© Richard Randall

Caribbean

Sundries

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

I visited New Zealand nearly twenty years ago, wow, that makes me feel really old! I went with my mother, and we had a lovely time. My mummy had previously lived there for about fifteen years, she only returned to the U.K. because the weather conditions severely affected her health. Mum still had family living in New Zealand, and we had often talked about visiting ... ‘one day’. Well ‘one day’ finally came and we decided that we would go. I managed to get a month off of work, and then all we had to do was book our flights. We chose to visit New Zealand for the Christmas period. Mum was looking forward to spending Christmas with her sister, and also it would be a lot warmer than the U.K. We didn’t want to fly direct, we flew from London with a stop off in San Francisco, then onto New Zealand. The return trip gave us a stop off in Los Angeles.

WELLINGTON

We were met at the airport by one of my cousins, my mother’s sisters son. He brought mum’s sister with him, and as soon as they saw each other they hugged and cried. They hadn’t seen each other for quite a while, although my aunty visited mum a few times in the U.K. After our hello’s were out of the way, we were driven to my aunty's house, our home for the duration of our trip.

UPPER HUTT

Upper Hutt is about 25 minutes drive from Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. It is also where my aunty lived. The city is named after an English Member of Parliament, Sir William Hutt. He was a director of the New Zealand Company, formed in the 1830’s, which organised the settlement of the Wellington and Hutt Valley areas, beginning when the first immigrant ships arrived around 1840. Situated by the Hutt River, which has excellent opportunities for trout fishing, Upper Hutt is surrounded by green bush covered hills. As we drove from the airport we admired the scenery, it was very similar to Scotland, lots of beautiful lush green hills. Everywhere looked so clean too, a nice change from London. There were lots of parks and open spaces, which was not surprising, Kiwi’s like to spend lots of time outside, walking, hiking, mountain biking, swimming, surfing, you name it they do it. The Kaitoke Regional Park and Tararua Forest Park were the places to go to fish, or do something more exciting such as white water rafting. We were keen to get to my aunty’s house, we had heard so much about the area over the years, it would be nice to finally see it for ourselves. My mum was interested to see how everything had changed since she lived there. We arrived at my aunty’s house, it was a single storey home constructed of wood. It was painted white with pale green windows and trim. Inside it was surprisingly larger than it appeared from outside. My aunty had made some sandwiches for us, I don’t think anyone ate that much though, we were all too busy talking. By the evening we were all hungry so we went out to get a take away. There was a fish and chip shop along the road from my aunty’s house. My mum and I walked there to get something for dinner. I was surprised to see that they had oysters on the menu. I had only ever seen them eaten raw before. Mum said she remembered eating them cooked and they were nice. I didn’t fancy any but mum and my aunty had some which they both enjoyed. As this trip was more about seeing family than travelling, we spent most of our time doing the same sort of things we would do at home. I remember that we sat eating our fish that first evening whilst watching Coronation Street on television. It was weird sitting there watching t.v. we had already seen the episode as New Zealand were still a few months behind the U.K. at that time. My aunty asked us to tell her what happened in the story next. We slept well that first night, the area where my aunty lived was a very quiet residential area. The next day we went out to buy some grocery’s. Mum had wanted to hire a car for our visit to give us some independence, but my aunty said we didn’t need to, we could use her car. My aunty drove us to a large supermarket nearby. It was much the same as any supermarket back home, although it seemed more efficient and less stressful. Mum and I filled a trolley with all the things we fancied. The one thing that surprised us was the price of the food. It was much cheaper than at home, and Kiwi fruits were about a tenth of the price we pay in London, which I guess they should have been considering they are grown in New Zealand! So far we were enjoying our trip, the people seemed very friendly and it really was so clean everywhere, lovely. Best of all my mummy was thoroughly enjoying chatting non stop with her sister. I knew it wouldn’t be long before the old photographs were brought out. It was interesting looking back at all of our relatives, most of whom I had never met. My cousin who had met us at the airport lived quite close to my aunty, and we spent a lot of our holiday with him, his wife and children, they had two at that time. My memory is terrible but I think their son was about 5 and they had baby daughter of about a year. She was such a lovely cuddly baby, whenever we saw them I usually spent most of the day holding her, she was gorgeous, and more than happy being held all day. My cousin and his wife were very good to us whilst we were there, they often took us for days out locally. I have lots of nice memories of our time in New Zealand, because of their hospitality. I remember one day when we visited the beach, there was a cool breeze and we all walked along the edge of the sea. The beach was huge and there were not too many people there which was nice. It was weird to be strolling along the beach in summer clothes in December. I was trying to imagine Christmas day being warm, that would make a nice change. My aunty had a nice garden at her house and one day she and my mum went out shopping, I stayed behind. Unfortunately I fell asleep in the garden and didn’t wake until my mum returned. I was quite badly burnt, and a few hours later I was suffering with the effects of sunstroke. I was shivering, absolutely freezing, and feeling very nauseous. I was annoyed with myself as I am always very careful in the sun, I never sunbathe. I like being pale and interesting! Oh well, I wouldn’t make the same mistake again, no more relaxing in the garden for me, not without supervision anyway! It was so peaceful staying in Upper Hutt, I think the population was about 30,000 at the time of our visit. Upper Hutt is situated on an area known as Orongomai, the river was originally called Heretaunga. Obviously the first residents were of Maori origin. Apparently the first European resident was Richard Barton who settled in Trentham in 1841. My mother decided to emigrate to New Zealand in the 1950’s, as her parents had already moved there. Mum travelled over by boat for the grand price of £10. I remember her telling me that she was so ill on the journey. She said that she went to her cabin one night and when she surfaced the next day ... or so she thought ... it wasn’t the next day at all, she had slept for two whole days straight! It was in New Zealand that my mummy met my father, he was also from England. They met, they married, they bought some land, (as everyone did in those days), and built a house on it, they bought a grocery shop, they lived happily in the house, they had a son, they moved back to the U.K. Not quite as quick as it sounds, this all transpired over about 13 years. So obviously New Zealand had lots of memories for my mother. Mum wanted to visit Wellington to see how much it had changed, and we felt like a day out by ourselves, we thought my aunty might appreciate some peace and quiet for a few hours. So we took a train from Upper Hutt to Wellington.

WELLINGTON ~ Te Whanganui-a-Tara ~ Poneke

Wellington was named in honour of Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington who was victorious at the Battle of Waterloo. The title comes from the town of Wellington in Somerset in England. I remember the train journey as being a very pleasant scenic ride. Wellington is situated between a harbour and bush covered hills. Wellington was not as grown up when we visited as it is now, but we could see it was beginning to grow into a cosmopolitan city. There was an indoor shopping centre there, it had some nice shops, can’t remember the name, it was fairly small. There were some other smaller independent shops too, and the odd cafe with outdoor seating. I know that a lot has changed since our visit. This capital city is now a very stylish place, which is alive with a good cafe culture, superb shopping good restaurants, and excellent nightlife. The area around the harbour is particularly beautiful, especially on a sunny day.

Oceania