Anyone know if this is a rata or a pohutakawa on Mount Maunganui? Big, isn’t it?
All in all I spent three months in New Zealand, seeing friends, family and reinforcing memories. I found the experience, although unplanned, grounding. As a person in transition it was helpful to look back and see the schools and the university I attended, plus workplaces where I’d wielded rakes and scythes, mixed mercury into lead for fillings and shelved books into the evening. I was a passenger in buses, private cars and taxis, ferries and I drove my own 15 ton digger. Still digesting my Kiwi experience, it was time to head back to Australia to see my son in his native habitat. And, OF COURSE, I would not be flying!
Up the gangway of CC Coral at Port Kaohsiung – see any reevers?
LONG READ!
Please note this is a multi-page post recording a 14 day sea voyage. I was the only passenger on CC Coral, a container ship travelling between Taiwan and New Zealand, in November 2019. It was an alternative to flying. But was it any more sustainable?
First night at sea. Mr Wang, my driver, had been a shipping agent for 25 years. He couldn’t understand why this giant of a company, CMA CGM, wanted to take passengers. Why? Other freight companies did not bother.
Well, Monsieur Wang, I was glad they did for they offered exactly what I wanted; a no-fuss way to travel without flying. I also felt comfortable that CMA CGM wore their environmental aspirations on their website. Mr Wang swooped the car around the grand driveway of the Excalibur hotel, lined with a small city’s worth of sparkly blue and white lights, and parked. We were there to pick up the new ship’s reever-electrician. (Whatever a reever is – it’s super important – I’ll find out later.)
Looking over the Port of Kaohsiung from the wing deck outside my cabin. Wonder if there’s a reever in this picture? There, look …Continue reading →
