Thank you, Mel, for my safe delivery to Brisbane airport on Friday morning –I was soon eating breakfast in the Qantas lounge and then taking off for NZ. During lunch I learnt more about the people who are presently migrating to Australia. My fellow passenger was a recent South African immigrant on a business trip to Chile for the mine he works for in Queensland. He wanted his family to grow up in a safer country and with transferable skills from his gold mining experience had no difficulty finding a job in Australia.
My last visit to Auckland was probably as swift as this one –as a passenger in transit but 50 years apart! I enjoyed the walk between the international and domestic terminals -perfectly signposted and with a view of the working side of the airport. Friday evening is a busy travelling time so there was some great people watching while I waited for my flight to Napier. It seems from that small glimpse that NZ is a culturally integrated society.
Don and Joy were waiting with a sign as I stepped off the plane –a very sensible idea after such a long time gap. Now I’ve been in their company for a while I can see them as they were when I was a child but I’m not sure I would have recognised them immediately and I’ve certainly changed since we last met!! Don was the teacher in the small school my sister & I went to in Golden Bay and its just wonderful to be with him and Joy again.
Today its sunny in Napier and I’ve already seen glimpses of the town’s art deco and its busy port -lots of container ships and a sign that says Golden Bay Cement, the company my Dad worked for from 1946-49 although nowadays the cement is made somewhere else.
Te Mata Peak is the best way to see Hawkes Bay –the wineries, newly planted olive groves and a wonderful display of autumnal colour.
There are 360 views of the land positioned above where the Australian Plate meets the Pacific Plate causing the regular pattern of thankfully very small earthquakes (perhaps more earthshakes than quakes) and others of huge significance. The 1931 quake destroyed the small town of Napier and extended the land mass as the sea floor rose by 2 metres. The airport sits on land that was once underwater and only now is it free enough from salt for the plants to grow well. The town was rebuilt in the art deco style as my next entry will show …
No comments:
Post a Comment