Tamang Heritage Trail. Wednesday 26th Grapes…green and purple. Apples. Bananas. Pomegranates. Strange – it’s a bit late for pomegranates I would have thought. All loaded onto bicycles and being sold on every corner. It’s a cool morning with a stiff breeze, and overcast. We leave Sacred Valley Home at 0810 in a Nissan Patrol driven…
Tuesday 25 February 2020 The refurbished Sacred Valley Home is comfortable and warm and we sleep like teenagers until the myriads (murders) of crows break through with their raucous calls as they hunt down breakfast. Then the builders start up and down the street with various tools and we are shaken loose from our room…
Monday 24th February 2020. Much to our surprise we push back at 0720 under a smokey orange disc turning shimmering silver over our wing. We are due out at 0730 and in this land that redefines procrastination the fact that Air India Flight 466 is ahead of time is worthy of note. We are on…
Friday 21 February 2020 Getting launched this morning was a factor of lasts nights preparation which might sound like I am organised but that would be misleading to imply The previous evening had been complicated by the need to drop Mak at the vet, then shop for last minute kit – mainly hand sanitiser. The…
Recollections 7 The fort is probably something that looms larger and more perfect in memory than it was in fact. But even if it was half the establishment we think it was it remains something quite creative and even formidable. At least in the eyes of a kid.
Recollections (6) So, while it’s a small town with only Puketapu (Pookie) to geographically mark it for the passing traveller, there were any number of points that anchored my boyhood view of the place. The curved platform of the railway station for a start. That always entranced me, as did the rails, the rolling stock,…
Recollections 5 Palmerston has a glow about it which comes from lots of memory burnishing, especially polishing that has as its base compound a happy childhood. In truth it’s a tiny country town for which, to those who are not residents, there is little or nothing to commend it. And of course that is the…
Recollection 3: A Yellow German Bug I was not in Dunedin very long. After five years, a yellow German VW beetle clattered me from there and transported me north. Twenty years after we beat them in a global stoush I was being given a lift in one of their cars. We were buying Japanese cars…
Recollections 4 If we are contemplating missiles and such, perhaps we can start this recollection with Skylab. Standing in cool air in the dark on the top of ‘the bank’ staring into a sparkling black sky waiting for movement. Then we hold our breath in wonder as a bright diamond rapidly slides across…
Recollections (2) In April 1961 an attempted military-by-proxy (a favourite US formula) invasion of Cuba took place by those who were no admirers of Fidel Castro and his Communist buddies. Backed and trained by the CIA the invasion at the Bay of Pigs was reduced to naught in three days and is often used to…