What A Woman

All who are reading this know Sheryl well so this won't be a surprise but as my brother Dave would say, 'What a Studmuffin".
We are now a 5some as Meghan's sister Ellen arrived Christmas day and we have had a nice time seeing the sights of Rotorua, but hey, it's New Zealand so come Boxing Day (the day after Christmas) we decide to go fishing so Meghan and Ellen could have some sister time.

Before we left home Sheryl announced that perhaps it would be fun to try fly fishing, so we bought her her own set up but she only practiced about 15 minutes out on a lawn. So here we are exploring the Whirinaki River, a river none of us has even seen before and before I even have my rod set up she is whoopin' and hollerin' as she has hooked her first New Zealand trout. Now she did have an expert guide at her side but she was doing all the fishing. As our good friend Barbara Stout has proclaimed, "Any woman can learn to flyfish, as long as it's not from her husband". So Tyler, the expert, inherited the instructor duties and he had one hell of a student. When the afternoon was over I had hooked two fish, Tyler had hooked two fish and The Studmuffin had hooked four! For Real.
She's hooked.
So the next day Ty and I are off to fish again but the three girls are going into Taupo to do some shopping and other fun stuff. I need to insert this little tid-bit into my story right here. Sheryl has an injured thumb and has to wear a brace all the time, thus she thought she couldn't fish and certainly can't play golf. But...She LOVES golf and when they get to Taupo which is on a big lake she spies this Hit-The-Golfball-Into-The -Lake- Challenge. It seems you can drive balls into the lake and if you hit the ball into the gizmo on a target about 200 yards out, you can win 10,000 dollars. It costs a dollar per ball to try. She is injured. Wearing a thumb brace. But hey, one ball only costs a buck so she pays the dude, grabs a driver with her daughter-in-law plus sister watching and smacks the damned thing true and strait....whango! Bullseye! Yeahhhhhhhhhhhh Studmuffin. They run to tell the dude who didn't see it all and so he gives her the next best prize....a used golf ball.
Somethings wrong here, but hey, she's on a roll.
What a woman!

Merry Christmas 2009

Afternoon Tea seems just so civil.
Typical Waiheke Bay
They seem just so happy about the weather.

Merry Christmas To All.
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve here in New Zealand and we will be on the move again so Sheryl and I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas.
After leaving Adam and Lana's we drove to Auckland and are now on Waiheke Island, an hour's ferry ride ride away. It's a beautiful island reminding us of Hawaii with its many fine little beaches, shops and cafes. Wineries seem to be everywhere and their settings over the bays and harbours are simply spectacular.
Tomorrow we will be back in Auckland having our family Christmas celebrations on Christmas eve with Tyler and Meghan as they will be picking up her sister, Ellen, at 6 am Christmas day at the airport. We then will all reunite again in Rotorua (Klamath Falls' sister city) for Christmas day and all things thermal - its the Yellowstone of New Zealand.
Christmas is just plain odd to us in New Zealand as it is the start of summer here. The beach Bar-B-Q seems to be the traditional event and shorts the preferred attire. They seem quite aware of how nice the weather is compared to the states. Note the above photo.
Christmas carols are equally strange to us. In Perth we heard Chinese folks singing White Christmas in a little Chinese Restaurant and it just didn't seem normal...but who am I to judge traditions? I think what is important to us all at these time of year is that special feeling of family, be it around a snowy tree, a beach Bar-B-Q or a Chinese wok.
Merry Christmas everyone.

Tyler's Very Best Friend

The 4.5 of them. (Lana is 7 mos pregnant)
Adam's boat and shark cage.

In 1988, when Tyler was just 8 he found his perfect friend living just down the road from us in New Plymouth. Adam Al-agez was equally daring-do and the two diminutive adventurers roamed the area having no end of fun. Adam was the very best friend Tyler ever had and his parents, our good friends who we visited last week, said Adam cried for days when Tyler left in '88. Fortunately we have kept the Christmas card communications going over the years and Sheryl and I even visited Adam and Lana in Tauranga in 2003. They are a GREAT young couple and we knew if Adam and Tyler ever hooked up again they would pick right up again.....
Of course it happened.
Ty, Meghan, Adam and Lana had met once during their winter and vowed to get together again when it was warm and they had some time to spend together. Surprise, Adam's great love is fishing! But now his time is spent in his beautiful boat fishing in the ocean, not with a flyrod on the trout streams. (Does this sound like Tyler? - Adam has built a shark cage to go out and watch the Mako Sharks of New Zealnd from 2 feet away). So this week they are staying with Adam and Lana at their house RIGHT ON THE BEACH, and Monday they went fishing in the ocean (I got invited along - yippee) and Tuesday they went trout fishing. ( I still have no report on that day, but we did catch a few snappers out in the ocean). It has been such a pleasure to watch them all together and to see what a fine fine young man Adam is. The more we see of Adam and Lana the more we like them.
I have no idea when they will ever again meet, but as our lives have unfolded we somehow have managed to repeatedly see our Kiwi friends, all of whom we first met 37 years ago. We will just wish them all the best.

Finally Recovering

One Thursday night in Sydney Sheryl and I went to a Starbucks(they have the best wifi) and each plugged an earbud into an ear and listened to the Civil War football game between those nasty ducks and our beloved Beavers. The delightful evening slowly turned gray, then black and when it was over I became violently ill. It started as a headache, turned to nausea and projectile vomiting which was followed by The Vapors, a touch of consumption and by midnight I think it was malaria complicated by creeping berri berri. By morning I had developed two ovarian cysts, speading ebola and a hernia.

But now we have made it to New Zealand and I seem to be on the mend. Good luck to the ducks in the Rose Bowl (I don't really mean it) and to the Beavs in Las Vegas.

New Zealand seems to have brought me back around and seeing Tyler and Meghan in their home in Levin seems to be doing the trick. What a fun young couple. Ty took us around to his school, we met his principal and vice principal who absolutely gushed about what a fine teacher he is and what magic he has brought to their Spanish progam. Meghan has been invited to all sorts of end of the year coffees, meetings etc. clearly painting a similar picture of success, they sure make us proud.

After a couple of nights with them we are back in Taranaki and visiting the Spencers, our great pottery/teacher friends from the 70's. Yeah, old friends are absolutely wonderful. We have talked on into the night for 3 nights , been tramping and just catching up. Its been WONDERFUL to be back in New Plymouth which will always be our other home.

Please Excuse The Grandparents

Merry Christmas Kaylin and Brooklyn.
Santa is coming soon, so be good. We will see you in a few weeks.
Love Bah-Da and Pa

Taking Leave of Oz

We had intended to fly from Adelaide to Sydney but we suddenly had the opportunity to rent a car and drive. As we had plenty of time we opted on the car and hugged the coast from Adelaide to Melbourne. Wow. The Great Ocean Road was indeed great with a coast that rivals Oregon.
We had never seen much of Melbourne before so we had a couple of days seeing the lovely city. It took us by surprise as to just how beautiful and energetic Melbourne was. Accomodation was impossible as it was a Saturday when we got there and we ended up in a once-upon-a-time nunnery. No bathroom and I could stand in our tiny room and touch both walls. A nasty place. But we loved Melbourne and went and found the one-time home of Mike and Patty Reeder. It was fun to visualize their 5 years of life there in that terrific city.
We then drove to Sydney, hugging the coast and stayed with our friends the Daytons who we know from our days in New Plymouth, New Zealand. Old friends are just the best. It’s amazing how you just pick up right where you left off 36 years ago. Wes is now into vintage auto racing and took us out to the amazing Sydney Olympic Venue where he was involved in an auto event. Another great time. But Ouch. It is just so hard at this time of life to essentially say, “goodbye forever”.
Sydney too was just great. We spent a day at Bondi beach swimming with the locals (and presumably sharks)and enjoying the warm water. Another day we took the Manly ferry, went to a performance at the Sydney Opera House and dined at The Rocks.
Overall Australia just stunned us with its life, energy, vibrancy and spinning economy. Commerce is roaring, things are EXPENSIVE and if the country had a bigger population it would eat us for lunch. While we were there they achieved the dubious honor of now building the largest homes on earth, overtaking the US.
We left last week having really enjoyed the country. If it were closer to home I am sure we would return to see some of the places we’ve missed. (Tragic note: We did not see ONE can of Fosters the entire trip).

Some Things Never Change

It was 1972, some 37 years ago that Sheryl and I arrived in Adelaide. Our apartment fourplex was brand new and spic and span. I guess some things do change as it now looks tattered and torn and worse for the wear of the last 37 years. Come to think of it, so do we.
Adelaide looks the same but seems MUCH busier. We took in their Christmas parade which always seems odd in the heat, but oh well, the shopping must go on. Then yesterday we headed north to the schools we had taught at, those many years ago. I had always felt that my school was just a stop-over for the Aussie teachers as they soon moved on to a better school. It was not a friendly place, was not well run and I couldn't wait to be done with the place after my first year of teaching.
I full well know that after 37 years there will be no one left who would remember me but there were a couple of young science teachers that perhaps someone might know and could tell me where they were or some tid bit of an update. Hah. The school is much bigger now, has a new wing, more portables, but it didn't take long to realize its still the crappy s--t hole it once was. I stood outside the bulletproof reception window while the lady did a bonzer job of ignoring me as she bantered with her mates. Finally she lowered herself to asking me what I wanted and in my friendliest, most charming manner I explained my situation and essentially she told me to go to hell, she had no time for me, I could not look around the school and I could go to the department of education if I had questions. Ouch.
Some Thing Never Change.
I went back to the car, we had a good laugh and I felt very reassured that no,it was not me, it was that rotten school I had worked at that had left me with such poor memories of my teaching in Australia.

( We then went to Sheryl's school where they greeted her with open arms, are sending her the news letter, and, I believe, offered her a Knighthood).

Back "Home" in Adelaide

Western Australia has been quite an adventure for us from the heat of the dry north to the incredible beaches and turquoise water of the entire state. The south west corner is full of enormous eucalyptuses and windswept beaches with NO people as the Southern Ocean rolls in. Wineries are EVERYWHERE. In fact there is now a glut of grapes and they are moaning about it, but I digress.
We finished up back in Perth and boarded the Indian Pacific for one of the world's classic train rides across the Nularboor Plain and on tho South Australia. Three days and two nights along the straightest stretch of track in the world. A lot of nothing out there. We stopped at Kalgoolrri, a mining and prostitution town (no kidding) and took the midnight tour (of the gold mine!) and then were off again. Stopped in Cook, a town of 5 where it was 105, too hot for us. Finally we made it to Adelaide, rented a car and drove out to Henley beach where we lived in 1972. How sad. Our "flat" seems pretty run down these days and it was a bit depressing but then we don't look much better after the 37 years of wear.
We have changed our plans once again and will drive to Sydney rather than fly as there is a lot to see along the way.
This has been an interesting time for us as we have no plans most of the time and really are just feeling like snowbirds that have really gone south. It hasn't been one of those thrill-a-minute type trips, but rather a much more layback style of travel. We are getting a lot of reading done and just enjoying the hospitality of Oz.

SNAKES!!!!!!

Why us?
We have read so many stories about the deadly snakes of OZ, but mostly we have seen road kills and the ever present warning signs. Then this week we drove to the beach and coming back on a red cinder road we saw our first genuine, deadly, poisonous, venomous, killer snake of Oz.
We had seen a lot of sticks in the road that we thought were snakes but as we came around the corner THERE IT WAS. NO DOUBT. It was BIG, probably 4 feet long and laying there as snakey as could be in this classic "s" curves on the other side of the roadway. Wow! I wanted a photo so when we got even with it I stopped (windows rolled UP) and grabbed the camera as this ugly looking serpent raised half its body length and was about to stike at the car. It was just a hideous moment and I thought "That stupid snake is going to strike this metal car and bust off his fangs". Nope. He thought better of it and raced, (and I mean raced, it was the fastest snake I'd ever seen) under the car and out the other side. I handed the camera to Sheryl to try for a photo as he came out her side but OOPS, there was no snake. ??????? He was UNDER our car!!!!!!!! So I threw it in reverse and went pulling back as fast as I could, to get a photo before he was gone but THERE WAS NO SNAKE!
Holy #&%!
We were horrified!
That damned snake was up under our car - or was he? Talk about an awful feeling. We searched the floor boards for holes and could find none. I tried my lame herpatologist explanation of how snakes don't like hot greasy cars, he must have gone out the rear before we saw him......
What an awful moment as we slowly drove away. It was REAL quiet in that car as we finally made it to town. and sat in the car not wanting to step out. Just creepy as hell. Finally we both leaped from the car and from 20 feet away looked underneath. No snake. The trunk? I didn't open it until the next day and jumped like crazy as it opened. No snake. It's been 3 days now and tomorrow we get rid of the car. Can't wait.

Golfing Distractions

Well we tried golf again. This time in the lovely town of Margaret River, deep in the Western Oz wine country. LOTS of roos on the course but so what, they're cute. Trouble number one is they seem to love sand traps and it seems I found one one the 6th fairway. Damn roo wouldn'tmove and these are the big red ones that the sign says are dangerous. What a mess. Yeah I finally shooed him away but things went downhill after that.
I've seen Sheryl play a lot of golf but this was the first time she ever took a 13. Yep, a 13. Bet you would have too as it seems to be mating season just now for these romantic roos. Every time she was about to hit, Mr. Roo would go chasing after his lady friend, right across the green. Then, and this is disgusting, as she hacked her way up the fairway Mr. Roo finally subdueed his little love mate and every time Sheryl was about to hit this ARRRRHUUMP ARRHUMP noise would accompany his excited moments and the noise would shake the trees, not to mention our nerves. Can you just imagine Steve Williams telling them to shut up?
It was continuous, most annoying and quite frankly I was an emotional wreck after 9 holes. There is a 9 holes joke there, but I'll let you make up you own.
What a day.

Karijini

One of Oz's famous goannas. This beaut walked across the road and when I stopped and got out he ran, I mean RAN, into the bush, stood up on his rear legs and stared at me. I got back in the car. Quickly.
Sorry about the vertical shots.


From Exmouth we headed inland to Karijini National Park. It's an amazing area of gorges and water holes unexpectedly in the middle of the hottest place on earth. We hiked a few of them, chcked out the overlooks and had some delightful swims.

Golfing With Roos

Of the 25 deadliest snakes in the world, 21 live in Australia. We wondered which one made this track and just where was he. You might also note the roo tracks.
Power putting by tiger

We made it as far up the coast as Exmouth. Each day got hotter until it was 102? Our target was the Ningaloo Reef which is the west coasts rival of the eastern great Barrier Reef. Its right near the shore and just as beautiful (so they say). It was quite a sight and we found a place with a current that just floated us across the coral with no effort for a long way...pretty cool stuff.
Our last morning we decided to play golf at the "country club". It is an outback course with grass only on the tees and tar sand "greens". As it was early the animal life was abundant. The first fairway had 5 kangaroos bouncing around and watching us ever so closely. Have you ever tried to sink a 20 foot putt on sand with a bunch of roos staring at you?

Emus everday

Wildlife

This "wild" Quokka hopped right into the cafe we had lunch at. We were terrified.

WA Beaches

A place called Monkey Mia where I got to feed a wild dolphin.
Western Oz has fantastic water.
One of us was smart enough to buy a fly net. The Pinnacles.

The Wildlife

Since 1972 one thing that never changes in oz...flies.

Travellin' Light

Yeah, as Max says in the blog below, we are "travellin' light". Mind you if you saw our bags you would yelp "light!" But travellen' light for us now is more a matter of mind than luggage. For the first time since the 70's we set out with no itinerary, no schedule. We did have reservations for our trip to Samoa but then they all got tsunamied away so and we cashed in those tickets for plane fare to Perth and here we are in Western Australia with seat of the pants travel. When we arrived we decided to take a bus adventure tour of Western Oz but at the last minute we bailed as things looked sketchy and rented a car. We have now decided to NOT go to Queensland and the great barrier reef as Oz is EXPENSIVE ($1200 per night at the reef resort). In fact thanks to Tyler's wisdom we have been staying mostly at backpackers hostels in nice double rooms. Our 1974 photos in the youth hostel cards draw hoots and howls...oh well.
We spent 2 days in Perth -nice city but not special, went out to an island near Fremantle that was quite nice, then rented the car and headed north up the coast. Wow. WA is a BIG state. But this is the Oz we remember...outbackish. We've seen emus and kangaroos nearly every day. The turquoise water is stunning and the beaches are long lonely and lovely. Perfect weather.

Friends

Max Stalling, a Texas Honky Tonk Singer/songwriter did a song last year that went, "I got friends from there to here, the payoff from all those ramblin' years. If friends were gold, I'd be a king I guess. But friendships better than golden crowns, havin' a bunch won't weigh you down, that's the price of a life of travellin' light."
Thanks Max, your words grabbed me by the throat. Our ramblin' years in the 70's sure produced some golden friends and we've been having some delightful evenings with so many of them.. I had a wonderful night with Mike and Lynn Spencer in Okato where their "farm"/pottery has been transformed into a botanical paradise. I could sit for hours with these two fascinating souls....it is just so easy to pick up where we left off 6 years ago. Then we met the joyous Sue Plyler in Auckland. She is ALWAYS so much fun and toured us all over the Auckland area. Sue was a godsend when we took the boys to NZ and she will always be remembered for so incredible nights in New Orleans at Mardi Grais. Aaah the memories.
We ended up with a spare day and went to Hamilton to see our dear friends Lloyd and Helen Clarke. They were my backbone in '74 when my dad died and they became great friends who even spent a California week with us in SF and Yosemite where the laughing never stopped. Recently one of their five beautiful kids stopped by with his wife and visited in Klamath. Just the best.

The Cast

After about a week of fishing the South Island Tyler had arranged to hire Chris Doer, one of the better guides in New Zealand. On the day we fished with Chris I let him know that my high mileage was causing me to slow down, I don't fish with the skill Tyler has and my wading is a bit wobbly. So after we hit the Oreti River, famous for its big browns, Chris began to stalk the banks looking for trout. It is known as "sight fishing" and a mystical art as only guides can see fish while we mortals sometimes glimpse gray smudges, often nothing at all.
He began fishing with Ty while I followed. After a half hour or so he had me cast across a fishless run just to evaluate my casting skills, to determine how much work he had ahead putting me on a fish. (I would guess I was in the D+/C- range).
Soon we found a little backwater eddy pond that sometimes held fish so we had to crawl up to it on our bellies like Green Berets, and sure enough a couple of big bruisers were cruising around and he had Tyler blindly lay out a nice cast that the fish refused. Too bad, on we fished.
Around noon we sighted the first real fish out in the river in a catchable position. Chris lined up Tyler and had him lay out a gentle cast that the fish refused. He tied on a new fly the fish ignored. Next he tried a new angle, then a bigger fly, a smaller fly, a bright fly a dark fly and after about 30 minutes of casting Chris determined the fish was just not in the mood for lunch. But we were.
We walked about 20 feet up the bank to the lunch beach when Chris spotted another gray smudge that he determined was a fish, but now Ty was tired and it was the old man's turn. He tied on a size 14 bead headed pheasant tail (yeah, I don't really know what the hell that is either) and told me to stand ankle deep in the river, face straight up it and cast the fly (a nymph) beyond the fish but not to cast so far that my dark fly line scared the fish (yeah, right).
So I stepped into the river, began to whip my rod back and forth and at some point thought I had enough line out so I let 'er fly. The nymph landed beyond the fish and began to drift right back over it, it made just a slight movement (did he eat it?) and my little white indicator jiggled a bit so I lifted my rod. WHAM! He was on and came racing down river as I frantically stripped in the line while Tyler hollered and hooted as if he'd been shot. What a great father/son moment. It wasn't a brute by Oreti standards but it tipped 6 pounds when Chris weighed it.
So that was it. One Cast.
After lunch Ty and Chris spotted several nice browns and cast and cast. No luck. I just followed along enjoying the splendor of New Zealand and appreciating how lucky I was to be here with my son, but I never fished again that day. One cast. Next day we all went back. No fish. I think Ty and Grant tried another day too. Notta.
Talk about lucky. I made only one cast the entire day. Sometimes the fishing gods just smile down on you.

(That's the fish with Ty and me down below in the previous post. Sorry we never got a shot that did it justice.)

Playing Tourist

New Zealand is such a beautiful country that it is always a treat to just go and see it but we were treated to perfect sight seeing weather. The fishing weather was ok too as we all caught some very nice new Zealand browns.

South Island

We first spent a night at Tyler's house then took the ferry to the South Island. It was cold but mostly clear. We fished around Gore down at the bottom of New Zealand but also had side trips to Milford Sound and Mt. Cook. We stayed in hostels and everybody caught fish. A GREAT two weeks.

In New Zealand

Tyler and Meghan have been teaching in New Zealand since february. It has been their Spring break so Meghan flew home to Oregon and her Dad, Gil, came out to New Zealand to fish and see the sights. Tyler also invited me and my good friend Grant Pine. We rented a van that was cramped and fished 3 days on the Taongariro on the North Island.

I'm Off,

After weeks of planning and organizing we have come up to Portland to stay with Andy, Madri, Kaylin and Brooklyn. I leave today for Auckland with my friend Grant Pine to fish with Tyler and his Father-in-law, Gil Perry for 3 weeks. Then Grant and Gil fly home and Sheryl will arrive and we will be off on our big adventure.
Kaylin has just begun pre-school and loves it. She is growing/maturing so fast! Little Brooklyn has discovered locomotion in the last month and the kid is on the move! She is just soooooo cute. (Just like her sister) I'll post a video here of her latest talent...clapping.

Panic Sets In

Next week Grant and I leave for New Zealand. Yikes! We both have all sorts of stuff to do not to mention we are all going to a James Taylor concert this Friday. Just for fun, when I got home from the Deschutes trip we had NO WATER. That really sucks! You just can't imagine how many times a day you absentmindedly (is that a word) turn on the water and feel stupid about the dry tap. Oh well... the $olution to our water problem$ seems to be a new pump. CHA_CHING.
So here I am a week from departure with the pump truck guy tearing into our back yard.
Oh well...

Deschutes Trip

Contrary to what it may seem I do other things than fish, I just don't take pictures of other things.
This Past week Grant Pine, Dennis Ross and I floated the Lower Deschutes River as the steelhead were reported to be in. Sure enough we caught 7. Grant caught 4, Dennis caught two and you do the math.
I also caught what was about the best rainbow of my life. It was only in the 3 pound class but what a fish! It took me to my backing and was all over the river. Good Fun. We had a layover day at Robertson Point a new campground for me and it has some good nymphing water.

Kaylin with Pa

This is what happens when you get playdough on your feet

A Weekend With Andy, Madri and the kids

As we won't see the kids for months with our upcoming Australia/New Zealand, we have come to Portland to enjoy the family. At first we had a crisis as Sheryl (Ba-Dah) picked up little Brooklyn who commence to howling and would have nothing to do with Ba-Dah. Alas, Sheryl worked her magic and by dinner time she had won Brooks over and all was well. So her our some photos of our Portland family...