NEW ZEALAND CAMPING 2013: DAY #11

Monday April 29, 2013

We had picked up the basics for a breakfast from the supermarket last evening – just rolls and cheese and a bit of yoghurt. That suited us fine and better than the $16 breakfast offered by the hotel. It was another fine day and the lake looked lovely as we left.

It was only about 150 km to our destination – our niece’s home is 25 km from Cambridge and about the same distance from Hamilton. I say “niece” because we have always thought of Nola in that context, although she is the daughter of one of my cousins, Margie, so technically she is a second cousin. Half a dozen of us cousins all lived together in our grandfather’s house during the war when our fathers were away. We formed close bonds then and have always regarded our relationship as more like siblings than cousins. In any event ‘niece’ sounds much warmer than ‘second cousin.’

The drive to Cambridge was very pleasant. It was a sunny day and the countryside was so typical of how we remembered New Zealand. The gentle rolling hills look as if they are covered in green velvet and with flocks of sheep and cattle here and there, white wood fences, small homesteads with smoking chimneys, it is for all the world like a panorama one might see at a model train exhibition.

Without the GPS to guide us, we went somewhat astray in the last few kilometres, but managed to get Nola on the mobile and she put us right – one of her directions being to turn left when we saw the Home Kill business, a business name that puzzled us somewhat. She had been very ill, but had made a magnificent recovery thanks to her tremendous willpower and attention to her best options for dealing with her problem. Although she can never say she is ‘cured’ she is very happy with her NED – No Evidence of Disease – current diagnosis.

Zulu greeting me

She and her husband and the two children, Marc and Dani, have worked very hard over the past five or six years in turning what was a rather ordinary and somewhat run down farm dwelling into a very pleasant and welcoming home. Their big black Labrador with the distinctly un-politically correct name of Zulu greeted us like long lost friends, even thought he had never met us, as did Nola. It was truly wonderful to see her looking so well.

Of course we had many years of family chat to catch up on, even though we have been in touch via Skype and e-mail, and Nola had spent a few days with us in Melbourne three or four years ago. But the last time we met the family physically was in April 2001 when my brother Steve arranged for the “Millennium Meet” for our extended family. I felt a little sorry for Nola’s son and daughter who must have found the chatter about people and places they had never seen just a tad boring. Being a polite, well brought up pair, they never complained and even agreed to come along with us when we headed for a late lunch in the beautiful Hamilton Gardens, overlooking the quaintly named Turtle Lake. It was almost warm in the sun, but there was a brisk wind blowing and that dropped the temperature a degree or two.

On the way to Hamilton we had dropped into the BnB – Pedfield Country House were we had booked (and paid in advance)  for our two night’s accommodation. Of course Nola had offered to put us up in her guest cottage, but we felt that she had enough on her plate without having to look after two visitors.  Our reception at Pedfield and the story of our stay there is in my piece How Not To Run A Bed And Breakfast, so I won’t go into any more detail here. Suffice it to say that our first impressions could have been better, although they proved to be accurate.

Back we went to the family house after a drive around Hamilton to see the sights. The home is on several hectares and so it is possible to  run a few animals. Dani was in charge of feeding the ‘herd’ who were all anxiously  waiting our rather belated return. There was Dani’s horse, Hooligan, a cow named Petal and a couple of goats – Sparkle and Galaxy.

Petal, Hooligan and Galaxy wait for a feed

I had thought there were two cows from my memory of Skype calls and indeed that had been the case. Blackie, the second cow, had met up with the folk from Home Kill – the abattoir that calls to your home – and we were actually eating her for dinner that night. Rab and I still feel we’d find it very difficult to eat an animal that we’d raised from childhood and named, but country folk accept that as part of the normality of life. Nola, who is now involved in a pre-school situated near the Home Kills premises made us laugh when she described how the children played with some of the toy animals at the school because they would, as part of the game, have some of the cows and sheep die and be carted away. That is their normality.

Blackie made a delicious meal and we had a great evening – lots of laughter and yarns from the old days. Isn’t that what family gatherings are all about?

And so to bed at Pedfield.