Wellington NZ - Vale, Dean Gifford

Early last month, I posted about my partner's cousin Dean and his battle with a brain tumor.  We knew Dean didn't have long to live then, and he died early morning on August 23rd.

I haven't been able to post for a while because we were very sad and we had to go to Wellington, New Zealand for Dean's funeral.  There was an obituary for Dean in the Dominion Post.  He was only 42 and sadly left his wife and two children, aged 7 & 5.

Dean's funeral was huge.  It was at St Mary of the Angels Catholic cathedral in Wellington city.  There were 1400 people there, standing room only in the church, and a huge crowd outside.  They even had speakers so those outside could hear the service.  The whole street was closed.  There were 500 uniformed police officers in attendance. Police officers were pall bearers bringing Dean's coffin into the church, they wore white gloves and some of them were crying.  He had the NZ flag draped on his coffin, and his cap.  An officer followed the pall bearers with a pillow bearing a police medal.

As Dean's coffin came down the aisle of the cathedral, the police Kapa Haka group performed traditional Maori funeral procedures.  It was very moving, you could have heard a pin drop.  At the end, there was a police honour guard.  The whole of the street was lined by uniformed police on both sides, including members of the dog squad, and there was a final haka of farewell to Dean.

We had a wake for Dean that evening.

The next day we went to Scorching Bay for lunch.  The weather was beautiful - normally in Wellington at this time of year it isn't.  So we were lucky.

Scorching Bay

Scorching Bay

The Cafe

Wellington Bays

Across the way

We didn't feel much like taking photos, so there aren't many to post.  However, the next morning we took a walk to the Weta Cave, part of Peter Jackson's immense studio complex in Miramar.  We were staying with relatives just up the road.  There were a few Lord of the Rings things:

Life-size Gandalf...King Kong is on the wall at the back

Gandalf

Gandalf

Lurtz - over 7 feet tall, and actually a real guy, except the feet

Lurtz is large and scary

On the walk home to our family's house in Miramar, we saw there was a regular Tea Dance at the church:

That guy has a bottle of champagne - no Tea to be seen

Hervey Bay

We were going to Hervey Bay next week, but now we're not.  We just need to change our airline tickets for another time, but I do wish we were still going next week.

So anyway, here's my previous Hervey Bay story.....

A while back, some very close friends of ours moved from Sydney to Hervey Bay.  Damn.  I miss them a lot.  For those who don't know, it's 1200km away from Sydney (about 750 miles) in another state entirely. So obviously we have to go there.  Hervey Bay is in Queensland, right by Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world and World Heritage listed.  Although I'd been to Fraser Island before, I hadn't been to Hervey Bay.  We had breakfast at an outdoor cafe on the beach.

Morning, getting ready for action

My friends live at a place called Urangan, which has a famous pier that was used to transport sugar, timber and coal to cargo boats. The pier is over 850m long (about 930 yards).  Here it is from the water, it was low tide:

Urangan Pier, it's a long walk

Also at Urangan is the Vic Hislop Shark Show.  This place is all about sharks and how dangerous they are.  I don't think it has been updated in quite some time. We learned that sharks have very small brains with only one purpose. Eating. Anything. All the time. This sounds somewhat simplistic to me, but then I'd rather not find out first hand I guess.  Just about every shark fatality in Australia was documented (well, maybe not all of them, but a lot).  We saw a lot of photos of the sharks Vic has captured over the years.  His girlfriend liked to pose in their jaws wearing a bikini, smiling. Why?  Anyway, the weirdest exhibit was a big freezer thing with glass sides containing frozen dead sharks.  Below is the frozen great white in the foreground, a tiger shark in the background I think.

Great White and Tiger shark, frozen in time

It was all a bit fishy, and it smelled that way too.  I don't remember how long they'd been frozen but it was quite a number of years and you could tell because they were kind of, well, collapsing. And stinky.  Just for the benefit of fear, the Great White has been posed with open jaws. We ran screaming for the sunlight outside.

Crikey

Thank goodness for that.  Quick let's get to the pub.

The crew

Was that shark story an error of judgement?  Either way, we went to the pub and pondered the weirdness of the museum.

We took a whale watching cruise.  To get to where the whales hang out, you need to go to just about  the end of Fraser Island, which is nearly 120kms (75 miles) long.  The weather was a bit mixed up.

On the way

Fraser Island

Fraser Island with sunshine

Fraser Island

Bleak weather

Wilderness in the ocean

Beautiful

Once we got out there, we saw some cool humpbacks.  This one is a calf...

Humpback Calf

Humpback

About to dive

Pretty close to the boat

Wow

Whale Tail

We got back into the harbour eventually

Entrance to the harbour

The Marina

Fishing Boat

 We finally got home to Urangan

Long view of the pier

And saw the sunset from the terrace

Sunset

 Wish we'd be there next week, but it's not to be...

Olympics, The Coopers Arms and the footy

Things have been a bit up in the air of late.  Well, there's been the Olympics - which for us means late nights or very early mornings to see stuff live, and I like to see it live.  Makes for a weird body clock though.   Still, it only comes around once every four years so might as well get into it!  The thing that gets me is that if one of these world class / Olympic level athletes don't win GOLD, it's like a failure! Gee, I remember winning red (2nd) and green (3rd) ribbons at my school swimming or athletics carnivals and thinking I was a star! By the way, first was a blue ribbon....

In the same vein, our Aussie cyclist Cadel Evans, who won the Tour de France last year, finished seventh this time around.  I was appalled that one of our commercial TV news channels called it his "Tour de Failure"..What?  I'd like to see those guys ride a bike up a mountain and all over the French countryside for days on end.

Mmmm.  Oh well, I'll continue to gripe daily to anyone that listens about this ridiculous obsession with Gold medals and lack of recognition for Silver and Bronze.  Oh yeah, sorry, I only won an Olympic Silver medal....

So, anyway, we had lunch at the Cooper's Arms hotel in Newtown.  Good winter fare.  I liked the quotes in the comic-like wine list (and no, we didn't drink the French champagne)...

I like the one from Will Rogers

This is the a la carte winter menu, but there's also burgers and stuff, and daily specials:

For me it was the prawns on chermoula pesto linguine, a wonderful flavour mix:

Delicious!

The other half went for the sausages and mash special.  This time they were Merguez sausages - I tried them and they were really great, so was the mash and gravy.

The mash was fab as well

And we had a bottle of Italian Pinot Grigio as well.  I like the label with the knife - it is called La Vendetta after all:

Cool label

We've also been to the footy lately.  That's football.  Which means many different things depending on what country you're in.  Over here it can be Rugby League, Rugby Union, soccer or AFL.  This time it was the AFL - Aussie Rules - a weird running, jumping, handball and kicking game that we play over here.  It is fast and furious and the guys are lean and mean and fast and well, very fast.  They officially play for 80 minutes in four 20 minute quarters, although the quarters can go over 30 minutes depending on what exactly happens.  It's very exciting. We were backing the Sydney Swans - they were playing St Kilda.  A big rivalry there between the teams, and the supporters.

Our friend Celia of the royal crown knitting fame brought along her Swan's bears.  The larger bear is 24 years old.  Celia knitted their gear.

The bears watching the warm up

The match was played at the SCG (Sydney Cricket Ground) and they've been demolishing one of the old stands.  It was a bit curious looking at that end of the field:

Weird

But the rest of the SCG looked just right

Match warm up

The bears were having a great time! Just like a teddy bear's picnic at the footy!

The 24 year old is having a beer

It really is a fun day out, even if you have to share it with 29,000 others

The local crowd

The bears were right into it

Original Swan's supporters

Celia was happy the Swans won, as we all were.  The bears are looking cheeky, a bit like winners!

Momma Bear with the kids

 It was a big day and everyone slept well.

Sleepy and warm

Pastizzi, pet sheep and other doings

So, I haven't been able to blog anything for four days, and prior to that I was busy doing stuff.  We've been to all manner of places the last week and I barely took any photos because I just wasn't in the mood.  It is winter after all and I've been a bit grumpy.

Nevertheless, last week we were out and about a fair bit.  We bought some frozen Pastizzi from the famous Pastizzi Cafe in Newtown, just up the road.  My favourite are the chicken and mushroom, but they do about 12 varieties, both savoury and sweet.  12 snap frozen pastizzi cost $14.

These are delicious

After 25 minutes in the oven, they came out like this:

Awesome winter deliciousness

I spotted New Zealand Natural ice cream on the way home and had to buy a tub, because I know it's the creamiest ice cream in the world, and I've tried a lot of ice cream.

As yet unopened

That wasn't all we've done in the last week.  We also:

• Had Yum Cha at Fisherman's Wharf Seafood restaurant at the Fish Markets.
• Went for dinner at an old school friend's place in Mona Vale, on the northern beaches.  We had oysters, sashimi, fresh tuna and barramundi.
• Went for dinner at a friend's place in Marrickville.  We had slow-cooked beef stroganoff and cous-cous.  It had cooked for 8 hours.
• We had lunch with a friend at his parent's place.  They've been married 50 odd years and had 7 children, 4 boys and three girls, all now grown ups - there are 8 grandchildren.  They've traveled to the four corners of the earth and are fascinating people.  We had roast lamb shoulder.  His mother does the potatoes like this - she par-boils them, sits them under the roast and with the other vegetables in the pan, pours off half a bottle of red wine.  It was fabulous.  We had a great afternoon.  And their house is full of curiosities.
• We also had a brief visit from some friends that live in Collarenebri, about 8 hours drive away.  They have a pet sheep, Bronco, that is now becoming a ram.  Becoming a ram apparently includes ramming people with horns.  Bronco was rescued as a lamb when his mother was killed on the road.  Bronco kind of thinks he's a dog.

Baby Bronco

Bronco hangs out with some dog mates

Bronco by the campfire

Bronco with growing horns and a fleece

Bronco's dog crew

We have had some very pleasant winter sunny days here in Sydney, although the nights are cold.  Even in July, our camelia tree is blooming.

Stunning winter-blooming camelia

Bruce just finds it all very tiring.

Zzzzzzzzzz

In the garden we have loads of skinks.  I've always liked lizards.  Sometimes these little ones fight over territory, but not to the death.  Just until the bigger one wins.

A skink.  We have loads of them hanging about.

I'm not sure why this iPhone photo turned out like this, but it's quite interesting.