Turangi to New Plymouth

The tourist information service in Turangi told me not to travel too early when I took the route from Turangi to Tauramanui as the road had tall trees on both sides and was often icy.

Turangi to Taumeranui: national park

I waited until 10am before setting off, imagining a route through forestry plantations of tall pines. Instead of plantations, the route is through national parks and the trees so much more interesting than pines.

The advice about ice was good advice. Right along the route bright red signs warned against slippery conditions in cold weather.

Further along the route passes through country that looks like a sea of camels ... lots of humpy hills. I couldn't help but think how wonderful it would be if some of the more marginal farm land was allowed to revert to bush. It seemed so forlorn. Later I saw a painting by Dick Frizzel that illustrated my thoughts as I drove to New Plymouth.

On the forest road to the headwaters of the Tarawera River

 by Dick Frizzel 1987.

Lake Taupo

Lake Taupo is where I spent my childhood holidays so Io can never drive past without remembering the swimming, fishing, cousins (we shared a house), film nights on the common and growing into a teenager. The water was often cold in January and now, in August, it is snow fed and very fresh.

Lake Taupo on Saturday

The same spot on Sunday

This area could easily have become New Zealand's Gold Coast but happily, because of ownership structures, that has not happened. The more of these treasures we loose to developers, the more important it becomes to protect the remainder.

Turangi - fishing capital of the world

View over the southern Lake Taupo, Turangi just to the right

Fishing the Tongariro River at Turangi

Turangi is much warmer than further south but  standing in the middle of a river for hours on end as fisher folk do here must make you yearn for a cup of warm soup.

There must be plenty of fish though. Two Hawkes Bay residents at the Tongariro River told me they had caught twenty trout between them over the weekend.

The Turangi Art Gallery in the small outdoor mall is definitely worth a visit, so if you are reading this and on your way to Turangi, make sure to call in. It is a real pleasure to discover so much local artistic talent.

Mt Ruapehu

The snow over the past week has closed a lot of roads including the desert roasd, but by Friday it was open. I had a last coffee at Soul Cafe in Taihape to give the ice time to melt then set off north.

Mt Ruapehu from the desert road.

 Ruapehu was a picture, all decked out in her winter white.

Soul in Taihape

Tea at Soul

It is hard to choose a favourite cafe in Taihape because there are three excellent cafes in town but the cafe I particularly like is the Soul Cafe on the main street. They serve the best coffee between Auckland and Wellington and excellent food to boot.

The cafe has that je ne sais quoi ...that certain something that makes cafes work. There is an eclectic mix of chairs and tables, including old treddle sewing machine bases, and a wood burning stove, very popular at this time of year.

The guests are a mix of locals and travellers but the cafe itself feels very Taihape to me. I've been spending a lot of time there for coffee, for lunch.

I will miss their excellent coffee when I leave.

Oven with warming fire

Gumbooted guest with back to the fire

Mt Stewart reserve

Giant gumboot in Taihape

Taihape has made it's name as gumboot capital of the world with a giant corrugated iron gumboot sculpture and annual gumboot throwing competitions.

I took the competition with me when I left and we held gumboot throwing competitions at our street parties in Hamburg amid much mirth. If you have ever tried throwing a gumboot you'll understand about the mirth.

Path up through My Stewart reserve

Today I climbed the path up Mt Stewart which starts just behind the giant gumboot. It is a climb worth the effort because the path through the bush is lovely, though muddy and slippery at the moment.

The view from the top is stunning. You look out over the valley all the way to Mt Ruapehu is covered in snow today.

Mt Ruapehu with Mt Stewart
in the foreground.

Taihape

Sign on a shop door in Taihape

' I must have been mad to come at the coldest time of the year', I thought to myself as I drove north to Taihape but now I am glad I did.

It is true, it is freezing here, as the sign on the shop door says, but there is no wind (a welcome relief after Wellington gales) and the sun is shining.

The first thing I did on reaching Taihape was to drive up Dixon Way to the cemetery which is perched on the top of a hill overlooking the Ruahine Ranges. This after all was the reason for my trip, a visit to my parents grave.

It was glorious on the hilltop, as it usually is.  Looking out over the snow covered Ruahine Ranges under a bright blue sky I understood my parents never wanting to leave, even when so many friends moved to warmer places to retire. We children fretted for them but they were adamant.

The view to the Ruahine Ranges

As I looked around  the cemetery I couldn't help but think they'd be happy now with this glorious view.

Grave: View from above

My mother was an avid gardener and a practical woman and had put some potted succulents, grown for years in her garden until they overflowed the pot, on the tomb of my Dad. We added another for her and there they are, still growing as she knew they would.

All the names on the tombstones were familiar, a reminder of the community that surrounded my parents which they didn't want to leave.  I have the same feeling visiting my grandmother's grave in the hills near Hunterville. The names on the tombstones there are names familiar from my mother's stories, although I never knew the people personally.

Nowadays people have their ashes scattered or their remains are buried in places with time limits on the tombs. How transitory we have become.

Snow but no ice cream

Converging highways in Bulls

Travelling north from Wellington you drive past the several coastal towns of the Kapiti Coast, then along flat (or comparatively flat) ultra-green pastures until you reach Sanson and Bulls. By then it is time for lunch and the Mother Goose cafe on the corner of converging highways in Bulls does a good lunch in pleasant surroundings.

Then on through Hunterville where I thought I would have an ice cream for old times sake (the ice cream in the photo on my profile was from Hunterville) but time thwarted my desire as the ice cream shop has closed. Closed, shut, gone. (Insert sad face here).

Front page, Dominion Post

I drove on to Taihape wondering how low the recent snow might be. Newspapers and TV are full of reports of the weekend snow storms which caused hundreds of power poles to collapse.

Luckily for me the storm was a little north of Taihape which has no lying snow, though it covers neighbouring hills, and still has power.

It would be very cold without heating in this weather and I feel very sorry for the folks affected.

Wellington, then north

Wellington, NZ

Wellington was cold this morning as I drove through the city glass and concrete. It was both cold and windy, though not as bad as Saturday's squally weather, but despite the weather the city was as pretty as it always is.

Pale green water, blue hills, dark olive foliage.

Wellington Harbour

New Zealand has such stunning scenery and I love being back. The trip north from Wellington is a trip down memory lane for me because I studied in Wellington when I was a late teenager and took the trip home by bus several times a year. My parents must have driven down with me sometimes because I remember having picnics at Plimmerton  overlooking the inlet there before the last leg on to Wellington.

The seashore at Paekakariki

By the time I got over the hill to Paekakariki on the west coast the clouds were receding. The sun shone on the water and my feet started to unfreeze.

Christiana Libor/NZSO in Wellington, NZ

Christiana Libor

Christiana Libor has a voice like honey and listening to her sing soothed Wellington concertgoers on Saturday evening. They needed soothing as the weather was appalling, even by Wellington standards (sleety rain blown horizontal by the wind).
'Brrrr', they said as they dove through the doors of the Michael Fowler Center.

Strauss's Four Last Songs and Mahler's Symphony No. 4 were on the program and a successful combination. The NZSO under the baton of Edo de Waart played with verve and Libor sung like a goddess.

Well worth a visit to Wellington!

Patonga Pelican

Will I go or wont I; will I go or ...

Roberto Alagna in Sydney

Have you ever heard Nessun Dorma sung to the tune of Funiculì, Funiculà? No? Well people who attended the Roberto Alagna concert at the Sydney Opera House last night are one up on you.

After a successful and quite lengthy programme of opera arias, orchestral interludes and Neapolitan songs including the aforementioned Funiculì, Funiculà, Roberto Alagna and his collaborators, including the delightful Aussie soprano Siobhan Stagg who is making a name for herself in Europe, gave us an encore that got a great reception. In fact the audience gave Alagna a great reception from the word go, clapping furiously as soon as there was the smallest gap in the music. That was not surprising as Alagna is an engaging performer and, after all, who wouldn't want to be wooed by a tenor with a magnificent voice who is good fun into the bargain.

Anyway, after the first encore there was a short discussion between the performers and conductor as they decided about a second, and probably unplanned for, encore. Then as the conductor held up his baton for a repeat of Funiculì, Funiculà,, a voice was heard from the audience calling 'Nessun Dorma!' The public laughed, the orchestra began and then we heard a very novel performance of Funiculì, Funiculà. As each line ended, Alagna (and later Stagg) added the words 'Nessun Dorma' to the end.  It caused a great deal of merriment in the hall. Perhaps this version of the Neapolitan classic could be named 'the Sydney version'.

Cerebral Palsy and Music

You wouldn't think that someone suffering from a high level of cerebral palsy would be able to play a music instrument would you? Nor would you think they could play with a professional band but the Australian Piano Quartet and Jessica Irwin have proved that it can happen and that the result can be stunning.

Rebecca Chan plays

Congratulations to Rebecca Chan and the APQ for showing us how limiting  our preconceptions can be. The APQ have a residency at the University of Technology Sydney and for this project they worked with the folk who build software which helps the less-abled manage life.

Rebecca Chan wrote the piece Whispering Pectoriloquy in collaboration with the team which enabled Jessica Irwin to play synthsiser. Chan is a trained as a doctor and said she imagined synapses firing while writing the piece. I have a similar background (though I am a biological doctor not a medical one) and I thought the description very apt.

Jessica's Irwin's eye movements were shown on a screen so we could watch what she was doing, but even if we had not been able to visualise her work we would have been able to hear how good it was. The piece got a standing ovation at the Sydney Opera House Utzon room yesterday and it was well deserved. I am looking forward to hearing more of Chan's compositions.

Look Jessica Irwin up on her website - she is a phenomenon!

ACO and Sollima: Sequenza Ilaliana

Impassioned, fun, fabulous, mesmerizing. Yes, all of those things describe the Sequenza Italiana concert given by musicians of the Australian Chamber Orchestra with visiting cello-virtuoso Giovanni Sollima. I sat in the concert wishing everyone I knew could be with me watching this passionate and competent group of people.

Maxime Bibeau (Double Bass) and Satu Vänskä (Violin) played sequenza by Berio, pieces written specifically for their instruments and intertwined by the players to make a fascinating whole. Bravo Max and Satu! Satu later played a piece by Paganini, relaxed and happy and with her flying fingers showing us just how lucky we are to have her here in Australia. 

Giovanni Sollima plays cello like no other

When Sollima played I wished all the under 20's of my acquaintance could be with me. They would

have learned in a single concert the fun and joy of classical music.

Sollima plays every part of his instrument, not only the strings but the wood and even strut that holds his cello from the floor. I think he'd play the music stand if he had one. The interesting thing is that it doesn't seem contrived. The sounds he produces from wood and metal are different from those produced by the strings and are an essential part of his composition. By the time his piece finishes it doesn't seem strange that he is playing the instrument as a whole, wood, metal and strings.

I wrote yesterday about my pre-concert experience and to have it followed by a captivating concert such as this, well you can see why I was lost for words. All I can say is that it was a day I shall not forget.

Telling Tales

I had an experience today that I find very difficult to describe. 

It was a drab old day in Sydney, not cold but with lowering clouds and sporadic rain showers. Not a day you expect to be overwhelmed and left breathless and weeping in the space of a minute or two. 

Grey day today: Sydney Opera House from the MCA

As I walked out of Wynyard Station I was assailed by the scent of Narcissus flowers, harbingers of spring. I am still not quite used to Narcissus flowers being sold when autumn is barely over and 'winter' has not quite gripped us, but then what we call winter in Sydney is more like spring in harsher climates. 

This was what I was thinking as I strode off to the the Museum of Contemporary Art. I was going there to see 'Telling Tales', an exhibition that includes a sung work Sonic Blossoms by artist Lee Mingwei. A classically trained singer (there are several who take turns) chooses a random member of the public and sings a Schubert song to them. I am acquainted with one of the singers and was hoping to hear her sing. 

Goowoolem Gijam – Gija plants by Shirley Purdie

In the nominated third floor exhibition room there was a large work called Goowoolem Gijam – Gija plants by Aboriginal artist Shirley Purdie that took up most of one wall. The other works in the room were by artist Emily Floyd, comments on the Soviet Gulag which, as the wall plaques declared, resonate with Australia's offshore internment camps and policies affecting remote Aboriginal communities.

Some time after midday a tall smartly dressed man with a rather dramatic coat appeared (baritone Andrew Moran I discovered afterwards).  He led a woman from the assembled onlookers to sit on a chair in the middle of the room, then withdrew to stand perhaps eight meters away to deliver his song. 

I am not sure if it was the already emotionally-charged space, whether it was Schubert's music/words or whether it was Andrew Moran's extraordinary baritone voice but in the space of four minutes I was an emotional wreck. Is that too strong an expression? After the song I walked out of the MCA weeping and emotional, heading for a quiet corner where I could sit and think and figure out what had happened to me. Eventually I wrote a note (writing helps me digest experience) and emailed it to myself. 

This is what I wrote:

My body feels as if it is too small for my heart which has suddenly grown four sizes bigger. Half an hour ago I was was present when Andrew Moran sang a Schubert song to an audience member of the MCA. I was not the person sung to but despite that, this single song touched me in a way one is seldom touched.

It is true, I weep when I hear Liebestod at the end of Tristan and Isolde, but that is to be expected after four hours going through an emotional wringer. The Schubert song was only a couple of minutes long, but sung in a way that reached right past any defenses I might have had and left me breathless and weeping.

Now I am sitting quietly in a corner with a consolatory beer, trying to get a grip on myself before I go to the ACO/ Giovanni Sollima concert. Will the concert make my malady worse?

Now it is evening. As I returned home on the train I thought about this extraordinary day that has been almost impossible to describe. (More on the concert later.)  Ex PM Paul Keating struggles to explain the effect of Mahler's music has on him; Wagnerians join societies to search for words to describe their feelings;  I write a blogpost in an effort of describe a Schubert Lied. We all fail because there are no words.

 Addendum: here is the song I heard..  Du bist die Ruh sung by Peter Scheier:

 

Peter Schreier sings

Women and war

In the 1970/80s I lived in Germany and suffered culture shock. I learned the language quickly but a culture is much more than its language and learning to understand Germany was a challenge. It was the old world and I had grown up in the new world; it was Germany and I had grown up in an anti-German environment (my parents were both nineteen when WW2 broke out).

As an antidote and to gain understanding I decided to interview women about their war time experiences. My project grew and grew, and I grew with it. All in all I interviewed twenty two German and nine English women. I had to take a break in the middle as I was so overwhelmed by what I was hearing. I summarised the German transcripts in English and researched the period in the library in Wiesbaden. But then I started studying (not history) and put this project aside for some future date.

Now the future has caught up with me. It was a difficult project and perhaps that is why I put it off so long but I kept the box of tapes, transcripts and research and the box survived my many changes of abode.

When I looked at the transcripts again, I realised  that they are much more interesting than my original summaries. I am now re-translating the interviews from the original transcripts and digitising the tapes that survived the intervening years.

I am hoping to find a print outlet to take up this fascinating material, but in the meantime I have my head down and am busy in the world of 1940s Europe. It is non-visual,  thus the dearth of blog posts.

Sunset

Sunset today

Who can resist them, beautiful sunsets?

The sunset this evening was a stunner, with the gods shining a red torch on the undersides of the lumpy grey clouds transforming them into a sight to gasp at.  Then five minutes later they switched the torch off and it was all over ...

Education and Brexit: Go the Scots!

Those with more education vote to stay
(Guardian newspaper)

The Scots have a very long tradition of respect for education, believing that everyone from the top to the bottom of the social spectrum, both girls and boys, should have a decent education.
 

'In August 1560 the ... Scotland [became] a Protestant country. The Reformed Scottish Church recognised that education had to be a national priority, both for its intrinsic worth but also to ensure everyone could read the Bible.' [from: University of Edinburgh website]

This eventually lead to the enlightenment in the eighteen century, earlier than most of Europe.

Education is still important in Scotland and I suspect that this has had an effect on the Scots vote to remain in Europe. A more educated population is not as easy to mislead and the Scots may well thank their system in future years if it enables them to continue to reap the benefits that a European common market delivers.

Unknown creator (from Facebook!)

As I write, it is not yet clear whether England will actually leave the EU although the European politicians, understandably tired of being continually poked in the eye by the UK,  are urging them to take their bat and ball and leave. It looks as if it might be crunch time for the Brexit politicians locally as well now that all their posturing is shown to have been built on untruths.

Deservedly unloved on both sides of the channel.

Britain Brexits

They Brexited and everyone seems to be in a state of shock, though I don't know why. It seems to me that the British people have been skeptical about the value of Europe for a long time.

I was brought up in a pro-British household where grandmother still called England 'home', so I was amazed when I lived in Europe to discover how behind the times the English were. Whenever there was a proposed change for more equality, for example for women, it always seemed to be the British holding back the change. Ever since then I have wondered whether a Brexit might actually help Europe (though I feel sorry for the British).

The British view of Germans continues to be one influenced by war propaganda and the TV series Hogans Heros. - so they think Germans are evil or buffoons. An English friend who teaches German in an English school told me that when the soccer world cup was held in Germany, English reporters sent reports back saying 'People here are actually quite cultured.'  They were astonished that the German police danced in the streets with the crowds.

The elites have obviously found it in their best interest to keep the uneducated uneducated, all the while ripping them off unconscionably. Why are they surprised when the hens come home to roost? As someone immediately wrote on my twitter feed The United Kingdom 1707 - 2016. 

Addendum on 25June:  this morning I heard Sadiq Khan, new Major of London, say that over the past 20 years whenever a Prime Minister has gone to Europe to negotiate a deal, they have come home and criticised the EU.  I thought it a very valid point and now I wonder how they will manage without this convenient whipping boy.

APQ plays Liebestod

The woman in the seat next to me at the Australia Piano Quartet concert at the Sydney Opera House Utzon Room yesterday was reduced to tears by their playing of the Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde. As she blew her nose afterwards and tried to recompose herself, I reflected on the power of music to move us. The piece had been arranged by the APQ for quartet so there was no soprano, but this music is so evocative that an instrumental version played by a virtuoso group like the APQ is capable of exciting extreme emotional response.

Schumann's Piano Quintet in E flat Major (Anna de Silva Chen joined the group as second violin) followed Liebestod. Wonderful music played with passion.