Lets pick up the pieces from the time this blog site was kindly created for me in Dec 2006. At that time I did not have time to think about the luxury of setting up or maintaining a Blog. Not a lot has changed since but I need to make the effort to communicate to the many people who have been a part of my life in Singapore and who I hope will still be a part of life even though I have returned to New Zealand.
Because I worked up until a few days before we left Singapore, the reality of leaving never seemed, well, "real". It was more real for the family than myself as I was actively working until the end while Paula was taking care of the all the things that needed to be done at the time. Sitting in the airport departure lounge, my Singtel hand phone rang for the last time. It was Carol, and although we said some goodbyes, I don't think the reality of leaving was there for me yet. It seemed more like a dream.
On board the plane we looked out of the window into the rainy night. Paula said, "Singapore is crying because we are leaving".
On arrival we went straight to the hotel in Auckland that was to be our home for the next three weeks. We then went to visit parents and family. We also looked through our house which we had not seen properly for the last six years. We were a little sad to see that it needed a lot of "tender loving care" to bring it back to the house we expected. Below is a view from our house across farmland.
The next three weeks required a lot of effort, not only in moving back into the house and doing some repairs but also in finalizing schools and university for the children. I have to tell you that even today there are many unpacked boxes in our garage. I even did a bit gardening with the help of my old tractor. The large rock took a lot of effort to get into place.
Piece by piece life came together. I started job hunting, the children were at school/university and the summer weather was great.
We took advantage of the good weather to go to the beach at Matarangi for a short vacation around Easter. It was a great chance to relax and take a few photos. We tried our hand at "Surf Casting" (fishing from the beach). We did not catch anything although it was fun trying.
I told many people in Singapore that one of the first things I would do on returning to New Zealand would be walk the Tongariro Crossing. This I did with Paula's sister and her husband. It was an awesome experience. We set out at 6:30. It took us a little over eight hours to complete. In that time we walked 17 kilometers through sub-alpine tussock, climbed to an altitude of nearly 1900 meters over mountain terrain and volcanic craters and descended into forest with mountain streams. The landscape and the views were stunning. I can see why it is thought to be one of the best "one day" walks in the world.
I will leave you at this point with some photos that can say more than I can write. I will be back to continue the story soon.
