NZ Report 25

1. Devonport. Here’s a picture of our B&B domicile. We’re in second floor left, beneath the chimney: the Victoria Room. For more B&B views and bookings, see www.peaceandplenty.co.nz.

I also include a shot of my commute across the harbor. We’re a 5 min. walk from the ferry terminal, it’s 15 mins. across to the city, and then a 20 min. walk to the campus. We’re adjacent to the village center – shops, book stores, restaurants, etc. Will be a nice two weeks, even more so if it quits raining.

Here are a couple more Devonport pictures. Coming home from a drive on a rainy afternoon, we caught this pot-of-gold on the harbor picture. The flower garden is on a nearby corner: Winter in Auckland. (That’s not me in the background.)

Today, Sunday, there was a winter swim event on the Devonport Beach. Must have been 30-40 hardy souls taking the plunge. Temperature probably in 50s, but sun shining, so it wasn’t too bad, they said.

2. Waiheke Island. Saturday, 6/27, dawned fair (fine is the term here) and the forecast said it would stay that way so we took the ferry to Waiheke Island. One attraction of this island, a 30 min. ferry ride east of Devonport, is that I think it was the model for the “faded beach resort” in a NZ-authored book I recently read titled, This Summer’s Dolphin. Also, the Whittaker’s Musical Museum Experience, described in brochures for the island, sounded intriguing. Plus, we had done so much traveling far and wide, it was time, and almost the last chance, to see more of Auckland (the island is part of the city of Auckland). Waiheke is about 90 square miles in area with about 8000 residents. It’s known for vineyards, beaches, restaurants, and olive-growing. It’s no longer faded, but is booming as a getaway for Auckland’s wealthy. Lots of building going on (about which we learned from Max, our cab driver – more below).

Whittaker’s (www.musical-museum.org) turned out to be quite a find. It’s a labor of love by a couple in their 70s who have collected and restored old musical instruments all of their adult lives. Their collection is over 100 instruments. You can browse the museum, but the real experience comes when they put on their daily one and a half hour program describing and playing these gems. I don’t know instrumentology, but one of their items that stood out was a grand piano brought by Paderewski to NZ for a concert tour, which he then sold and left here. I was also fascinated by a transposing piano; you flip a lever and slide the keyboard up or down so that you can change keys without having to transpose the keys you play. Apparently, this was designed for the piano players who accompanied silent movies and played in the dark.

Lloyd Whittaker became interested in music when, growing up in the NZ bush, he was given a harmonica for his fifth birthday. In two years he had graduated to the concertina (squeeze box mini-accordion, as in Cajun music, I’d call it) and was playing dances and parties. He went on to the accordion, piano, and organ. He talked about the origins and history of several versions of these instruments and demonstrated their sound and quality with some great playing. Wife Joan joined him on the marimba and in piano duets and did about half of the narration. Her career had been teaching music; his had been performing and teaching. Susie’s father was a musician who played for Vaudeville and in local bands, so nostalgia particularly tugged on her. The Whittakers had been in New Plymouth, NZ, until about seven years ago when they relocated here to catch more of the tourist business. Unfortunately, while Waiheke is a great place to live, I don’t think it gets that much tourist traffic and the sun and beach crowd that goes there doesn’t do it for old-time instruments and music. He said they needed 30 customers per performance to break even; they had six when we were there.

After the Whittaker experience we had just over an hour before the return ferry, so we hit on the idea of hiring a cab tour of portions of the island to fill that time. Max the driver gave us an interesting ride. He had a graduate degree (ca. 1972) from Rhode Island U in social psychology, I believe, and was a real talker who loves his island and his job. Didn’t think there could any place better in the world to drive a cab. (He had taught a while before going into the tourism business.) He showed us his favorite beaches including the one his house fronts on, swank new homes going up, and choice views of the island and beyond, and told us about interesting island residents. The beach in this picture is Palm Beach, but the locals call it Lawyers Beach for the majority of its nearby residents. Max likes to test US tourists on US facts. In John Denver’s song, Country Roads, there’s a line, “almost Heaven, West Virginia, Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River.” What does almost Heaven refer to? He claims it’s WV’s neighboring state of Kentucky. Only some KY tourists got that right. I think maybe some KY tourists made it up. Oh, well.

Being a bus buff, I also snapped a picture of this remnant of Waiheke’s faded past. Max said there were many such dwellings at one time.

Max got us to the ferry just in the nick of time. On the way back, looking out at the land, sea, and sky, Susie said, “We’re going to miss this.”

Cheers. We’ll be home soon. Rob and Susie

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