Tekapo to add a room, and Sunita contacts Oliver’s in Clyde. Job done. 

Due to dietary considerations, Sarah now needs to do her PhD on all menus of all hotels, restaurants and wineries she wants to visit, to ensure that Sunita is catered for. Not the end of the world. 

We’ve been to this area before, so Sarah knows which wineries she wants to go back to, and which ones she wants to add. 

The Itinerary

 So having decided to take Christmas off, there was planning to do. By happy accident, Christmas fell on my days off this year. As any shift worker in a 365 day operation knows, getting any given public holiday off is a crapshoot. As a result, for those whose roster will fall on that day, taking leave for the day is in high demand. So invariably there will be some kind of ballot or selection process to decide who will get the holiday off, and who won’t. Kind of a “loaves and fishes” thing. 

Anyway, as you know, Sarah will always do a PhD on any trip. So it began very early this year. The two of us would come to Queenstown for Christmas. We would drive down, so no flights or rental car bookings required. Hotels, however, would fill up quickly. So we needed to nail down dates, and book leave for the non-public-holiday days that we would have been working. And hotels. 

For whatever reason, Sarah decided that we should spend a few days in a little town called Clyde on our way down. I don’t know why, either. 

The only time we had ever been to Clyde, many years ago, we had eaten dinner at a rather good restaurant called Oliver’s”. Apparently they have accommodation, so that’s were we would stay. 

I know it doesn’t sound like a PhD, but there was a lot of unfathamable research done inside Sarah’s head, that I could not do justice to. 

After leaving Clyde, we would stay at a famous golfing resort outside Queenstown. In case you were wondering, neither of us would even know which way up a golf stick is held. 

On our way home, we would break the trip by staying a night at Lake Telapo. Beautiful spot. 

Also, there would be the obligatory wine-tastings and winery meals to scatter through our stay. 

Did I mention that Otago, particularly around Queenstown, is major wine territory? And that Sarah is partial to a drop? Silly me. 

Christmas in Queenstown

 Well, it’s been a while. 

I wasn’t planning on doing much of this again, but a friend of Sarah’s has been bullying me into it. 

So let’s do this:

The plan was to spend Christmas away from the coalface for the first time in too many years. We usually work through, because it is a profitable exercise. The only downside for me is the incessant cheerfulness of every bastard, traveling or otherwise. 

Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas. Just Fuck Off. Good old Ebernezer or the Grinch are really underrated at this time of year. 

Bah Humbug!!

Maybe it is time to take Christmas off, after all