Max Olijnyk

As promised, here are some more photos from our New Zealand adventure, but these ones were shot on my film camera. Ah, film. Ah, nostalgia. Ah, the good old days. Right?

This first photo was taken in the terminal for the Interislander – the ferry that runs back and forth over the Cook Strait between the north and south islands of NZ. In fact, there are a few of those ferries, and the one we ended up on was actually a Swedish ship that was uncannily similar to the one Rosie and I rode from Sweden to Germany in, inside a train. We were bog standard walk-on customers, while the others drove their cars on. We spent our time in the lounge entertaining the other guests with Fred’s antics.

Here we are on the ferry! Andy is just out of shot, then it’s Kerry, Radek, Marty, Fred, Rosie and Emma, all of whom you’d recognise from my previous post. Stella must be wandering around. These guys are all old pals of Rosie’s (Kerry and her have been friends since they were babies!) and not so old pals of mine. We set about drinking beers and catching up on what it’s like to all be parents now, and other stuff.

These biker dudes were a strong presence on the boat. I sort of made friends with them, and I might write a story about it that you can read sometime.

In addition to the biker dudes, the ship itself was fun to explore and get around on, illustrated here by Emma and Stella.

Kerry, Rosie, Radek and Fred, from above.

Couldn’t resist this one, happy I didn’t.

Stella

Sleeping Stella

After the ferry, we drove to Nelson, where we stayed at a sweet caravan park with a trampoline and stuff. Sadaf and Pete were already there, and after the kids went to sleep, we sat around drinking and eating Chinese food, arguing over how much alcohol and food we should buy. The drunker we got, the harder it was to visualise the numbers. The next morning, while the girls went shopping (of course), we hung around and helped the staff collect the linen.

‘Rosie’s dad is on TV!’ Andy called out. We went in and had a look, and sure enough, there he was. ‘Where’s Poppa?’ I asked Fred, and he pointed at the TV. It was Waitangi day, a public holiday held on 6 February every year to commemorate the signing of New Zealand’s founding document – the Treaty of Waitangi. Tom was a part of a debate on Maori Television. I told him about it when we got back and he told me that was from years ago. ‘I bet I looked like Father Christmas,’ he said.

I missed the next bit, which was the frenzied dash over the beach to board the water taxi to Awaroa, but yes, this is where we ended up.

Lots of this business

This photo is by Rosie

A boy and his (actually I think it’s Rumi’s) watering can

Fred, Rosie and me

Me and Fred

The forest/scrub in front of the boat house, which you walked through to the estuary and/or beach.

Rosie and Fred at the boat house

Sadaf checking out the other Athfield house on the way to the beach.

Fred and Rosie

Penguin and Olive at Kerry and Marty’s house.

Lunch at Kerry and Marty’s

Fred, Kerry and Radek

Pete and Rumi

Working on the mud pit

Pete, Sadaf, Olive and Rumi hit the sea on the water taxi a couple of days before the rest of us. I drove them to the beach in the Mule.

But before they left, we set up a group shot in front of the boat house. This was taken while I was figuring out the self-timer.

There we go. Best holiday ever!

Thanks to everyone on the holiday and Claire Athfield for letting us stay in the boat house. Thanks Hillvale for developing my film so nicely.