Hey – I’ve finally got my life back after seven months covering for the vacant Exploration Manager position! Yippee!!! The problem was that government regulations insisted that the position had to be filled by an Indonesian and it just took a while to find the right candidate. Trying to manage both jobs was really stressful at times and I ended up dropping most of the fun things I enjoyerd doing in the evenings because I was either too busy or too knackered to do them. Anyway my new boss started a month ago and my life has got a lot easier!

How seven months have flown. There’s no point in trying to cover all the things we’ve been doing so I’ve just pulled out a few photos of some of the more interesting moments. We had an awesome couple of weeks in Europe over Christmas – I’ve never seen so much snow! We went down to NZ in March to check out our two Kiwi girls – Maya and Distant Drummer! Both are in good fettle. We did lots of work on DD and stayed on board which was fun.

We’ve been doing a bit of mountain biking, not as much as we’d like too because it always entails a very early start, like 5am, in order to beat the heat and the traffic. There is lots of good biking around Jakarta but not many flat bits! If it’s been raining the day before that’s when the fun really starts. The volcanic mud gets really slippery so it’s almost impossible to stay upright. The mud also clogs up on your tyres until they won’t move and you have to clean them off with a stick, a soul-destroying task because you know in 200m they’ll be completely clogged again! Luckily we are now well into the dry season so we really should get out there! I bought a new bike after my Trek was stolen from the office (I ride back from work each day). I splashed out on a new Giant with super shocks, disc brakes, the works – we really should get out there!

In December we took a trip to Gili Trawangan, NE of Lombok with Ali and Alexis and Ali’s father David joined us as well. I think Gili T is the best place I’ve yet found to really relax. The island is quite small, just a couple of kilometres across, and there are no cars or motor bikes. People walk, ride bikes or if you’re feeling lazy you can hop in a pony cart. There is many good dive sights around the island, a couple of good spas and lots of restaurants specialising in barbequeing anything they can catch. We stayed at a wonderful resort called KoKoMo and liked it so much we’re going back for my birthday next month – can’t wait.

A couple of weeks ago we joined a weekend trip to Krakatoa. We went with Jim – an old mate and geo who I used to work in Brunei with who showed up again in Jakarta last year – excellent! Krakatoa is a group of five islands which are essentially remnants of a massive volcano which erupted very explosively a couple of hundred years ago. We camped in the beach of one of Pulau Sertung with a great view of Anak Krakatoa which is the new cone which emerged in 1928. She put on a great show with rumbles and smoke, ash clouds and at night we could see spurts of lava and hear the projected rocks hitting the ground. It was very exciting to watch, especially for geos. The next day she was quieter so we climbed part of the way up the cone, ready to leg it back down at the first sign of smoke!

We had a trip to Bali in April for a friend’s wedding. Although Steve’s British, Oki is Indonesian so it was a muslim wedding but in Balinese style. The ceremony was in the early evening in a lovely garden by the beach in the grounds of the Hyatt in Nusa Dua. Definitely a good spot to get hitched! We also caught up with some old mates who live in Bali, both are actually running bars – very convenient!!

We’re still really enjoying life in Jakarta. We’ve been paying a bit of tennis, in fact I had a few lessons until things started getting really frantic at work. I must start again. I’ve taken up yoga again and Neil is coming along too! Yes really!! The world’s most inflexible man can now touch his toes – he calls it a beautiful pain! When we have a weekend in Jakarta there are plenty of reasonable restaurants in town or we have a bbq at home, we’ve been to a few good parties – the photo is from Ali and Alexis’s Halloween party. I went as roadkill, Neil was something from a really bad zombie movie!

Jakarta’s fun! It’s about time we had some visitors – how about coming out for a visit?

Suzy and Neil

Well it’s been a while since I’ve written anything, must have been busy! Doing what, I wonder?

Soon after we got back from Europe we headed out to our island retreat Pulau Macan which is one of the thousand islands which make up Pulau Seribu, just off the coast of Jakarta. The great thing about the P. Macan resort (well there are many great things but one that springs to mind,) is that even if you go with a group of friends you always end up meeting new people. The island is small and can accommodate around 20 people. The accommodation is built out of driftwood, bamboo and some brick and timber to hold it all together. It’s a great place to escape Jakarta, chill out with old friends and meet new ones. We took the inflatable kayak – it was brilliant for heading over to neighbouring beaches and islands and for going for a snorkel on the reef.

Neil was in Australia for a few weeks earlier in October, he went over to catch up with his Dad and visit his Mum. The trip was planned to coincide with Maya’s school holidays so she flew over to join them. It was good to have an opportunity for everybody to be together again and it was greatly appreciated and enjoyed by all. Not to miss out on the party I arranged a surprise and flew over for a long weekend. Hee hee – it was fun!

We’ve also had a few weekends away visiting old friends in the region. We had lots of fun with Juliet in KL a couple of months ago. An old Brunei mate who moved to Jakarta a few months ago came too. On the Friday night three other Brunei buddies crawled out of the woodwork so it was really a bit of a get together. On the Sunday I had a disasterous game of golf with Neil and Richie and haven’t played since. I’m not giving up – just keeping away from golf courses! Lessons and driving range might help, some skill and patience wouldn’t go amiss either!

A couple of weeks ago we went back to Bangkok to stay with Barbara and Udo. We also caught up with an old friend Mod who we haven’t seen since we left Thailand four years ago. It’s great when you see friends and the time in between meetings just disappears. We also caught up with some other old faces at a birthday party for Annie. . . . and I almost forgot the”HIGH” light of the weekend – a cycle up Khao Yai, and it really was high. Neil and I took it easy on the lower slopes but the rest of the gang made it to the top. Good on them!

Probably the most significant thing that’s happened on the work front is that my boss resigned. It was a bit of a shock (for everyone, I think). Haryo was a great guy to work for and with and he’s being sorely missed. Currently we’re trying to find a replacement but in the meantime muggins here is taking up most of the slack, with very good support from the team I might add. But it is keeping me busy (smile . . .)

Last weekend we went on a trek in Baduy country. The Baduy are a sub-group of the Sundanese and have managed to remain relatively isolated from the ravages of the 20th century (let alone the 21st). They don’t use technology (electricity, cars/motorbikes, phones or radios/TVs) and their plumbing leaves a lot to be desired. We had the opportunity to stay in the house of one of the villagers and it was fascinating. Their houses are built of bamboo, rotan and thatched with palms. They cook over a wood fire in the house and the bathroom is pretty much the riverbank. We trekked through their reserve area and visited several villages. The women and children spend a lot of time weaving and the Baduy scarves and batik are quite well known. They’re an industrious bunch and quite welcoming in a quiet low key way (no “hello misters” for two whole days – bliss!) Thanks for the opportunity, Evie and Goz, it was a great trip . . . and thanks for the photos too!

Suzy and Neil

We’ve just got back from a whirlwind trip around Europe! It’s the first time we’ve been back for four years so we wanted to visit all the family. Four countries in three weeks sounded like a bit of a toughie but we found plenty of time to relax and enjoy being together with everyone again!

Our trip started in Devon where Mum fed us and watered us while we got over our jet lag. We met her new dog Bandit who is huge and a little crazy and likes nothing better than pulling Mum around the village on the lead! The weather was bright and sunny and we enjoyed lazing around in the garden, shopping and even managed a touristy trip to Bickleigh Castle. Funny how I’d never been there before!

One thing that struck me during the whole time we were in Europe was how old all the buildings are. It sounds daft as I’ve lived there a large part of my life, I guess it’s because I’ve been away for so long. In every direction you turn you see thatched cottages, town houses, barns, churches, chateaux, all hundreds of years old. It never occurred to me before how surrounded in history we are, we’re very lucky!

After Devon we flew to Geneva and spent a couple of days with Josephine, Andre and Mimi who is now 13 and almost as tall as me! It was only a flying visit as we were picking Mimi up and heading down to Portugal to see my brother. We had a horribly early start and the airport on a Saturday morning was hell – but we got there in the end, picked up a car and headed down to Lagos.

It was great to see Toby again and to meet Ana. They looked after us a treat with a packed playlist of surfing, kayaking, riding and restaurants for every occasion. We spent a couple of days at the beach where Neil and Toby caught a few waves and Mimi and I honed our surfing skills, we won’t be winning any medals just yet.

One morning we met up with Alex (a friend of Tobys) and spent a couple of hours kayaking from Porto do Mos back to the rivermouth through a maze of seastacks and bridges and grottos – beautiful. Neil and I thought the inflatable kayaks were awesome. We found out that they were sold by a company in France so when we returned to Geneva we took a trip across the lake to the shop in Thonon and bought one! Needless to say we didn’t paddle back!

Back in Geneva the weather was fantastic. We spent time with Josephine, Mimi and the horses and Andre and Neil played golf. We went for walks with the dogs and had leisurely dinners with family and friends. We crossed the lake a second time to Yvoire to have lunch with an old friend Anne and her daughter who are living nearby. It was all very relaxing and enjoyable.

We returned to Devon a second time to visit Dad and Anne. They were well and we enjoyed a lovely walk along the Great Western canal. The canal banks are great places for walks; they’re flat (good start!), peaceful and pass through beautiful countryside away from roads and houses. The banks were filled with wild flowers and the dogs, particularly Alf, loved jumping in for a swim. Since having a hip replacement Dad had taken to whizzing around the property on a quad bike . . .with Anne sitting on the back shrieking. It’s a hilarious sight as they scoop up the steep track by their house!

Our last few days were spent in Amsterdam, just us, and we had a wonderful time wandering around the canals, visiting old haunts and new places. We enjoyed the Rijks Museum but liked the van Gogh Museum even more. On the top floor they had an exhibition of “van Gogh and his friends” and it was an amazing experience to stand there and be surrounded by such a wealth of brilliant paintings by so many famous artists. We loved Amsterdam – it was a great place to wind up an excellent holiday.

Thanks to all our family for making it such a great trip!

Suzy and Neil

Last weekend we took a trip out to Pulau Seribu, a group of a few hundred islands lying about 50km of the north Java coast. The boat ride to Pulau Putri Kecil took an hour and a half and was a bit bumpy but it was good to feel the motion of the ocean again. The ferry was of the “flying coffin” variety – it more looks like a plane without wings than a boat. The four 250HP Suzuki engines made sure we ate up the kms pretty fast but, with only one door at the back, you wouldn’t want to be in it if it turned over. Luckily it didn’t and we got there in one piece!

We went to the islands with our neighbours Ali and Alexis. Ali was finishing off her PADI openwater diving course so we came along for the ride. We were keen to check out the islands as an easy weekend escape from Jakarta without having to battle the traffic. However because they are so close to Jakarta we had fairly low expectations about the clarity of the water and the state of the reefs.

I was really pleasantly surprised! The coral was in really good shape, all sorts of brain coral, stag horn coral, sponges and large gorgonian fans, anemones sheltering cute little Nemos . . . and plenty of fish.

The variety of species seemed to be a bit limited, most notably Fusilier fish and Sargent Majors, but we also saw turtles and a moray eel. The water was a bit murky with quite a bit of particulate matter (hmm, probably something to do with the seventy cabins on the island but best not to dwell on it too long) so the visibility was only 8-10m. Nonethless it was easy diving on steep reef walls with enough life to keep you interested for a couple of dives. Great to have that on the doorstep!

For those weekends when we don’t go out to the islands Jakarta offers another opportunity to get up close and personal with our fishy friends – the fish spa! After four years in Thailand I thought I’d encountered every kind of spa imaginable but no. Head down to the basement floor of Pacific Place in Jakarta for a whole new spa experience. Low glass tanks full of tiny fish are set on the floor beside benches in a very tastefully decorated room. You’re invited to take off your shoes, have your feet washed then plunge them into the tanks.

You sit there with your feet in the water for about half an hour while the fish nibble off all your dead skin cells. Yeah – I know it sounds disgusting! When you first put your feet there’s a feeding frenzy! The little nibbles tingle like little tiny electric shocks and it tickles at the same time. It’s definitely weird but when you pull your legs out they feel really smooth – even Neils!! OK I guess you’ve got to try it!

Cheers!

Suzy and Neil

It’s great being back in Asia! We’re really enjoying Jakarta even though the air is polluted, it’s completely overcrowded and the traffic situation is tragic. Nonetheless the city is vibrant with great restaurants, great shopping and great people! As long as you don’t want to get anything done quickly or go anywhere very fast you’ll enjoy living here.

We’ve finally got our car, a shiny new Toyota Innova. It’s quite large with a third row of seats in the back but we’ll take them out so there will be plenty of room for bikes, surf boards, golf clubs and any other toys we might need to transport! Actually it’s a Kijang in disguise! Kijangs are Indonesia’s own brand of car and previously were not known for their power, styling or comfort but since they have gone into partnership with Toyota their cars have improved tremendously. So far we are happy with it and, once we got the courage to tackle the Jakarta traffic, have enjoyed running around town.

Happy Easter by the way! It was a long weekend here to – Good Friday is a national holiday! In fact Indonesia is quite a secular (despite the way it is often portrayed by the western press), since we’ve been here we’ve celebrated Chinese New Year, Nyepi (a Hindu festival) and Easter – not bad for a Muslim country! We spent the weekend in the city and on Easter day we went up to Sunda Kelapa – the harbour in the old Dutch quarter of the city. This is where the Pinisi schooners dock and there were about fifty lined up along the wharf. These old style wooden cargo ships are still built in the islands (particularly Makassar) and still carry rice to Sulawesi and cement to Java and whatever else, it’s great that there remains such a huge fleet actively working.

We planned to go to the Maritme Museum but got caught in a downpour and ended up sheltering for an hour by an empty shed which smelt like a dunnie! Happy Easter to us! We stopped in the old town at the Cafe Batavia which is a must if your like colonial architecture and ambience. In the square outside there were fire-eaters and acrobats, I’ve never seen such a dirty, scrawny, unprofessional bunch of street entertainers! The fire-eaters were taking great swigs of kerosene then spraying it out of their mouths and lighting it with a torch. Another part of the show involved cracking huge bull whips which the Fagin-like character who seemed to be the head of the tribe did with gusto. It was cruel and mediaeval and quite sureal!

Currently we are finalising the details of the lease on our new apartment in Kabayoran Baru. We are leasing it unfurnished which then lead us into the wonderful world of furniture rental, an area of business I never knew existed before but anything’s possible in Jakarta! We visited a few showrooms and have finally managed to acquire almost all we need – shame they don’t have curbside refuse collections here like they do in Perth! Anyway we will be moving in the middle of May – four months after we arrived here but I think it’s been worth the wait. With a bit of luck our other gubbins from Perth should have arrived by then so we will finally be settled somewhere.

Cheers!

Suzy and Neil

We’re still trucking along in Jakarta. Well actually Neil’s been back in New Zealand for the last three weeks, catching up with Maya and giving much needed TLC to Distant Drummer. It’s the first time we (he) has been back for 8 months but she seems to be in good shape, thanks largely to our friend Ken who’s been keeping an eye on things and starting the engine every couple of weeks. Having said that, there’s still a lot of work to do to put here to bed while we are in Indonesia. Neil’s been working hard scrubbing decks and hulls and general maintenance – good onya skipper!

While he’s away I’ve been continuing the search for an apartment. There’s some real crap out there so finding the gems takes time to figure out what you want and then to work with the agent to help her understand what you’re looking for. One of the keys is to decide what features are really important to you (high rise/low rise or a house, balcony, study room, garden etc.). Then you need to choose your area for convenience to the shops, office, toll road etc. We have settled on an area called Kabayoran Baru which is a lovely leafy district full of quiet streets and big houses. It’s pretty central for shops etc. and reasonably well located for the office.

Having got that far I decided to take to the streets! I had a walk around the area looking for suitable candidates. Yesterday I checked out a few places and found two that I liked. They ticked most of the boxes and hopefully Neil will like them too and we can eventually get settled into somewhere. Anyway I’ve spent far too much time talking about that – as you can tell it’s been on my mind!

I’ve been doing some other stuff too. Our neighbours up here on the 22nd floor are fun people. We’ve met up a few times for dinner/drinks and get along well. A couple of weeks ago we drove down to the south coast of West Java to join a trekking group (called Java Lava) for a bit of a walk. Saturday involved getting up at 4.30, wolfing down a plate of nasi goreng then walking 17km! For an island as densely populated as Java it was surprisingly uninhabited – no road access I suppose. In each bay there was usually a fishing shack with a few boats pulled up on the beach. It could not have been too far from habitation as many of the valleys were terraced with workers bent double planting padi. The route roughly followed the shoreline – part rocky beach, part sandy beach with occasional river crossings, we were soon hot, wet and muddy. The coast is fairly sinuous with deep bays separated by rugged headlands. Navigating these was an adventure in itself involving slithering up steep muddy paths between padi and banana and slipping down the other side. It was fun but exhausting so the idea of getting up at 5am the next morning to walk up a mountain didn’t appeal. What a wimp!

This weekend I went with Ali and Alexis (our neighbours) to the Java Jazz Festival which is held here in Jakarta. There are about 10 stages with 200 bands playing over three days. It attracts some international names, none of which are familiar to me so I won’t try to sound like an aficionado! I guess the musician I enjoyed listening to most last night was Maurice Brown, a fairly unprententious guy who played the trumpet with such passion and soul and was totally absorbed in the music. The Indonesian bands attracted the biggest crowds, I just couldn’t penetrate the crush at the door so didn’t get to hear them! Will probably drift up there tonight for another dose!

I’m still waiting for my Kitas (work visa), it just takes a lot of time to wade through the beaurocracy but I’m assured it should be completed next week, they say that every week(!). It is actually holding up a few things: opening a bank account here of starters and also our packing from Perth will not be put on a ship out of Fremantle until my visa is issued. Ah well . . . ho hum . . . it’ll happen one day soon . . .

Success on the car front; our Toyota Innova has been ordered. It will take about a month to get delivered but we’re in no rush. So hopefully soon we’ll have a home and a car – yay!!

Neil comes home on Thursday (yippee) and we’re off on another Java Lava trip at the weekend – more on that later.

Tata for now

Suzy and Neil

Well we’ve been in Jakarta for a couple of weeks now. We are staying in Kuningan at the moment, the area they call the Golden Triangle, presumably because of the glitzy shopping malls and luxury apartments and hotels including the J W Marriott and the Ritz Carlton – eek! Less than five minutes walk away the side streets (or jalan tikus – mouse streets, what a sweet name!) are lined with the usual run down, ramshackle, don’t-know-they-make-a-living shops crowded with kids and motorbikes and smiles and “hello misters”. The juxtapositions of SE Asia always amaze me!

I’m just looking out of the window of our apartment. From up here on the 22nd floor it’s a view of a big city sprawlling out in every direction, tower blocks of offices and apartments sticking up from a mire of red terracotta tile roofs and rusty tin shacks. The domes and minarets of the mosques are the only thing of beauty in the grey, angular cityscape. At night it comes alive with zillions of lights, red lights filling the roads as people trying to get home, white and yellow lights illuminating the offices of those who haven’t yet braved the traffic. Reflections off the glass buildings amplify the brightness making the city look even more crowded!

The monsoon is really gathering force at the moment, in the last couple of days we’ve had some torrential rain storms. Everyone is expecting floods soon which will make walking to work interesting, maybe I should buy a canoe! Sometimes in the mornings a mist hangs over the city – or is it just smog?! – I’m not sure but Neil captured it quite beautifully in one of his paintings.

I’m really enjoying the job. It’s great working in a small company like Lundin. You’re never quite sure what each week will bring and just when you think you’re going to have a quiet day something lands on your desk and keeps you there late into the evening. There are about thirty people in the office – I feel like I’ve been there for weeks and am already part of the family.

We had a trip to Kuala Lumpur this week. I was attending a symposium for a couple of days and we managed to catch up with some old Brunei friends which was great. Neil’s enjoying life here, I think he’s just about over scouting out the local area and has started researching which businesses are here and what they’re doing with a view to doing some consultancy. Early days yet . . .

Suzy and Neil

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! I hope you all enjoyed the holiday season whatever you were up to. We had a lovely Christmas. Maya flew over from New Zealand for a week which was great. She particularly wanted to spend some time with her Grandma, the smile on Shirley’s face when she heard Maya’s voice was radiant. Heather and Anthony came over from Melbourne so the Carmody Clan was gathered for feasting and festivities – all great fun. We spent most of the rest of Maya’s stay in between the shopping mall and the beach but she also managed to catch up with some old friends and cousins. We popped her back on a flight to Nelson (via Melbourne and Wellington – ouch) and she made it home in time for New Year’s Eve!

So now we are on the move again. I am starting a new job with Lundin Petroleum in Jakarta on 18th January so once things started moving again after New Year we had our work cut out getting ready to leave. Despite having kept the furnishings in the house to a minimum, we were amazed how much stuff we’d managed to accumulate -verge crawling can be quite lucrative as well as and bits and bobs donated by philanthropic family and friends!! It all needed to be returned to storage in Fremantle so we begged, borrowed and hired a couple of utes. It felt kind of sad emptying the house so soon after moving in!

We decided that we’d only take the bare essentials to Jak. which to us meant kitchen gear, clothes, linen (or Manchester as they bizarrely call it in Australia!) and lots of toys – water skis, surf boards, bikes, golf clubs etc. I guess one man’s necessities are another man’s excessories! Anyway the movers came on 11 January and packed it all up and it’s now sitting in a warehouse somewhere outside Perth, waiting for our visae before it can be put on to a ship from Fremantle.

We arrived in Jak last Tuesday. It’s the rainy season so the weather has been mostly cloudy with mounting cumulus, drizzle and heavy rainstorms. It’s about 32oC but actually the humidity doesn’t feel that bad. We are staying in a hotel at the moment and have spent most of the last few days looking for an apartment. This involves an agent picking us up then sitting in traffic for about an hour to travel 3-4km to a shiny new, sky-scraping apartment block. Once there we view a couple of units and the facilities (pool, fitness centre etc.) then on to the next one. It’s actually quite fun! Our plan is to move into a place for a couple of months while we get to know the city. Because the traffic flow is so bad, choosing the right area with accessibility to the office, shops, golf clubs, the airport or whatever is important to you can make or break your enjoyment of living here. So we want to take our time while we are waiting for our packing to arrive to find the right place. We have found a short lease serviced apartment which we’ll be moving into on Monday.

Unfortunately our days on Distant Drummer are becoming a distant memory (sob sob!). We have decided to keep her berthed in Nelson Marina while we are in Jakarta. This means we have to bite the bullet and import her into New Zealand, ouch $$$. Neil will be going back in a month or so to check her over, take her out for a spin and shake the spiders out of the sails. We’ll get back there when we can for a sail!

So that’s our news. Tata for now!

Suzy and Neil

After months (if not years) of searching we are very happy to announce that we have finally bought a house!!

Yes it’s taken a long time for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being deciding on the location? location? location?? Well for us it wasn’t a question of which suburb but which continent! Then there’s the problem with being nomadic – we were never in one place long enough to really get a feel for the local market. Anyway this year the planets lined up! We were in Perth with time on our hands and the economic downturn provided a slump, or at least a plateau, in house prices.

We must have looked at at least twenty properties before we found what we were looking for in Edgewater. It’s a four bedroom two bathroom house located about 20km north of Perth and 5km from the beach. It is on the southwestern corner of Lake Joondalup which is part of an extensive wetlands nature reserve so there is plenty of open space for long walks and bike rides. Neil was riding up to Joondalup to visit his Mum yesterday and nearly got knocked off his bike by a kangaroo!

We moved in to our new home a couple of weeks ago. We have just a skeleton of furniture, mostly begged, borrowed or stolen, so we are sleeping on a mattress on the floor, and sitting on two chairs scavenged off the side of the road! Perth has bulk garbage collection days for each neighbourhood every so often. People can put out old furniture, garden refuse, sinks, washing machines – you name it – and the council will collect and dispose of it. We’ve found tables, chairs, a lawn mower (yet to get working) and a TV which works perfectly – all from the kerbside. It’s amazing! We picked up a table and carried it back to the house and then discovered a large redback spider underneath – deadly!!

We’ve got a nice shady patio and a bit of a garden on the lower terrace. The lemon tree is prolific producing fruit the size of cricket balls. There is also an olive, an apricot and a fig tree and a loquat tree which produces soft yellow fruit about the size and shape of a plum but tastes like a pear. We also have an unlicensed banana tree – apparently you need a license to grow bananas here, something to do with the irrigation. As we don’t have any special irrigation we won’t be expecting any bananas but also hopefully no fines from the Dept. of Natural Resources.

Ah well – the trials and tribulations of home ownership!

Suzy and Neil

Well here we are in the middle of June and back in Nelson! We arrived back a few weeks ago after two months in Perth. Neil’s Mum has stabilised after her stroke but the loss of her short term memory as well as her vision makes rehabilitation very difficult and is causing her a great deal of anxiety. She is now living in a permanent nursing home not too far from Woodvale where Neil’s father lives, so she is being cared for and he can visit her whenever he wants.

While in Perth we visited Neil’s Mum every day but still had plenty of time on our hands. We bought a couple of tennis racquets, dusted off our rusty skills and had fun thrashing around the tennis court. Neil finally managed to convince me to pick up a golf club and have a swing, I actually enjoyed it as long as I didn’t take myself too seriously – not much chance of that! I also managed to wangle myself some work at the university in Perth (UWA). My old mate Myra Keep is a Professor of Geology there and needed a teaching assistant for her third year course in Petroleum Geology. It was great spending two afternoons a week teaching seismic interpretation with Myra – almost like old times. So our two months in Perth was well spent, meeting up with old friends, spending lots of time with Neil’s Dad and we also had several enjoyable evenings with Heather when she was visiting.

Anyway it’s good to be back in Nelson again, although it’s the middle of winter so frosty in the mornings but generally bright, warm and sunny during the day. We’ve had a lot of fun catching up with friends and, of course with Maya. Soon after we got back she performed in the Nelson Stage Challenge. This is a national musical/dance competition which is held annually in different regions. Teams from each school put on an eight minute dance show which is written and choreographed by them. Maya’s team (Nayland College) won to tremendous applause and celebration, it was really exciting!!

The main reason for returning to Nelson was to sort out what to do with Distant Drummer. Unfortunately the temporary import permit for the boat was due to run out at the end of June so we had the choice of either paying 50,000$ import tax or getting DD out of New Zealand. As our bank account is empty we planned to sail to Lord Howe Island (Australia) and then turn around and come straight back to enable us to keep DD in NZ for another year. We had a bit of work to do on the boat before we set off, including putting a new seacock in the aft head outlet. Careening the boat was a little more hair-raising than we’d anticipated, particularly because the tide at the careening posts was a bit too low for our draft. As a consequence we ended up precariously balanced against only the last two posts, which we were then told were rotten! Hmm . . . panic!

Luckily a good Samaritan from the boatyard across the road lent us his forklift. We parked it in the road (blocking the traffic!) and tied lines to it from the top of the mast to try to prevent the boat from tipping over. We spent the day at a rather unpleasant angle and were very relieved when the tide came in and we were floating again.

Unfortunately when we were on the point of leaving Neil’s Mum went back in to hospital. She had a couple more minor strokes and it was touch and go for a couple of days. The thought of being at sea and not being able to get back in case of an emergency was pretty tough for Neil so we paid another trip to the bloke at customs. We laid out the facts and he gave us another 6 month extension. It was quite a relief and we were glad to avoid the unwanted journey to LHI but we did feel a bit deflated. Anyway we’ll close down the boat again and are heading back to Perth on Thursday!

Suzy and Neil