8 May Dublin

Having done the main touristy things in Dublin, and ready for interviews about what I saw, I was now free to explore the town a pied. I found the town gates and walked in and out of them a few times pretending to be a stranger to the town and wondering what it would feel like. I also found James Joyce’s house, and took a photo through the place you post the letters in the front door. Anna says this is a letter box, and although she is usually right, in this case, I am left wondering, as there is no box. Perhaps it is a letter drop thingie. We used to have one in Gibson Street in Timaru. Houses also had door knockers in those days. I remember my brother and I tying string to a door knocker in Deal Street, then hiding below the fence and pulling the string, which of course produced the day of the house at the door. But I digress.

I quite like James Joyce but I was becoming aware of a cash shortage, and was having to live on €10 a day plus credit card money, which presumably incurs a cost every time there is a transaction in foreign dosh. So to cut a longish story brilliantly short (phew), I didn’t pay to go to the James Joyce museum, but chose instead, to have dinner that night! I tracked down a William Yeats exhibition at the library, which showed his journals and notes and association with Mme Blavatsky, but nothing about Cyril Scott. Mme Blavatsky and I have something in common, as we both normally travel east, though as you know, on this occasion, I had to travel west first. I attach her photo so you can see what a formidable woman she is.

I also took a photo of a strangely clad roller blader for your enjoyment.

Then I came upon a revelation, right there in Dublin. I could use up my last day (because the last day, that is, tomorrow at the time I should have been writing this, but in reality some time last week, isn’t actually the last day, but a travelling day – oh never mind, you had to be there) finding my ancestors who lived in Dublin. So I went to the library to look up the publicly accessible records. Going to hte library entailed walking around in a large circle and going past the library three times until I found the relationship between the library on the street and the one on my map. So many stone buildings – so little time. Dublin is very stone buildingish. The nice lady at the library told me my ancestors were living in Dublin before people started counting properly, which in England was in 1837, but in Ireland, was in 1860. It’s not my fault I have old ancestors. She told me I would have to look up the parish records, which would mean a trip to the church library. Wahoo – a quest! I counted my daily Euro allocation and found that I had enough for dinner as well as a bus, having bought some wine yesterday. It’s a form of accrual, and I was going to benefit from it. So I took bus number 14a (no, I didn’t get on 14b) and paid my €1.60 exact (had to get off the bus, count the money out and then get on a pay it once I found out there was no change) and went to Braemor Park, which was plenty of fun, seeing suburban houses in trees and little shops and schools and stuff like that. I carefully locked my handbag in the locker as requested (they are very strict in these kind of places and make sure you can’t nick their records) and went upstairs to the nice man, who enquired why I was there, so I told him. I told him I want to know who the great grandfather of Selina Marian Graham was. Selina was my great great grandmother, born in Paris of a Dublin family. I felt good about visiting Paris and Dublin. He sweetly asked me what parish her father was from and I didn’t know, so I had to pick up my handbag and pay €1.60 and go back to town. But it was fun looking. Selina was quite famous in a funny kind of way – you can read all about in chapter seven of Deserter's Adventures: The Autobiography of Dom Felice Vaggioli. She was the one married to the Anglican minister that had to leave town. I hope you like her picture.

7 May Dublin

Dublin was very good. I stayed in a place called The Pillar (but not of society) in Talbot Street, which I quickly identified as a cheap area. The night before, I toured all the way down the street looking for the right number, and didn't find it until I had gone all the way up the other side. Some of the Irish streets are numbered up one and down the other, instead of criss-cross like the New Zealand ones.

I photographed part of a Yeats poems on the wall at The Pillar. Poetry is quite popular in Ireland. I also took a photo of my daughters' (Annie and Rosie maguire) cousins' brewery. They don't know about this part of the Maguire family but they are sure to be rellies....

Things to do in Dublin. My colleague Shelagh from Dublin said in passing that I should check out the book of Kells and the Guinness brewery, so I did. Actually the book of Kells is very old - I am always reminding Shelagh to use up to date references - now I see where she gets this habit of using old stuff from. The Book of Kells is in Trinity College in the University of Dublin library, so I visited their Buttery and enjoyed a cheap student lunch while I was there. I needed it; I had just walked for an hour – up the river to the museum and down again, just to see how far it was. The best thing about Trinity College is the long room in the old library, which is rather high, 65 metres long, and holds 200,000 old books, which are accessed by sliding ladders. It makes our library look a bit shallow somehow. The books, carefully filed in alphabetical order, are all old leather bound. As a vegetarian I have issues with that but I didn't say anything to the staff, as I didn't want to hurt their feelings.

I don’t usually drink Guinness, but for professional reasons I thought it would be useful to see how it was made in case I ever want to make a brew. The tour was one of the best displays / tours I have ever seen – very clear (just follow the arrows), wonderful exhibits (an enormous vat of barley, that you can dip your hands into, and a similarly enormous water fall), and plenty of Guinness to drink along the way. We all got a free pint at the end, on the 7^th floor of the Guinness Storehouse, and of course a chance to meet other tourists/ drinkers. I’m sorry to say I was pretty well stuffed after three quarters of a pint, so I tried to walk home. Guinness is quite strong actually especially on a fairly empty stomach (I just had coffee and croissant at the Buttery). I picked up a baguette and banana (one of my favourite travelling lunches) to soak up the beer, and as I walked home I marvelled at how Mr Guinness and his family claim to have done so much good for Ireland, providing work, looking after the workers’ families, providing a decent worldwide export trade, but I wondered in fact how things might have been if Mr Jameson and Mr Guinness had made their lovely drinks elsewhere, and the Irish had stuck to potato farming. There might have been less drinking....

I had to have a wee nap after all my walking and drinking, after which I ventured out to look for some diddlies (Irish jigs and reels). I was very disappointed – most of the so called ‘live music seisiuns’ were actually performances, using just one or two musicians. Let me explain. A seisiun in my mind, is a group of musicians – anything from four to a dozen or so – playing jigs and reels with songs in between. No mikes, no stage. This was not to be found in Dublin town. Nexct time I will go to Kildare....

After my nap, and before I went out, there was a lot of shouting on the street. I could see from my third floor window, a man with no shirt on and his trousers around his ankles, walking towards the traffic and shouting obscenities at everyone. I have never heard the word ‘fook’ said so many times since being in Dublin– it seems to be a regular word here, not a naughty one at all. This fella, who was steaming with anger, wandered around for 5 – 10 minutes yelling at everyone but they seemed quite used to this kind of performance and continued about their daily business as if he wasn’t there. Perhaps he wasn't (such is the challenge of perception and reality).

Odd things about Dublin. There are no sky scrapers – there are some big department shops and offices but the buildings are more like Auckland than other cities – low lying. Perhaps that's what creates in me the sense that it isn’t a proper big city (even though it is), and the real sophisticated world is elsewhere. A feeling that one might get in New Zealand, and perhaps drives so many of of us overseas to see what the real world looks like. There isn’t much development – it doesn't look wealthy (despite Mr Guinness’s good work) and there are very few cranes on the skyline. There are heaps of government employees – people coming to empty the rubbish, wash the streets etc, and many shops have security people. It’s a good place to learn another language – French, German, Dutch, Swedish, Serb, Russian, Polish......

I had a nice salad, some red cooking wine, and yet another baguette for dinner.

6 May Paris to Manchester to Dublin

I had to get my money’s worth out of my two day Metro pass, so I visited the Eiffel tower before breakfast on our last day while Deb kept up with her dreaming. I took a photo of its bottom, which I thought was very attractive (the tower, not Deb’s dream).
I was very worried about my Ryan Air flight to Dublin, so was on edge all morning wondering if the check-in to Dublin would go badly, with uniformed men looking threatening and stern and telling me my bag was too black, too large, too heavy etc, and I was too naive, too uninformed, too poorly dressed etc to travel with Ryan Air. The ticket cost €10 but the extras mounted up to about €35, and I had received emails threatening fines of up to €25 if I didn’t have my boarding pass, if my bag was too heavy, or if I just hadn’t read something in the fine print that they were going to get me for. I was suitably frightened. The flight from Paris was very amusing – even Mista badger thought it was funny, and he is usually quite demure. We were immediately offered the opportunity to save 49 pence if we bought a certain sandwich on the flight, and were bombarded with messages of safety in flight etc. Deb pointed out how lovely it had been in our linguistic incognito cocoon, with no linguistic noise interfering with our important thought patterns. She’s right, though the French are much less in your ear so to speak with announcements.

Deb and Mista Badger were quite entertaining to travel with. At the airport I was barely at coping level, having a funny nagging feeling that something was wrong (stick with the blog and you’ll find out what it was), whereas they were definitely in it for the ride. So, while I meekly handed over my water bottle to the French security people (who seem to have followed America in deciding that water bottles are dangerous), Deb stood a while and drained hers, chatting with the staff, introducing them to Mista badger, and generally being affable. She attempted to get through the security process with a small piece of cheese, some salmon mousse, a bottle of cider and a baguette, and somehow there were four or five women around her holding up the food and chatting with her in French (because that’s what they were), but sadly, her cider was confiscated. She took it very well. I tried to photograph the event for the blog, but the French weren’t having a bar of it, in case I managed to capture an important piece of French security on film. Don’t start me on the Rainbow Warrior – I had forgotten about it until now.

The strangest thing on the flight was the announcement that we absolutely should not go ahead with cosmetic surgery because they had an Elizabeth Arden product that was as good, maybe better, and much cheaper. I felt it was unfair to announce something like this on a flight when I wasn’t allowed to use my mobile phone, as of course I absolutely had to cancel my cosmetic surgery and buy the Elizabeth Arden product instead, but because they were mean about phones, I wasn’t able to do this. We were pleased to be offered opportunities to save 49 pence if we bought a cup of tea, so quickly went ahead and bought one each, smugly joyous over our little savings. After all, if we put our savings together, we would nearly have a pound. We took pictures of the in-flight card showing people who had been unable to save 49 pence. Understandably, they were most upset.

Here’s what we thought of France. Not enough dunnies (we had to rush Deb back home on the last night as we couldn’t find a place for her to pee, and I wasn’t allowed to say anything funny for an hour), very friendly and relaxed, quite French (oh la la, chic alors etc), good for coffee, clothes, pastries etc. So to sum up, go to France unless you want to go to the toilet.

Actually the Ryan Air people were really nice and not at all mean – I was so relieved I nearly kissed the check-in lady, and the flight itself was fine. I had quite a wait in Manchester, as the time zone was different. Fortunately it was in my favour, with extra time – had it been the other way around I might have missed my flight. Such are the perils of travel in foreign climes and times.

The spare time in Manchester gave me an opportunity to get out my dongle (I can't beleive it really is called that) and catch up on my emails. I found, much to my surprise, a letter to Deb saved as a draft, marking the spot where we would meet in Paris. I also found a letter to her, also saved as a draft, asking her to reply. No wonder she didn't have the map of where to meet.

5 May - Deb, Jill and Mista Badger in Paris

If you like this page, you may also like this one from my travelling companions, Miss Gillanders and Mista Badger.
http://sablegerbil.blogspot.com/

I got up early and went to the pharmacy around the corner and explained that I had fallen yesterday and hurt my ankle, and needed a bandage, and the homeopathic remedy beginning in ‘a’ that I couldn’t remember the name of. I was very pleased with my French coping skills and was able to strap up my ankle for some support, and put arnica on what was turning out to be a rather black and swollen ankle. I told Deb we might have to use buses from time to time, and she was very patient with me and regularly asked how my uncle was. I had forgotten that she is English and kept thinking she was asking about Uncle Jack, who (if you had read this blog from the start you would know) had just turned 90, and wondered how she knew to ask about him.
Deb brought her own tea bags, being English, and though I quite liked the breakfast, she found it had too much sugar in it. I said she should try America if she wants sugar. They even put it in the conversations over there.

I ate so much I needed very little for the rest of the day. We visited a textile exhibition in Gobelin that I was happy to go to in case we saw some goblins, but we didn’t, except on the tapestries. I saw a lovely set of red embroidered chairs but I wasn’t allowed to take them away. We sat and drank coffee for a while and felt quite French until the waiter spoke to us in English, and we visited the Louvre outside places and took photos of the tourists. Deb gave some money to a boy and I chastised her for encouraging him to beg. As it was too late in the day to admire the art works within the Louvre walls, and we felt a glass of wine coming on, we ensconced ourselves in a suitable Louvre environment under the cloisters, and with Mista Badger, enjoyed a quiet reflective drink. I was pleased to have seen the cleaners attending to the dirt left by the tourists at the Louvre, as I like things to be clean. That in itself was a work of art.

I need to introduce you to Mista badger, who to the uninitiated might be a badger puppet, is actually a close friend of Deb’s (sorry Mary, Celia et al) and enjoys travel to foreign climes, whatever they are. Perhaps they are places where the climate is foreign, but you can get that by going to Wellington for an hour. Anyway (where was I?), Mista Badger had never drunk alcohol before, so I was a little on edge (I have a nervous disposition) in case he overdid things and fell off his perch so to speak (do badgers have perches?) but he didn’t, as the pictures show. He loved Deb’s vin chaud, and I loved the glass as well as the vin, so took several pictures. I went to the toilets to look for the famous louvre windows (sort of glass venetian blinds), but couldn’t find them anywhere. I assume the Louvre is named after these windows, so I thought they might have done the decent thing and put some in the dunnies. The hand basin was interesting, so I photographed that instead. I think they copied the design from Middle Earth Tiles in Newmarket, as they sell them there. I was becoming suspicious about the authenticity of the art works inside the building, and thinking it was just as well we hadn’t paid to go in.

We also went to the Moulin Rouge so I could photograph the windmill and say I had been there. I think we ate feral strawberries for lunch (Deb was very taken with the food shops and had to photograph everything in them) and more cheese for dinner. We‘re not big spenders, and I doubt if our visit registered even a minor blip on the French tourism expenditure statistics, but it’s likely that Deb’s presence in France was noted, as she photographed absolutely everything (she always takes her camera when she goes to Paris), talked to absolutely everyone, and absolutely had a good time. Me, I’m the quiet one.

4 May - Frankfurt to Paris

I had about an hour in Frankfurt on the way through to Paris, so decided to celebrate my arrival in Europe with a decent cup of coffee. Sadly, it was €4.50, which translates into a lot more than I want to talk about, although it was a good cup of coffee. I am proud to announce that I ordered it in German and even answered questions about the size of the container etc. I noticed the sign in the cafe had ‘potatoe soup’ advertised, perhaps in deference to Americans or some other speakers of a language similar to English, to help them feel comfortable in Germany. I explained the spelling mistake to them but I don’t think they really believed me. I sent Deb a text to tell her I was on my way to our rendezvous, but the text didn’t go – I thought perhaps my roaming choice for Germany wasn’t working, but it turns out this was a major issue....more on that later....

The last flight was very short, Europe not being as big as Asia and the Pacific Ocean, and I was surprised to see how brown the sky was. I am beginning to wonder if it is indeed true that New Zealand is one of the last bastions of the blue sky. As we went down into the pollution I did have that sinking feeling that we are not treating our planet well, and wondered if I should walk to my next conference instead of flying.

I was truly amazed and delighted to see my bag appear at the baggage collection point, as it all seems extremely unlikely somehow that I can give my bag to someone in Wellington and they can manage to send it to exactly the same place as me, and at the same time. It doesn’t always work like that.

Mr de Gaulle’s airport is full of transparent pipes that people walk through – it is very weird and quite fascinating. I got instructions at the desk for tourists, and took the SNCF (overground) to Gare du Nord, which is an enormous station, and thence to Mairie Clichy, to the auberge de jeunesse (yellow egg plants?). We had a room for three, which delighted me no end, as it meant I would not have to take my bags to the shower with me and sleep on my lap top in case someone stole all my worldy goods. Not that I’m suspicious of strangers or anything. Then (after a quick shower and change of clothes of course as I was a tad smelly after such a long ride) I went to town to meet my friend Deb. I had heaps of time, as she wasn’t arriving until after lunch, and the French sparrows were still farting. I took a train to Champs-Elysees and walked around the Champy place and then along the Seine. There is beaucoup de traffic in Paris. I saw a woman walking towards me bend down and seem to pick up something, which she showed me – it was a heavy gold ring, with an engraving inside the band. She tried to give it to me, pressing it into my hands and telling me it would bring me good luck (bon chance) and a happy day (bon journee). I told her I would have to take it to the police (the ring, not the happy day), but she insisted, so I took it, thinking I would rather that she had taken it. As I walked away, she came back to me, and explained that she had three children and little money, and perhaps I could spare her a little cash for some food. I am pretty gullible, but sometimes my little antennae come out and I spot when I’m being had. So I pressed the ring back into her hand and told her it would bring her luck and a good day, and she should take it.

I wandered around all kinds of places – not sure now where they were really, and didn’t take photos – I love to just walk around looking at people and shops and traffic and stuff. I noticed that the French were quite nice – they seemed more inclined to engage with a stranger than the British do, and I got quite a few smiles. Perhaps they thought I was one of them. I had disguised myself in a colourful cardigan and jeans, and sported a red handbag. Sometimes I used a camera, but it was disguised as a cellphone, and occasionally I looked at a map, but I didn’t wear dark glasses or a safari suit. That would be just too obvious.
An hour before the appointed time I sent Deb another text to tell her I would text her with my exact position once I had decided on it, but the text wouldn’t go. In fact I had no connection at all, despite three conversations with so-called experts in NZ working for Vodafone, my BlackBerry would not roam. There will be trouble at mill over that when I return. I calmly walked to the agreed place and stood there for five minutes, and having half an hour to spare, thought I would check my map to be sure I was absolutement correct. I wasn’t. In fact, the place with the little arrow on that I printed off Google, and which I assumed Deb would also be clutching, was a bit difficult to find. For the next hour I more or less ran around in wide circles until I finally arrived at a place I decided was the same as the one marked on the map, which was quite close to where I had started from oddly enough. En route I sprained my ankle, which was bad news, as I would be needing it for the coming week for my journey further west to Dublin, then on back through Bristol to the south coast. So I sat down opposite the station (just behind the bike in the picture) and engaged with the locals while I waited for Deb. One girl gave me her phone and asked me to talk to the person on the other end, but I pointed out to her very politely, that I spoke English. I have no idea why the French want other people to have the telephone conversations for them. Perhaps they can't speak French.

After an hour or so I decided Deb had also got lost, so I went to Notre Dame to look for Quasi Modo. He wasn’t there, but everyone else was, so I pottered about happily looking at the outside and the inside of this glorious piece of architecture. Very high gothic, which doesn’t mean that it is tall, but more of a sort of haute cuisine of Gothic architecture. Gothic windows are pointed at the top, whereas Norman windows are more square. My mother was my UE art teacher so I more or less had to pay attention in class, which is why I know that. Outside, in front of the cathedral is a spot marked as the centre of Paris. If I had known that it would have been a good place to meet. I must remember that for next time I rendezvous with someone in Paris. The odd thing is, that people throw their coins on it for god luck, so there is a pile of money in the middle of town, but no-one is picking it up. And outside the cathedral there is a woman begging for alms. Perhaps she will pick up the coins from the middle of Paris later. I returned to my lodgings, and in due course, Deb showed up there. After jumping up and down a bit to show pleasure with each other, we bought outselves some nuts and cheese and sat on a park bench and swapped stories from each other’s lives, which is what women do when they meet. It was all very satisfying, though we didn’t have any wine.

I include a photo of Deb waving at me while simultaneously recording the image of a large motorcycle.

3 May - flight to Gay Paree

I decided to watch a movie to help pass the time but unfortunately, in the middle of it the plane passed right over Sydney and I hadn’t noticed I was over Australia until I looked out the window and saw all the red stuff between Sydney and Perth. I wished I had noticed earlier, as I would have waved to Annie, because even though she would be at work she would know I would be waving and say ‘excuse me, I have to go outside and wave at that plane up there because my mum is on board’. It’s very dry down there and someone needs to know. There are no rivers, just dark patches from floating bits of cloud wafting past. I have no idea how the lizards eke out an existence in all that heat. So glad I came back as a person this time and not a lizard again. Maybe I met my demise in the Australia desert.
I tried out Athena’s blow up pillow that she gave me for Christmas but it smells like my old hockey stick handle – all rubbery. It isn’t really comfy either (sorry Athena) because it makes my head stick out in front of the seat as if it’s on a stick, which is neither comfortable nor attractive.
From the air, I could see a long long line – very straight - maybe it was a rabbit proof fence. It ran in a north west direction but seemed to go through some dams though I couldn't see if they were dry or full of muddy water – they looked very brown from the air. My brother in law, Sanatan, is an Australian, and he paints in brown and red, even though you can buy other colours in Australia. My sister is a New Zealander (surprise surprise), and she paints a lot of stuff in greens and blues. Funny that. If I didn’t know better I might guess that it means that whatever we grow up with is good and beautiful, but I could be wrong. I was wrong before – it was in 1973 – you might have seen it in the papers. Some of the sand (at least that’s what it looks like from here) has all blown into ridges and the patterns are the same as the ones you get in snow. But I do see a river. Brown and slow looking thing, like a garden worm.
I had a good time on the way to Singapore, eating and playing with my laptop. I watched Slumdog Millionaire, which I can recommend, and another one, which I can’t remember so I guess I won’t recommend that one. I changed in Singapore (planes, not personalities, sorry...) to a German plane, and I regret to advise it was an unimpressive change. I know my friend Micha may read this (unless I hide the URL from him) and he’s German, but I can’t lie about it, it’s too important. I didn’t get a personal entertainment centre again (refer to previous similar devastating experience, UK blog 2008), nor was there much to do as everyone else seemed to be asleep, so I gave in, closed the windows (it was dark, anyway) and dozed for about 8 – 10 hours. At one stage I had to ask for a cup of tea – many airlines get their staff to potter up and down the aisles offering hot and cold drinks every hour or so, but it seems the Germans were too busy to do this. I now see how important it is to smile at customers, even when they re irritating. When I asked for a hot drink the steward was rather put out. Actually being forced to sleep this turned out to be helpful later, because my next day was very taxing.

That's it for the 3rd of May..... no photos sorry....

2 May - Otaki

I attach pictures for those who prefer comics to proper books, and also, to show how attractive Anna's and Kieran's daugher is. I think she looks a lot like me actually. It's not the best photo I have of her, but this is the only one her publicity manager would let me use. Jack looks great too. He's invited me back for his 100th birthday party and I told him I would be there.

Otaki: what a view and what a breakfast. I stumbled downstairs to find our hosts happily pottering about the kitchen muttering something about needing something decent to eat before they played golf, so they had set up a serious enough breakfast to keep us all going all day. We only needed to keep going until midday but it didn't matter. John and I walked some of it off after morning tea.

The purpose of our trip to Otaki was to help celebrate my favourite Otaki Uncle's 90th birthday. Anna had travelled East with Kieran and Bella for the occasion, so it was a worthy do. We ate at Stephan's, and as it turns out, Stephan was a good cook and generous with the wine, so it was a decent do as well. A few peole made good speeches, including Uncle Jack, who has a particular skill in this area, but cheated and said because he was old he forgot stuff. Everyone forgets stuff in speeches - I don't see why he should be able to blame it on being old. We missed Euan of course, and it was tough saying so and talking about it. Euan likes a bit of a do and had been part of the planning. It was hard not having him there with us.

1 May 2009 - Titirangi to Otaki

I started my travels west on Friday evening, 1st May. I will provide a blow by blow description of the event, mostly so my sister has something to read after she has finished reading the her favouriite Leunig book again. However, the three minutes warning has just come up as I am doing this in Singapore airport over the sound of a grisly documentary about the Khmer Rouge. And now, because I had to move the three minutes warning, I have only two minutes left (I also stopped to scratch my left ear). So you will have to wait. Bye.....

Ooops - here I am again. I need to catch up otherwise you won't know why I am in Singapore. Let me tell you about the journey to the airport in Auckland. Because I had been a part-time travel agent for the entire week prior to travelling, I had booked a car park. I felt sooo organised. The parking was incredibly entertaining as you can image - lots of cars and parks and stuff....(yawn) - I'll kind of whip through the local stuff eh, and on to the foreign stuff like arriving in Wellington.

Actually a disadvantage of living in Auckland is that you forget that most of New Zealand isn't quite as warm as Auckland, and Wellington definitely fell into the territory of places that are not particuarly warm in the late evening. Cold really. About 9 degrees. I had panicked so much about Ryan Air's grim warning of having only 15 kg or I would thrown into the Irish sea, I packed a jersey only at the last minute. After all my packing, I managed to leave home with just 23 kg including a fresh apple in my handbag. We turned on Colette, the GPS system, and I switched her ovpr to English, as there seemed little point in getting confused in Wellington late at night. She didn't know where Peter Quinn lived, because I looked for his house in Otaki instead of Te Horo, but she got us out of Wellington very well. I suppose we could have followed the signs, but Colette does a good job, so we like to give her an outing instead of just running back and forth between New Lynn and home.