Flying in from the past

Tonight I saw a new Air New Zealand commercial on TV (video above). It was a new version of an ad that was running on TV when I arrived in New Zealand 30 years ago (a version is in the video at the bottom of this post). I was already in love with Nigel, of course, but that ad? It extended the love to New Zealand, too.

Both ads use the traditional song “Pōkarekare Ana”, which was composed sometime in 1914, and it’s essentially a love song. Some scenes in the new version are reminiscent of ones in the 1990s ad, with some influences form their c2000 ad (about which more in a bit).

The 1990s and current ad are both effective at creating an emotional response, particularly for New Zealanders, who are the primary target of the ads. They certainly work for me, anyway. It’s the scenery combined with the song and the arrangement of it. But I always thought that the birds coming together to form the Air New Zealand logo at the end of the 1990s ad was especially magical.

Here’s the 1990s version:



Between the two versions I liked was the circa 2000 ad (at the bottom of this post, and it’s the longest version, and so, seldom aired). That ad didn’t move me. I think the difference was that the 2000s ad was about New Zealand connecting with the world and vice versa, and so, it was less focussed on New Zealand. That’s neither good nor bad, just a difference, and, I think, the reason I didn’t like it as much as the other two. Having said that, I wasn’t a fan of the key change in the middle of the song in that version, but it may have only been in the long version—I honestly can’t remember.

The tagline is different in all three versions, too. In the 1990s, it was “Air New Zealand. The airline of the world’s greatest travellers.” In the circa 2000 ad, it was “Air New Zealand. The world’s warmest welcome.” And in the current version, the tagline is, “Of New Zealand. For New Zealand. Air New Zealand.” Given New Zealand’s bad economy of the past few years, and the fact that the United States now seems hostile to foreign tourists, maybe it;s a good idea to centre the current ad on New Zealand, and to do so while offering “all the feels”. In my opinion.

Finally, the lyrics of the part when they soar to sing were stronger than I expected: E hine e / hoki mai ra. / Ka mate ahau / I te aroha e. In English, that’s “Oh girl / return to me, / I could die / of love for you. I knew the song was a love song, likely written about soldiers heading off to fight in World War One, but it’s also a quintessentially New Zealand song, and that’s the context I first connected with it (I didn’t read the lyrics, especially the translation, until many years later).

This new ad reminded me so much of an ad I fell in love with when New Zealand was still new to me—and me to New Zealand, for that matter. That 1990s ad really was a small part of what gave me an emotional connection to the country, and the new ad reminded me of that, too. It’s nice when that happens.

Memories can trip us

Facebook “Memories” pop up every day, of course, and most I ignore. But this week has been filled with “Memories” about the trip Nigel and I took to Australia for his sister’s surprise birthday party. This particular series has aspects I didn’t mention at the time, and lessons I couldn’t comprehend back then.

The “Memory” at left mentions that norovirus “hitched a ride”. While Nigel and some other family members got quite sick, neither I nor Nigel’s mum were sick at all. That’s probably because we’d both had norovirus in December 2015 (caught at a different family gathering…), and that ordinarily gives one at least some immunity to the same strain for 6-18 months (or even for several years). However, Nigel didn’t get sick earlier, or maybe just mildly, but in Australia he was utterly miserable for the first 24 hours.

We couldn’t fly for 48 hours, but, fortunately, we had travel insurance, However, Nigel had to get a medical certificate in order to file the claim, and he managed all of that in the second 24 hours. The arranged details were arranged, the replacement flight booked, and and we flew home two days later, arriving in the evening.

Sunny and Jake (Leo wasn’t part of the family yet) were being looked after by Nigel’s cousin in Hamilton, and we could have driven down to pick them up the next day, but Nigel loved our babies, so we drove down immediately after we arrived. Nigel perked up noticeably when we did that, but we got back to our house in south Auckland pretty late that night.

That as the last big trip Nigel and I ever had together, though we did go to more family gatherings here in New Zealand. Fortunately, norovirus was not invited to any of them.

Three years later, in 2020, I went to Queenstown with some of the family, and much as I enjoyed the trip, it was challenging for me, to say the least, because it was the first time I’d travelled anywhere since Nigel died, roughly 14 months earlier, and it was also around three years after we all went to Australia. All of that was on my mind at the time.

In January 2024, a bit more than four years after the Queenstown trip, and just over six years after the Australia trip, I went with even more family on a trip to Fiji. That trip had challenging moments for me, because Nigel wasn’t there, and it was my 65th birthday. Even so, by then the bigger challenge came from discovering that, in fact, there IS such a thing as weather that’s “too hot” (and humid) for me. Nigel’s sister Carolyn was on the trip, and we lost her a bit more than a year later.

My last post in Australia in 2017.

The moral of this travelogue through space and time is really this: Everything we do, everywhere we go, we bring memories with us. Good or bad, they always come along. In 2020, as a still-new widower, I had every reason to not go on the trip to Queenstown, but I went anyway, felt what I needed to feel, and enjoyed what I wanted to enjoy. The Fiji trip was similar, though for me the challenge on that one really was more about the tropical heat—but memories of that the trip now carry some pathos of their own because of losing Carolyn a bot more than a year later.

The trick, I think, is to accept that sometimes painful memories will come forward no matter what we do, and even in the midst of good times. Because of that, I think it’s important that, if we’re able, we need to push through the pain, and not let it hold us back—and I know all too well how damn hard that can be! I also know firsthand that emotional pain can keep us from fully experiencing good times—but not necessarily keep them away entirely, maybe just dull them a little.

All of that has been on my mind this week as I saw one Facebook “Memory” after another about that trip and the trip to Queenstown, which was around the same time of year. It’ll happen again next year, but I don’t mind at all. I’d rather feel pain because I loved, than to feel nothing at all. Honestly, that’s a huge gift.

Fiji Trip – The final post

Me at Nadi Airport.

And now, finally, is the last post in my series about my trip to Fiji. I planned on doing this last week, but life got in the way. It’s not the first time that’s happened, of course, and it certainly won’t be the last. On the positive side, the delay gave me time to fix the typos in the parts of this series I’d already published.

The day we left went reasonably well, all things considered. I say that because the rental cars we had weren’t great, and the replacement one was smaller than the original. So three of our group took a taxi to the airport, and I went in the care they would’ve gone in, something that gave me the entire back seat. The other four went in the car I had been in on the trip to the resort and on our little trips. What this meant in practice was that we were all more comfortable—less squashed—than we were on the trip to the resort.

We got to the airport in Nadi with plenty of time. I went inside with the sister-in-law I’d travelled to Auckland with so we could check our suitcases. The selfie up top is shortly after I was inside the terminal.

Our flying chariot awaits.

When we went through security, I took my devices out of my bag, of course, but I also put all my leftover Fiji coins in the tray and took off my belt, too, something that I didn’t do in Auckland. It worked: I didn’t have to go through full body scanner (aka “the porn scan”) or get a pat down. In fact, it was the fastest I’ve ever gone through security ever since “security theatre” began at airports in 2001.

We went to the gate area and had a quick lunch (I had Burger King, for the record). I bought some snacks for the plane (rather than buying anything on board), and basically waited and waited and waited. Boarding finally started, and we headed toward the plane.

In Auckland, we had to take a bus to the plane and walk up steps. In Nadi, it was a normal boarding through a skybridge. Much more civilised. I found my seat, and just as in Auckland, the screen in front of me said hello to me—here’s the evidence, along with my on board selfie:

The flight was uneventful, and we ended up landing roughly on time, despite waiting around 20 minutes after boarding to be cleared for take-off. Once in Auckland, I had to go through the “something to declare” line in customs because of the artwork the family had given me: The hook looked like it might be made from a seashell, it had a line woven from natural fibres, and it was in a wooden frame. The agent cleared me without even inspecting it.

It was a loooooooooong walk to my sister-in-law’s car (the carpark area is being totally reworked, and the complaints about it have piled so hight that planes have to fly around the stack. Sort of.

When we were on the road and close to Hamilton, I texted my cousin-in-law who’d offered to bring Leo to my house, and shortly after that we found out the motorway was closed (it’s being re-built for around the hundredth time since it opened a decade or so ago (slight exaggeration, but it has been worked on many times, allegedly because they cut too many corners when it was first built on the swampy land, and constant repairs have been necessary). By the time we found that out, my cousin-in-law was already on her way.

We needed to take a detour, and at first neither of us knew where we’d ended up—but then we reached a roundabout and I knew exactly how to get to my house from there, something that’s still a pretty unusual thing for me in Hamilton. My cousin-in-law was already at my house when we finally got there.

My sister-in-law left for home, and I rushed inside and turned on the air conditioners. My cousin-in-law and I visited for awhile, with Leo sitting right up against her on the sofa. He eventually forgave me (I shared a photo of him and me from that night in a post a few days after I got home).

In each of my posts in this series, I’ve talked about some of my impressions relating to the things I saw and did on the days I was talking about in the post. Some of what I said, like about the omnipresence of overt Christianity and religiosity in Suva, was actually true about what I saw elsewhere, too. I also saw what we’d consider poverty everywhere: The traditional lodge-style thatched homes had nearly all been replaced by simple frame houses that can be seen in any New Zealand town, but with one difference: In Fiji, they often had no doors nor glass in the window openings. Instead, the windows might have wooden louvres, or maybe just some sort of sheer net-like fabric, a bit like window screens in curtain form.

Every village along the road had speed bumps in them to slow down traffic, but those same speed bumps were sometimes in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. In general, the roads we took were pretty well maintained, with some exceptions here and there.

The road from Nadi to the resort often reminded me of New Zealand, with similar vegetation. However, the road from the resort to Suva was more what I expected Fiji to look like: Lots of palm trees of various species, and other tropical plants.

The people I dealt with were all polite and friendly, and they really do say “Bula!” when you enter a shop or whatever. I’d seen that in tourism commercials, but I didn’t know if it was real—it is (it essentially translates as “hello” or “welcome”).

Cash was still used a lot—something I’m not used to anymore—but EFTPOS (debit cards not on a credit card network) were harder to use. The resort had fairly decent wifi (I installed a VPN on my devices right before I left Hamilton so I could use their wifi safely), but there was no television, and I know Fiji has TV broadcasts. Some TVs in the resort were “smart TVs”, so they could stream Netflix (I don’t have an account), and some rooms had DVD players with a selection that could be borrowed, though some of our group tried that and found that many DVDs wouldn’t play. I never even turned the TV in my room on.

Once I was on the road to Auckland, I felt better than I’d felt in weeks, because I was beyond the stress and anxiety of my preparations to leave, especially having to leave Leo in someone else’s care for so long. Apart from the rocky “pre-trip” time, I enjoyed the experience, and had a good time with our group.

Having said all that, I have no desire to go back to Fiji, nor to go to any other tropical south Pacific island nation. They’re all different, and absolutely are not all the same, but this trip taught me that I don’t cope well with heat combined with high humidity. Also, I learned a long time ago (when Nigel and I lived in Paeroa) that I’m a city boy at heart, and a short time in a remote area is fun, but if it was too long, I’d get over it pretty fast.

The length of our trip was perfect: The day we left I was absolutely ready to go home, and looking forward to sleeping in my own bed, a decent warm shower, and, most of all, seeing Leo. I think even one more day could well have been too long for my liking.

I don’t know how many more opportunities to travel I’ll have in the years ahead, nor whether they’d be solo or a group trip (though I doubt I’d be willing to go on a long trip by myself). I know that, as I said only once at the very start, the trip would’ve been more fun for me if Nigel had been there. I was well aware that my last overseas trip was when he and I went to Australia’s state of Queensland in 2017, and my last trip away anywhere was to Queenstown in the South Island back in November of 2020. It turned out that it was good for me to get away: I didn’t realise how much I needed a complete break until I was on one.

Now, though, it’s time to push on with everyday life again.

Previously:
”Travelling gratitude” – After I was home.
Fiji Trip, Part One
Fiji Trip, Part Two
Fiji Trip, Part Three
Fiji Trip, Part Four
Fiji Trip, Part Five

Fiji Trip, Part Five

This is the penultimate post in this series, so I’ll soon have to find new things to blog about. Such a burden! Today’s post is all about Monday, January 22, our last full day in Fiji. The next morning we left to return home.

When I posted about this on my Facebook, I wrote:

Last full day in Fiji! Tomorrow morning we leave the resort to head to the airport in Nadi (pronounced “Nandy”, and rhymes with “Brandy”, the one who’s apparently a fine girl who’d make a good wife for someone whose life isn’t the sea, unless pop music lied to me? 🤔).

I was in a good mood, and it’s obvious (to me…) because of my lame joke about a 1972 pop song—a song that, by the way, went to Number 10 in Australia, Number One in Canada, 5 in New Zealand, and in the USA it was Number One on both the Billboard “Hot 100” and on Cashbox and was certified Gold. Hm, this just become a crossover post…

We had nothing planned for that day—apart from relaxing and packing for our trip home. The only thing we did was go up to a shop nine minutes drive from the resort because it sells souvenirs, clothing, and artisans’ work, etc. (and it's where my birthday gift came from, the one I showed in the photo in my ”Travelling gratitude” post. I bought a couple t-shirts. During the afternoon downpour, I just relaxed in my room where it was cooler and far less humid.

The rain meant that new photos were out of the question, so I shared a few I’d taken earlier that day and a couple from other days. I’m doing that with this post, too.

First up, a collage of photos I actually took on January 22, just before we headed to the shop that morning (before the rain). The larger photo at the top is looking toward the plants that separated the service road where the resort (and others) were accessed. There was a wall separating the service road from the busier road that connected Nadi and Suva. The photos were all taken just outside the front gateway.

From our first full day, January 19, when I was on a beach walk near the resort. 

This was on the beach, right by the resort. The back of this sign can be seen on the second and third photos in Part One (link below).

These plants were growing near a parking area next the building my room was in. I think the green fruit is bread fruit. I took this January 19, too.

This photo was actually a rejected birthday selfie. I addeed on my Facebook, "With both me and the flowers behind me, I was concerned there was too much beauty in one photo—is what I might say if the real reason wasn’t that I didn’t like the black strap of my bag being in the shot (somehow I didn’t notice when I took it).

Nevertheless, the flowers are pretty (pity about that wanker standing in front of them…). They’re growing against that same wall along the service road…"

• • • • •

That's actually it for photos I took of my trip. The final post in this series will include a couple travelling photos, but mainly it'll have my final reflections on my trip.

Previously:
”Travelling gratitude” – After I was home.
Fiji Trip, Part One
Fiji Trip, Part Two
Fiji Trip, Part Three
Fiji Trip, Part Four

AmeriNZ Podcast episode 412 is now available

AmeriNZ Podcast episode 412, “Returning to normal mode”, is now available from the podcast website. There, you can listen, download or subscribe to the podcast episode, along with any other episode.

The five most recent episodes of the podcast are listed on the sidebar on the right side of this blog.

Fiji Trip, Part Four

We’re now up to Sunday, January 21, a rather significant day. It was our penultimate day in Fiji, and it was a quiet one, over all. But that doesn’t mean that nothing happened.

After breakfast that morning, I walked partway down the beach with some of the others, and then they carried on and I went toward the water to take some photos while the tide was out. Unfortunately, I quickly became overheated, so I went back to nearby family members’ room to cool down before heading back to my room. It was still only 30 (86F), but the humidity was astronomical after all the heavy rain the day before. I decided it was best too cool down, then to go back out later to join the others for lunch poolside. The photo up top shows the vew looking eastish, and here’s the view looking back toward the resort:

Both of these photos are showing what’s covered in water at high tide, so, where I wouldn’t normally be walking. The closer I got to the water’s edge, the more “squishy” the sand became. I learned to back off when I sank into the sand “too much” (which really meant more than I was comfortable with—in order to keep my shoes clean).

I walked along the beach to a spot where I could see what I presume is lava, the spot where the sea/lagoon would meet the beach at high tide. As someone who comes from the middle of a continent, and who now lives a long way from the sea, I found this endlessly fascinating.

Be that as it may, I went back to my room to further cool down, and then at lunchtime I headed toward the pool area in the older area to meet the others for lunch. I have to admit, having lunch brought to us poolside was pretty much my idea of luxury (and, as always, it was really nice).

Here’s a photo I took from my seat, where I had my lunch:

The rains moved in, as they did every afternoon, and in a break I returned to my room to relax—and cool down. From time to time, I shot video, not up to the standard of a mediocre YouTuber, but nevertheless documenting what I saw and experienced, even the, um, unusual, including video that I didn’t used for anything whatsoever—though I had great ideas at the time. I looked up at the fan above my bed, over at the view from my bed, all of which was very artsy and all that, but it didn't amount to anything (mainly because editing video is hard in an iPad… or maybe I was too lazy?). All that recording including a view from where I was laying on my bed, looking out toward the balcony and the heavy rain that was falling at the time. Here’s a still from that video:

After that, it was time for my birthday celebration.

My birthday was a good one—low key, as I’d wanted, but spent with family. My brother-in-law made a fabulous dinner for us all, and it was awesome. They even sprung a cake on me (photo at right), much to my surprise. Old graphic arts guy that I am, I was amused by the space between “birth” and “day”. We also had more kava, which went well, I suppose (I only had one—it was, um, okay…). Later on, a Canadian couple staying at the resort joined us, and then some family members went night swimming—and REM was in my ears… [See the official music video on YouTube]. I was back at my room by around 10pm.

And that was the end of my “significant birthday”, and our penultimate day in Fiji. It was a very good day.

Previously:
”Travelling gratitude” – After I was home.
Fiji Trip, Part One
Fiji Trip, Part Two
Fiji Trip, Part Three

Fiji Trip, Part Three

Saturday, January 20 was our tourist day. We were only in Fiji for four full days (and parts of two others), so there really wasn’t much time to go sightseeing, not when there was photography, snorkelling, kayaking, and swimming to do—or just relaxing. Nevertheless, on Saturday we decided to drive to Suva, the capital of Fiji, on the southeastern part of Viti Levu, the main island. It was a two hour drive from the resort.

I’ll admit that I wasn’t initially all that enthused, first, because it was a long drive there and back, but also because plenty of people had told me that it was kind of run down, poor, and so, not a place to visit. I went anyway.

Suva is the country’s largest city, with around 93,000 people, and I thought it was fascinating! While it has things in common with large cities throughout the world, it’s also very different. The central business district was extremely busy, with heavy traffic—more so than some much bigger cities I’ve been in. Even so, it was easy to walk around.

Suva was also filled with mainly Fijian people, and we were clearly in the minority. It was actually the first time in my life I’ve been in a foreign city where I could clearly see I was in the minority, and I loved the new experience (obviously I’ve been in foreign cities and been in the minority, but until that day I couldn’t necessarily see that).

We did a little shopping at a mall called Tappoo, and after that we contemplated a stroll through the open air market pretty much across the road—but the fish smell was overpowering in the heat, and it was crowded, so we drove around a bit instead, especially near the harbour.

These are two decent photos I took in Suva. The tall, oddly shaped building on the photo on the right is the Tappoo mall. The photo on the left is looking in the opposite direction.

After Suva, we headed back, stopping at one supermarket to pick up some things for Sunday night’s dinner. However, it was kind of sparse, so we drove on.

Next stop was a huge supermarket I thought was really interesting, and then had a late lunch in the sort of food hall there. It turns out, the company that owns it (and the first one we went to) is in a dispute with the Fijian government, with all sorts of allegations flying around, including that the company is a religious cult. Such intriguing drama!

I noticed that many of the prices for New Zealand food products were comparable to shops in NZ (after converting currency), but some NZ things were MUCH more expensive. Fiji-made products were usually cheaper than the expensive imported NZ things, and the less expensive NZ products didn’t seem to have any local competition—which is the opposite of what I expected.

One thing I notice about Fiji is the omnipresence of Christian religiosity. The buses in Suva seemed to all have an enormous “JESUS” painted just above the windscreen, and religious slogans on cars were quite common everywhere. Nobody pushed religion at me, but it was definitely everywhere.

On the way back, the skies opened up and we drove through torrential rain. And now we can all say we’ve driven through a tropical rainstorm—another thing checked off the bucket list!

Once we were back at the resort, we rested before heading out to dinner. Fortunately, by the time we were ready to leave, the rains eased up. I shot a silly video of me out on the balcony of my room as the rain poured down (but the thunder wasn’t thundering). I also took this photo, imitating the pretend grumpy look (I wasn't actually grumpy at all):

We decided to go to a local bar/restaurant called “The Tipsy Italian” because they had live music. Several of us had pizza (mine was really nice). It was, technically, “across the road”, but it was a little far to walk, so we drove.

After dinner, it was decided that some of us would have shots of kava, a traditional Fijian drink made from a plant. It’s nonalcoholic and non-intoxicating, but may have a kind of calming, slightly sedative effect.

Traditionally, it’s drunk in a ceremony where everyone drinks from a shared wooden bowl (totally not my scene), and I had been told it tastes like dirty water (which is what it looks like…). What the bar had was a commercial version that tasted of absolutely nothing. It may have been more diluted than usual, for all I know, but in any case, I felt nothing from it.

The deliberately silly photo at the bottom of this post is me contemplating the shot of kava—and that was actually my second, because I forgot to do a selfie for the first. Oops.

The singer was awesome, singing Fijian songs and great covers of English language pop songs (including at least one New Zealand band), which was all the more remarkable because he didn’t really speak English—but he sure could sing it!

We didn’t stay late, and, like usual, I was actually ready for bed fairly early. After all, the next day would be a big day, whether I wanted it or not.

Previously:
”Travelling gratitude” – After I was home.
Fiji Trip, Part One
Fiji Trip, Part Two

Fiji Trip, Part Two

On January 19, the first full day of the Fiji trip, I went and visited the newer building at the resort. These photos are all of the building and from the beach in front, and I’ve captioned each photo.

The new building was built during lockdown, so it’s still quite new. As with the older section, the rooms looked really nice—but if you looked closely, there were things that weren’t exactly perfect. I’ve heard that that in Pacific Island nations it’s common to have buildings built by labourers who aren’t necessarily professional builders, and while that doesn’t mean they got it wrong, it can mean a lack of attention to the finisihing details. Even so, the air conditioning was great—far better than in my room.

I thought that, ignoring finer details, the rooms looked really nice, and so did the pool on the beach side of the building. However, I was told that there were some rough edges in the pool, again indicating the finishing work may have been a bit lacking. Behind the building was a single tennis court, and whenever it rained (every day, in other words…) the surface bubbled up. There was only one time I saw anyone actually use it, and it surprised me: It was for far too hot and humid for me to have even contemplated such a thing.

Having said all of that, the newer building was what many people may think of when they think of a Pacific Island resort, and it really was nice. The older section was nice in its own way, too, and its pool was far more sheltered from the sun than the newer one was.

All in all, it seems to me that it comes down to a matter of personal preference. I liked my room, and the pool area in the older section, but I liked the air conditioning and views at the newer building. Fortunately, for me, I got to experience both.

The newer building as seen from the beach. The blue rectangles either side of the sign are lap pools.

A close up of the end of one of the lap pools.

Looking from the building end toward the sea. That round area in the middle of the pool is seating.

The pool at sunset. It has a soft blue glow at night. This was actually taken January 21.

Back on the beach in front, looking more or less easterly. It's raining at the horizon.

Looking the other way up the beach, back toward the older area. It's raining at that horizon, too.

Previously:
”Travelling gratitude” – After I was home.
Fiji Trip, Part One

Fiji Trip, Part One

I’ve now been back from Fiji for five full days, which is as long as I was there. This is as good a time as any to blog about the trip. The question I had was, how?

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do one long post, break them up by day, or maybe arrange them thematically. In the end, I decided to do a bit of both, and I’ll include in each one my observations and opinions related to that post.

Today, I begin with the stuff I posted to my personal Facebook on Day 1, the day we arrived in Fiji, January 18, 2024.

I’m, beginning ist as I did on Facebook, namely, by sharing some scenery photos first, even though I took the photos of my room first. As it happens, there’s more to say about my room, anyway.

The resort is located on the Coral Coast, along the southern coast of Viti Levu, Fiji’s main island. It’s on a road almost halfway between Nadi (pronounced “Nandy” and rhymes with “Brandy”) and the capital, Suva. We arrived and departed from Nadi. The beach by the resort faces a lagoon protected by a coral reef—what gives the Coral Coast its name. The waves break on the reef, but the lagoon is calm, even placid and glasslike, depending on the time of day, the tide, and the weather. Folks in our group went snorkelling and kayaking in the lagoon.

The temperatures were pretty warm—around 30-32 degrees (mid 80s F), however, the humidity was at least 90% every day. Some days it was so bad I felt like I couldn't breathe properly. It rained every afternoon, as it tends to do in the tropics. Sometimes the rain was heavy and with lightning and thunder, and other times it was just steady. Whichever we got, it stopped by evening.

The resort has two distinct sections: The older, original part (where my room and some of the others were—half of us, in fact) and the newer building where the other half of us were, and that has its own pool. I’ll talk about the newer section in a different post.

The photo up top is from the beach right by the resort, just down from where the pool in the older section of the resort is. Here are a couple more photos from the same general area:

This is looking the other way from the same area as the photo up to.

The older pool has a covered area, and we had our lunch there twice, which was really nice. The rooms—called “villas” were very similar, as near as I could tell (I only saw two). My room was on the second floor of the main building, where reception and the restaurant were. And my room is a topic in itself.

This is the view from the pool area in the older section. 

My Room

When I first saw my room, I thought it looked pretty nice, and the air conditioner made it feel especially nice. Before I went outside and took the photos above, I took some photos of my room:

The view from the front door toward the balcony.

Looking along the right wall from the door, there's what appears to be a futon-like sofa with a wardrobe beyond it. The fridge and TV (which I never used) is at the back on the left.

The photo at left is looking the other way, including the strange loft-like space above the bed. I put my phone on the selfie stick to find out what was up there: Nothing but some extra flooring for the room. The top of the bed was very high—roughly hip-height from the floor, so my feet dangled when I sat on the edge. I haven't experienced that since I was a little kid.

When I first looked at the bathroom, I thought it was stacked-stone tile work. It was only later that I realised it was a kind of 3D wall panel made to look like that, however, it was very well done and installed and grouted in such a way that it was really convincing. In the photo above, the thing on the floor by the toilet is a door stop, because the door to the bathroom swings into that space.

The bathroom was quite nice, even though I wasn't going to take a bath, nor do I like bowl-type basins. It looked really nice, which I'm sure was the point.

Aesthetics aside, the shower wasn't great. I started thinking of it as my "morning dribble" because the pressure was so low. There also wasn't any hot water, though it was a cool-warm temperature (staff suggested to others that they let the shower run for fifteen minutes to get hot water). I didn't mind the temperature because it cooled me right down before heading out into the high heat/humidity to meet the others for breakfast. Family members who originally had the room right next to mine were moved because their shower sprayed out on all directions. I didn't have that, but the valve to direct water to either the rainshower head or the handheld thing on a hose didn't work: Turning it to the hand-held one left the rain head still going, but at less power. I left it on the rain head all the time.

In the room itself, I noticed things had become a bit neglected. There was laminate flooring in the room, and it had begun to curl at the seams, possibly because of the very high humidity, but it could also have been because of people coming into the room wet from swimming. At any rate, either porcelain tile or else luxury vinyl flooring would've been a better option, in my opinion.

Despite all that, I had no real complaints about the room. I was quite removed from all the others, though, which was fine for sleeping, obviously, but it meant I had no idea if folks were at the pool or whatever. Still, when we selected rooms, we didn't have a feel for the layout of the place, so we had no way of knowing I'd be off in the edge of the resort.

The food in the restaurant was excellent—no complaints at all (well, apart from poached eggs—they were overcooked). Staff were really nice and friendly, and made an effort to learn our names.

We wanted a mostly relaxing holiday, and we got that. The place was nice enough, and even if it needed a bit of attention, we still enjoyed our time there. I could've done with less humidity, though.

Reentering normal days

The sad thing about going away on holiday is all the work we have to do when we return home. There’s washing to be done, maybe some chores to do, and possibly earning the forgiveness of furbabies. I had all of that in the second half of this past week.

We arrived back in New Zealand on Tuesday evening, January 23. My cousin-in-law brought Leo home, which was incredibly helpful, especially since I was tired from the trip. I put the first load of washing on, and sat down to watch some TV—something I hadn’t done for nearly a week. I also, of course, snuggled with Leo. I shared the photo up top on my personal Facebook, adding, “I seem to be (nearly) forgiven…”

The next day, Wednesday, I did more washing, and also went out front to do the edges and mow the grass, something I hoped to do before I left, but I ran out of time. I also continued to pay lots of attention to Leo, and I could tell he was relaxing and readjusting—he spent most of the time sleeping.

On Thursday, I did still more washing and went out back to do the edges and mow. The bank along the side of the property was particularly bad, but I managed to knock the weeds to the ground, making it possible to see the pittosporum I planted this past Spring. Here’s the after photo:

However, none of that went smoothly.

On Wednesday, the line trimmer again stopped feeding line. I opened up the bump head and saw the line had become stuck on one side, as it had before I left on the trip. Back then, I couldn’t feed line the normal way, so the week I left for the trip I wound it manually. Unfortunately, by that time I’d run out of time to mow the lawns before going on my trip.

So, this week I again opened the bump head, pulled the line out (and threw it out, since it had already been trouble), and managed to re-fill it the usual way (not winding it manually with the bump head open). After I finished trimming and mowing out front (and the side yard), I stopped for the day (the trip home the day before was surprisingly exhausting for me).

Thursday morning, I took up the job again, working out in the back of the property. I had to change batteries for the line trimmer (because I was clear-cutting the forest of weeds along the bank along the side of the property). What I didn’t know was that the weed forest had lots of biting bugs in it. I do my yard work wearing jeans to protect my legs from flying debris, and, mostly, so I don’t have to put on sunscreen. The biting bugs decided my pant legs were actually feeding tents. It was an itchy evening.

Ordinarily, mowing in summer is very hot work, but this time it was a bit different. In the days before we left for Fiji, it was around 27 degrees (around 81F) or so at my house, but when I was working outside this week it was at most 22 (around 72F), and the much cooler temperatures made it so much easier! I knew rain was headed to us by the weekend, affected by the tropical cyclone heading toward Queensland in Australia, so I was glad to get it out of the way.

When I was outside working this week, I thought to myself that it was almost chilly compared to Fiji. The temps were around 8-10 degrees Celsius cooler than in Fiji, but the dramatically lower humidity levels is what I think made it feel so mild in comparison. Because of my trip, and my mowing adventures this week, I’ve learned that I can tolerate drier heat much better than heat with high humidity—in fact, I learned that I find it hard to breathe if the humidity gets too high, as it did in Fiji.

My reaction to the weather in Fiji, and being able to directly compare it with milder weather here in Hamilton this week, has proven that, for me, it really isn’t the heat, it’s the humidity. Good to know that in case I have future travels.

There were a few oddities along the way, too. On Thursday, after my mowing adventures, I went up to the supermarket to stock up. In the past, I’d have spent the afternoon relaxing, but I wanted to get the shopping out of the way. Also, every day I did all my hand dishwashing of the stuff I don’t put in the dishwasher (which I ran on Thursday); ordinarily, I get lazy about doing that.

I’m not trying to suggest that the trip has “changed” me, but I do think that doing stuff every single day, and sometimes going places, too, just continued when I got home. Knowing myself as I do, I doubt that’ll last long term, but maybe it’ll last for a little while yet so I can get some jobs done around the house—ideally before the next time I need to mow.

While I was doing that stuff, Leo fully adjusted to being back home: Asking for snacks, jumping in my lap when I sat in my chair, and generally keeping me in his sight—except whenever he decided to take himself to bed. Overall, though, I clearly really am forgiven.

And here I am on the Saturday of a holiday weekend feeling unusually satisfied with how much I got done this week—well, just a bit more that half a week, technically. I’m looking forward to seeing how much I get done next week.

AmeriNZ Podcast episode 411 is now available

AmeriNZ Podcast episode 411, “Island idyll”, is now available from the podcast website. There, you can listen, download or subscribe to the podcast episode, along with any other episode.

The five most recent episodes of the podcast are listed on the sidebar on the right side of this blog.

Six months hence

Six months from today, I’ll turn 65—and I can officially say that now that it’s also July 21 in the place I was born. I’m not exactly looking forward to it, any more than I looked forward to 60, however, as I’ve often said, there’s only one way to stop having birthdays. Given the alternative, then, I’d rather have one than not.

Well, sort of. My perspective has changed a lot, given everything that’s happened—of course. Nigel always made my birthdays very special, and he told me more than once that he enjoyed mine more than his own. At the time, I thought it was because he hated being the centre of attention, to be made a fuss of, but he enjoyed making a fuss of someone else. I’ll never know for sure if I was right, but I think so.

So, it was in character for Nigel to make my 60th so awesome—he made sure it would be. I wish more than anything he could do that again. Actually, the fact he’s not been part of four of my birthdays since has made them less awesome than any had been when he was alive. I guess that’s to be expected, too.

All of which meant I didn’t know what to do about my 65th. In many ways, it’s an even bigger birthday than 60 was, not the least because I’ll start collecting superannuation, New Zealand’s retirement payment. That’s said to be the start of “the third age” of one’s life, though what that looks like is absolutely neither standard nor certain.

I considered having a party, like for my 60th, but I simply couldn’t face doing that because that one was so special, thanks to Nigel. I knew that if I had a party for my 65th, I’d constantly think about how it could never be as good because Nigel wasn’t there. And that’s where I got stuck.

Some time ago, some members of the family were talking about going on an overseas trip in January, and they asked me if I wanted to go. Even though the talk was that we’d be back in time for my birthday, I wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about it simply because I’m still not keen on travelling anywhere.

Even so, I said yes. In the end, plans evolved, and we’re now going to Fiji and we’ll be there for my birthday. This actually changed everything for me: It’s a way for me to observe and celebrate my significant birthday in a way that’s unlike any other birthday I’ve had before—and completely different from my 60th. Of course, I’ll be keenly aware Nigel isn’t there—and should be—but experiencing something so completely different, and something that I’ve wanted to do for decades, makes it the perfect thing.

There’s a bit of a backstory to that, too. One of my first Christmases in New Zealand, maybe even my first, Nigel and I were visiting his parents and we were all talking about places we’d like to visit, and I said I’d like to go to a South Pacific island because I’d never been to one. Nigel’s mum said, very matter-of-factly, “you live on one,” and we all laughed. Obviously I meant a tropical island, but that was just so funny that it’s stuck with me all these years.

To be clear, this isn’t a birthday trip, it’s a trip that will include my birthday. To me, a holiday to a tropical island that also happens to include my birthday in it makes it a low-key, an interesting, and different experience all rolled into one.

For so many reasons, then, this is a great way for me to observe/celebrate my 65th. It also gives me something to look forward to rather than the complicated birthday itself. I know that Nigel would be very pleased, too. I am.

A time away

I went to my cousin-in-law’s birthday party yesterday evening, and that meant I got to catch-up with family members I don’t see very often. It was an awesome time—yummy food, great talks, lots of good vibes. And yet…

Obviously, I thought about Nigel a LOT, especially about how much he’d have enjoyed the night, but last night was much easier on me than the last get-together a couple years ago, which was something like five months after Nigel died.

Yesterday, I wore his bracelet as well as a ring he used to wear many years ago, something I do when I go somewhere and want to “bring” him with me, symbolically speaking. I do that all the time, actually, but I seldom mention it, though I think I should talk about such things more often. [I talked about the bracelet in a post from October 2019, and in a post about Nigel’s birthday last year, I included a photo in which I’m wearing both the bracelet and the ring, though I often wear the ring on my right index finger.]

The reality is that Nigel is never far from my thoughts, and family gatherings turn the dial up to 11. I know that’s just how it is, and I’ve found coping mechanisms that work well for me. Other people may find other things that work better for them, but the key is knowing oneself.

All that’s just my constant background reality. Yesterday, I had a lovely evening together with the large extended family. Even I, despite everything, can be aware of and appreciate how lucky I am.

A footnote: I seldom mention folks by name because it’s not my place to tell their stories—that’s up to them to tell their own stories, or not, their choice. However, I’ve always enjoyed coming up with fun titles or nicknames for folks in my life, and “cousin-in-law” is one of those (it covers a large number of people…). There’s no such title, of course, and yet, maybe there should be?

The two-photo montage up top shows some of the countryside in the King Country, a region of the Waikato a bit more than an hour’s drive south of Hamilton. The party was held there, and a lot of the family lives in or is from that area. I created the photo montage for my personal Facebook.

Another possible reopening

We’ve been here before, but: Today, the NZ Government announced a 5 step plan to reopen the New Zealand border over the next 10 months. One key aspect is that MIQ will be replaced with self-isolation for fully vaccinated travellers. New Zealanders are being prioritised (as they should be), with others qualifying later. Visitors from visa waiver countries (such as the USA, Canada, the UK, etc) can travel to New Zealand from July. A pre-departure test will be mandatory, of course.

However: Upon arrival fully-vaccinated people will be required to self-isolate for whatever the required period is at the time. Initially, it will be ten days, but that could change—shorter or longer.

I don’t think that casual (short term) tourists will be able to come to New Zealand, though, because they’d have to organise 10 days of isolation. It may be that people might be allowed to stay with friends or family (or, they might not—that might be impossible to manage safely), but they still won’t be able to go anywhere or see anything until the mandatory self-isolation period is completed.

These changes are really about making it easier for New Zealanders and their families to come to New Zealand, first, then for foreign workers to come here, if safe to do so, and then also to make it easier for Australians to move here (they can live and work in New Zealand without visas or permits, similar to permanent residents), again, if safe to do so. But an open border for short-term tourists is clearly a way off yet.

Covid is an ever-changing monster, so no guarantees on any of this: Things could become dramatically better over the rest of this year, or become dramatically worse. I prefer to hope for the best. Most of us would really like to welcome visitors again.

The graphic above was posted on Facebook by the NZ Government’s official Covid 19 site, Unite Against Covid 19. This post is a revised version of something I posted earlier today to my personal Facebook.

Changes for the times

Today the NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced adjustments to Auckland’s Level 3, with an eye toward gradually easing restrictions before an actual Level change. There have been other changes announced in recent days, all of which are related to Covid. That’s the times we live in.

The changes announced for Auckland involve three stages modifications to Level 3 restrictions in Auckland. From 11:59pm tonight:

People will be able to connect with loved ones OUTDOORS with no more than two households at a time, up to a maximum of 10 people; early childhood education will return for all; and people can move around Auckland for recreation such as beach visits and hunting.

The changes only apply to Auckland, and not the parts of the Waikato that are temporarily under Level 3 restrictions. There’s also no indication on when the next Step may be implemented, but they plan on reviewing the situation weekly.

Part of what will determine the easing of restrictions anywhere in New Zealand will be achieving higher vaccination rates. Today, the Government also announced that 2 million Kiwis—48% of the eligible population (people aged 12+)—are now fully vaccinated. Overall, 79% have had at least one jab. The percentage of Aucklanders who have had at least one jab is now higher than 80%.

The Government has also begun point out that, in this current outbreak, only 3% were fully vaccinated. More importantly, NONE of the fully vaccinated people who got Covid were hospitalised, and none died. This also means, of course, that none of the fully vaccinated people ended up in an Intensive Care or High Dependency Unit, either.

What this shows is that vaccination slows the spread of the disease because the virus doesn’t affect the vast majority of vaccinated people, however, if a fully vaccinated person is infected, their disease will be milder and is unlikely to be fatal. All of which strongly suggests that some sort of vaccine passport will be required for events with large crowds, and the Government expects that next week they’ll be able to make an announcements about what that might look like.

Lost because of the Waikato drama yesterday was an announcement from Covid-19 Minister Chris Hipkins, who revealed that, “Full vaccination will become a requirement for non-New Zealand citizens arriving into the country from 1 November.” This will mean they’ll need to have had “a full course of any of the 22 COVID-19 vaccines approved by a government or approval authority” 14 days or more before their arrival in New Zealand. This won’t apply to NZ citizens, anyone under 17, or people with a valid medical exemption. But before packing one’s bags, it’s important to remember that:

Everybody arriving will still be required to complete 14 days in Managed Isolation and Quarantine, and all travellers except those from exempt locations will still need to have evidence of a negative COVID-19 test result from an accredited laboratory within 72 hours of their first scheduled international flight.

This is related to Air New Zealand ’s announcement yesterday of mandatory vaccines for international travellers, a “no jab, no fly” policy that will begin in February, 2022. They also elaborated a little bit on how it’ll work:

Using Timatic, the IATA Travel Pass will check customers' health information against flight details to ensure they are meeting entry requirements for that destination, and the airline.

The app is based on decentralized technology which means there is no central database holding passenger information. Passengers have complete discretion as to whether they share their data or not and they can delete their data at any time on the app, without fear of this being stored.

The last part is very similar to the way NZ’s Covid-19 Covid Tracer (check-in) App works. More concrete details will be released over time.

On Saturday, (October 1 USA time), the USPS (United States Postal Service) announced in a message on its website that it was suspending processing most international deliveries to 22 countries, including New Zealand, Australia, and Samoa. It said it was “due to impacts related to the COVID-19 pandemic and other unrelated service disruptions.” They also said that anything already in the system will be returned to the sender.

Covid-19 has definitely disrupted shipping around the world—absolutely it has. However, I tend to suspect that the real problem here is “other unrelated service disruptions”, and while I might have my suspicions on what the real cause of this disruption is, I couldn’t possibly comment further. All I know is that I won’t get a huge stack of Christmas cards from the USA this year! Seriously, though, I hope this doesn’t further delay—or prevent delivery of—those Torx screwdrivers I ordered nearly a month ago, but that haven’t left the USA yet. In fact, nothing’s happened since I wrote about the delay last week.

Right now, the only constant is change. Absolutely everything I’ve talked about here will be changing even more in teh weeks ahead. I guess we’d all better get used to that happening. Change is now (a big) part of the times we live in.

Planning to open the door

Today Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the roadmap for New Zealand re-opening its borders. As with everything else in the NZ Government’s response to Covid-19, it’s measured, cautious, and evidence-driven. The strategy has served us very, very well so far, staying the course is definitely the right thing to do.

The Prime Minster laid out the basics:

The plan announced today is informed by the best available scientific evidence and public health advice. It will allow us to capture the opportunities vaccination brings, while protecting the gains New Zealanders have worked so hard for. Key to this is maintaining our Elimination Strategy. The advice is clear: If we open our borders now we will lose the freedoms and advantages we have achieved so far. If we give up our elimination approach too soon there is no going back, and we could see significant breakouts here like some countries overseas are experiencing who have opened up early in their vaccination rollout.

The first step in the process is to vaccinate as many New Zealanders as possible. To help with that, the government is speeding up the vaccination process (see graphic up top) by making new age bands eligible to register for vaccination each week until September 1, when all New Zealanders aged 16 or over will be eligible for their first vaccine dose (the vaccine has not yet been approved for those under 16, though that seems likely).

To make sure that as many people as possible get their first doses, the government is increasing the time between jabs to six weeks from the current three. The goal is to get New Zealanders at least partially vaccinated as soon as possible because that provides at least some protection. Those who already have their second jab scheduled (like me) will still get their second jab at the three-week mark, though they can re-schedule if they want to.

This is sort of a bridging strategy, moving from the current policy of elimination to one in which opening the borders could become possible. The more people that are vaccinated, the better able New Zealand will be when a case of the Delta Variant arrives here through a port or the airport. That’s about keeping the country safe right now.

Related to that, and learning the lessons from the major outbreak in Sydney (See also, “What went wrong in New South Wales” – The Spinoff), yesterday the Minister for Covid-19 Response, Chris Hipkins, announced a change to the way lockdowns might be handled if the Delta Variant is found in New Zealand. He said:

It is more likely that we would end up with a short, sharp move to Covid-19 alert level 4 for either the affected area or the whole country, depending on the circumstances, in the event that we saw a case of Covid-19 emerge. As we know from our own experience, the best public health response is also the best economic response. We don’t want to spend a drawn-out period of time with restrictions in place, and a short, sharp lockdown is more likely to be successful in the current context than a longer, more drawn-out lower-level response.

In sum, NZ could jump to complete lockdown if the Delta Variant gets here, but what’s certain is that the government wants to rapidly vaccinate as many New Zealanders as possible. The first is to keep us safe, as is the second, but that’s also about opening the borders.

Beginning in October, New Zealand will a run pilot programme allowing vaccinated workers to isolate at home when they return to New Zealand, rather than spend time in an MIQ facility. There are details to be worked out, and one suggestion has been to require those self-isolating to wear ankle bracelets like prisoners on home detention do. This is because there has to be some easy way to verify that folks isolating at home are at home isolating, which is vital to keep us all safe.

If all goes well, in the first quarter of 2022 vaccinated New Zealanders will be able to travel to countries the NZ government considers to be “low risk” and then return home quarantine free. At the moment, the only country New Zealanders can travel to/from without quarantine is the Cook Islands (it used to exist for Australia, too, but that’s been suspended).

Vaccinated people who travel to “medium risk” countries will be required to isolate at home upon their return, have a shorter stay at an MIQ facility, or maybe something else. If at home, they’ll only be allowed to isolate with people who they travelled with. All of that will depend in part on how the pilot programme goes.

Anyone returning from a “high risk” country would be required to stay in managed isolation for 14 days and return a negative Covid-19 test, regardless of whether or not they were vaccinated. This is the current policy for everyone entering New Zealand.

In every case, what matters is where the traveller spent the fourteen days before returning to New Zealand. And, as with the Australian travel bubble, it could all stop suddenly if there’s an outbreak and travellers could be stranded overseas. As before, it’s “traveller beware”.

Right now, it’s absolutely impossible to know what countries might be on which list six months or more from now, because we can’t know what the course of countries’ outbreaks or vaccination rates will be. However, it seems at least possible that the United States and the United Kingdom will both be on the “high risk” list, and Australia could be back on the “low risk list”. (See also, “Covid-19 travel: Which overseas destinations could Kiwis visit in 2022?” – Stuff).

There’s one more thing that will impact this: Proof of vaccination. At the moment, there’s no verifiable way to prove one has been vaccinated. New Zealanders can get a statement from the Ministry of Health, but that would only be usable when arriving back in New Zealand. The travel industry is working on an electronic system, and my guess is that this is more likely to happen than some sort of international standard, particularly because of political opposition in some countries. Verifiable proof of vaccination will be mandatory, obviously, for any foreigners wanting to travel here, and they’ll need to comply with any isolation/quarantine requirements in force at the time.

For me personally, I still think the risk is too great for me to even consider travelling overseas. I have to have someone look after my furbabies while I’m away, so if I got stuck in another country for, say, four weeks longer than I planned to stay there, that would be huge a problem. More immediately, I’m going ahead with my second jab next week because my health conditions mean that I’m at potentially greater risk of serious illness if I catch the virus, and being fully vaccinated will make that less likely. I’m aware that there’s some research that suggests that a longer time between jabs may actually improve the immune response, but at the moment I think that the immediate risk is greater than the potential benefit of waiting, especially because new variants may erase whatever advantage that waiting another three weeks might give me.

It’s a given that we can’t have the borders completely closed forever, and I think the government’s cautious approach is the right one. "Our plan to reopen our borders both protects the gains we have won, while setting us up to safely reconnect New Zealanders and business with the world and seize the opportunities created by our Covid success,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. I think she's right. First things first, though: We need far more people to be fully vaccinated.