Brisbane

At long last the rushing around is over and we are at last unwinding in Brisbane. The last few days in Blenheim passed in a blur with the packers arriving last Wednesday and getting everything packed and dispatched by Thursday night. Not a bad effort for two young guys. While the packing was going on we stayed with Graham and Sandra who were house-sitting a beautiful house for friends of theirs right on the waterfront at Waikawa Bay. Friday morning we went back to the house for a final cleanup and inspection of the place with the property manager and by lunchtime it was all over. Quite sad really to see the place completely empty and waiting for new people to move into it. The good news though is that they moved in yesterday, are signed up for twelve months and are paying $400 a week which will go a long way towards the cruising budget.

The trip to Brisbane was far from uneventful, we stayed at the Copthorne Commodore near the airport on Saturday night and were up at 2.30am to catch the plane at 6. So far, so good. The drama started when we went through the x-ray machine at the airport. Both our bags were pulled aside for a search and while mine was ok, Doreen's had one or two small problems. The first was the 12 inch carving knife hidden in the bowels of her computer bag. I don't know if you've ever tried to come up with a convincing reason as to why you had a carving knife in your bag but I can assure you it isn't easy. Actually the truth of the matter was that there were a few last minute things left in the house that were to go on the boat and the knife was one of them but try telling that to airport security officers at 5 in the morning. Next the 3 bottles of Q-Tol we were taking for Kerrie were deemed prohibited and were consigned to the bin along with a lecture on the necessity to read the warning posters. The bottle opener with knife attached got a thorough scrutiny but somehow got through and by now I was rather hoping we hadn't accidently popped a stun grenade in the bag and forgotten about it. In the end we got through minus the prohibited items and nothing more than a lecture but it could have been nasty!

Kerrie and Rick and Ange and Zane and the five grandchildren were all at the airport to meet us along with the 75,856 Japanese tourists who had disgorged themselves off of a fleet of 747's at the same time as our Airbus with about 30 passengers arrived. Add all this to the 3 hours on Jetstar Airways with nothing to eat or drink (the menu for the pay as you eat crap they had to offer was only available in Japanese) and by now you will understand I was just a tad frazzled.

Life has taken a turn for the better since then though. The weather has been beautiful (around 25C) and it's been good to catch up with the Australian contingent of the family again. Looking after the children hasn't been too traumatic, they seem to know what they are supposed to do and when they are supposed to do it and mainly it's all going quite smoothly.

Well that's all for now, it's 6am and the starting gun for the getting ready for school part of the day is about to be fired so must away and hide for an hour or two.

More in a day or two.

Ready to go

The last couple of weeks have been manic, hence the lack of postings on here.

I think the last posting was just before we left for the trip north to look for a boat so I'll try and remember what has happened since.

We caught the early morning ferry to Wellington with our friends Graham and Sandra as planned and were pleased to be in a large ship and not a yacht as Cook Strait was quite rough with a southerly gale blowing. After a brief stop at a marina in Petone to pick up a few bits and pieces we set off for Whangarei at 10am. It doesn't look far on the map but by the time we arrived there at 9pm we knew we had travelled some distance! Still, it was good to get it out of the way in one go. We stayed in Whangarei in a motel for four nights with a couple of day trips to the Bay of Islands, Pahia, Opua, Keri Keri, Tutukaka etc. All places that we hadn't been to for years with lovely scenery and beautiful weather, all the reasons we want to move up there on the boat. We looked at several boats but mostly they were pretty crappy and not what we wanted. On the Monday we drove down to Whangaparoa and met the broker there to look at more boats then down to Auckland for still more. Again, nothing we would buy. On Tuesday we all drove down to Tauranga for the day and looked at another half dozen with the same result. By now we were getting desperate and wondering if we were doing the right thing by packing up the furniture before we had the boat. On the Tuesday night we started the drive to Napier, stopping overnight in a very nice motel in Cambridge and leaving early the next morning and arriving in Napier mid morning. We only had one prospective boat to look at there and luckily the minute we saw it we knew we had found what we were looking for.

The boat's name is "Irrepressible" which some might think is quite apt! It's a 43ft ketch with a huge owner's cabin with queen size bed down the back and with total accommodation for nine people (we'll be taking reservations in due course). It's got all the smart toys like radar and GPS chartplotter etc so with any luck we won't get lost.

We were booked on the ferry to come home that night but changed that to the next day so we could stay and do sea trials on it. There wasn't much wind but enough to get the sails up and assure ourselves that we could sail it ok and so we made the decision there and then and committed ourselves to buying it.

Since arriving back in Blenheim life has been a blur of activity, packing the things to take on the boat, a seperate pile of stuff to take to Brisbane and the rest to go into storage when the packers come next Wednesday. In between all that there have been people coming to look at the house (the first ones to see it signed up for 12 months at $400 a week on the spot), organising change of address, trying to sell the cars, cleaning up around the place and generally working ourselves into a highly stressed condition. The end is in sight however and all the big jobs are pretty much out of the way and we're almost ready to go.

Full speed ahead

Life is gathering pace and there just don't seem to be enough hours in the day to do everything at the moment.

The last couple of days were a good example:

Monday morning, drove into Picton to get ready for a delivery of a launch to Wellington. Left Picton at 1.30pm, got about half a mile out of the marina and the motor overheated. Went back into the marina so Graham could fix it. It looked like it would take a couple of hours or more so I raced back into Blenheim to get four new tyres fitted to the Escape. Got back to Waikawa Bay about 5pm, went to the RSA for a couple of beers then to the Crow for dinner. Back to the boat by 8.00pm and straight to bed. Up at 1.00am for an early start because the launch had to be in Wellington by 8.00am for a truck to take it to Tauranga. Left Waikawa 1.30am, arrived Mana (Wellington) 7.15am. Caught the train to Wellington and then waited 4hrs to get the ferry back to Picton where we arrived at 5.30pm. Raced home to Blenheim and caught up on emails and phone calls and collapsed into bed around 11pm.

Tomorrow morning we are booked on the 5.45am ferry back to Wellington and then plan to drive straight to Whangarei where we'll stay for a couple of days looking at boats there and in the Bay of Islands then down to Auckland to do the same. After a few days there it will be Tauranga and Napier then home with only two weeks before the furniture is packed up on 23rd May. Then on 27th we're off to Brisbane for seven weeks. Sometime between now and then we have to organise all the disconnections, mail redeliveries etc plus sell Doreen's car, sell one boat and buy another.Who said retirement would be boring!

We took Dave and Bev out on the boat on Sunday up to Endeavour Inlet where we caught a good lot of fish then went on to Furneaux Lodge where we went ashore for a couple of hours then back to Picton in the dark. Luckily it was a beautiful full moonlit night and with the help of that and the GPS we didn't get lost and dodged several ferries to get back safely.

That's all for now, lots to do and not enough time to do it all.