Plane facts

As a distraction from the big events happening today - that’s the Melbourne Cup, of course, and Guy Fawkes (oh, and some people in the US colouring in a circle) - here’s a remarkable sight.

It’s a decluttering-discovered postcard (itself an almost museum-worthy object now) sent to me by my father from New York, where he was on a business trip. It was to congratulate me on reaching the momentous age of five, and to wish me all the best in starting “proper school”. I’ll draw a veil over the date, but we all know that’s way (way) back last century, eh.

Anyway, this plane. Look at it! SO BLUNT! What on earth were they thinking? I mean, even back then they surely knew about wind resistance, didn’t they? Or maybe they didn’t - now I’m remembering vertical grilles on cars, and upright train engines, and so on. Wow. It seems so obvious now that you’d want to be all pointy so you could slice through the air, for speed and reduced fuel consumption. 

The details on the back of the postcard say that the Stratocruiser was powered by four Pratt & Whitney Wasp Major engines, and could cruise at a blistering 325mph (that’s 520-odd kmh for us modern types). I’m surprised it could even stay up in the air, dawdling along like that, at half the max speed of an A380. I mean, this was only 20 years pre-Concorde! It was a double-decker, though, well ahead of the 747 and A380. 

Anyway, connection: the Stratocruiser was built by Boeing, and apart from of course having flown in many of their planes, I have been to their mind-blowingly huge factory at Everett just north of Seattle. The assembly hall there is so big it generates its own climate inside, rainclouds and all. You can't take interior photos because they're paranoid about you dropping your phone or camera 4 storeys down onto a plane. Or a person. The tour takes an hour and a half and is obsessively detailed, but interesting. Did you know that light-coloured paint weighs less than dark? Shows how dedicated Air NZ is to the national (rugby-derived) obsession with black. 

Oh, and though I never flew in Concorde, I was once at Heathrow waiting to take off behind it, and our plane was dramatically shaken by the blast from Concorde’s engines as it roared off down the runway. That’s the closest I’m ever going to get to supersonic. I can live with that.

How did you get away with this, Peralta?

 

I’ve done Friends. Both The Offices will be next, then Parks and Rec. But currently my nightly re-watch of popular culture classics is concentrated on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which of course - that’s the whole idea - has been fun. That is, until a recently-watched scene in s2e18 that showed the plane Jake’s horrible father is piloting, which snatched me immediately out of 2014 New York and dumped me in Dubai. 

Because that’s an Emirates plane! Not the made-up Tribute Air label, but the tailfin logo, which is not only distinctive but so, so familiar. I've flown with them often, sometimes even (sigh) upstairs, wallowing in the comfort, space and privacy of my shiny walnut-veneer nook, to the extent of it being a bit of a chore to leave it in order to visit the bar at the rear. Needless to say, this was back in my time as a free-loading travel writer.

I've passed through Dubai on my way to the UK, to Europe, to Africa, with a couple of actual stop-offs to experience the dizzying heights of the Burj Khalifa, the multi-national residents, the craziness of ice-rinks and huge aquariums inside shopping malls, the amazing contrast between the ultra-modern cityscape and the barren desert surrounding it.

I've been out in that desert, trying not to be sick in a stupidly lurching car hurtling up and down the dunes, and enjoying much more the swaying of a camel, and the comforting jiggle of a horse. 

Dubai is an unlikely apparition in that setting, but it is impressively modern and successful, its fingers both on the button and in every sort of business pie. Which makes it all the more unexpected that the makers of Brooklyn Nine-Nine got away with their shameless stealing of an Emirates plane for that scene. Though maybe in the UAE they just like the series too.

By the way, and for once totally unconnected content-wise, I'd just like to mention that today is the anniversary of New Zealand Aotearoa becoming in 1893 the first nation in the world to give women the vote. Yay us! (And for shame, Switzerland, with your incredible 1971.)

About as far as you can get from Europe, actually

So, cruise season never really stopped this winter, with P&O’s Pacific Explorer popping in at fairly regular intervals - if, that is, a 77 tonne ship carrying 2000 passengers could ever just pop in. While it’s very far from being the biggest to call in to Auckland, there’s no denying its impact. (Er, not literally.) And now that it is finally officially spring, cruise ships will be a regular sight in the port.

In fact, just the other side of the ferry terminal, there was another one also moored here today, although it was easily missed, being so small and unimposing. It’s the barque Europa, built in 1911 and just 40m long. She cruises all over the world, but there’s none of your Pacific Explorer cosseting on offer here - she’s more of a DIY ship. Literally - 48 paying passengers learn to sail her, actually as part of the crew. That sounds much more fun than just lolling around in luxury, getting fat; plus, you’d really feel you’d earned your destination, once you finally reached it.

And that would add a whole new level of specialness to somewhere like Antarctica. Which is actually where, on New Year’s Day 2018, I last saw the Europa.

It’s a sign

There’s no, er, pussyfooting around with this newly-erected sign I walked past this morning. The one on the other side of the house where this cat lover lives is less graphic (literally) but equally emphatic. It’s on a route I’ve often followed and where, oddly, I’ve never seen hide nor hair of a feline. I’d hate to think these signs are retrospective…

But this one did remind me of another walk I did, in Québec in 2014, on a Silversea cruise from Boston to Montreal [pause for deep sigh]. I did about 8km wandering the streets of Sept-Îles one quiet, cold but sunny Sunday, which was pleasant. The most memorable thing for me, apart from learning that KFC is PFK in French, was coming across this road sign. Suggests that maybe the Canadians aren’t quite as polite and well-behaved as their national image would have us believe, n’est-ce pas?

 

Aaand here we go again...

 

This post is a blatant cheat, inspired purely by guilt. It's not, despite the date, and the photo, a cheery greeting to you [all] at the start of a new year, full of hope for the joy and interest it will bring. In actual fact, today is mid-July, past halfway through a year that has continued with the dreary sequence of horrible events around the world that has been the norm for so, so long now, to which we have become accustomed, if not inured.

Even the photo is a lie, since I took it in April as I walked home from my coffee run to Oneroa - clearly the work of some visitor as loose with the facts as I am today.

So why am I writing this? Good question (as every single interviewee these days begins every single answer, while they desperately concoct their reply). Habit, personal pressure, reluctance to accept, despite plenty of proof, that my travel-writing career is over - but mainly mild defiance that the blog's concept (see upper right) of travelling resulting in connection around the world is these days a disadvantage, given all the disasters, wars and dissent that daily comprise the news.

When you've been to places, met the people, eaten the food, admired the scenery and learned some of the history, you carry them with you ever after, so what happens to them, happens to you in some degree. World events then aren't just some item on the news to sit through while you wait for the weather forecast, but something you can identify with, sympathise with, feel. And that has to be a good thing, surely? Ignorance may be bliss, but knowledge is better.

Meantime, there is always a bit of good to find in anything, even the thick and persistent fog that meant getting to my daughter across the city took three hours yesterday: because of it, I discovered the previously unknown to me existence of the fogbow. Which today made it onto threeNews -

Season’s Greetings

I took this photo two days ago. Today it’s windy and grey, and tomorrow, Christmas Day, will probably be the same. We Kiwis do like to boast about our summer Christmases to our northern hemisphere friends but, honestly, the weather on the day itself isn’t usually that great. Certainly not often as glorious as in the photo (that’s a pohutukawa in the foreground, our native Christmas tree - it’s been a stupendous season for their blooms this year).

It really doesn’t matter about the weather - in fact, for the majority of us following the roast dinner tradition, it’s actually preferable. We know the sun will be back in a day or two, and certainly for New Year’s Day, which is guaranteed glorious. And since we had cyclones and stuff last summer, that means we’re due a good one overall this time round, eh? 

Anyway, enjoy your Christmas wherever you’re having it. I hope you have good times. 

Best place to go? Not Ingham

I see Ingham's in the news again. It's only been 80 years since the last time. 

Today it's because northern Queensland has been hit, yet again, by dreadful floods and, in amongst all the other misery they are causing, there's the inevitable Aussie problem of displaced wildlife. In this case, it's a croc in the middle of Ingham, a small town of fewer than 6,000 doughty banana-benders, causing some  excitement before its being caught - by harpoon, unexpectedly. It was only 2.5m, nowhere near the 5m+ that they regularly boast about up there, but big enough to be a nuisance, certainly.

I visited Ingham 10 years ago, on a Queensland famil, and was distinctly underwhelmed by the town, not helped by some hiccups in the itinerary. Its only other claim to fame is also a negative one: that it's the actual location and inspiration for the Slim Dusty song 'A Pub with No Beer'.

That was because, in 1943, a contingent of US soldiers had passed through and literally drunk every drop of beer, to the disgust next day of Irish farmer Dan Sheahan, who had ridden his horse for 20 miles into town, lured by the vision of a foaming pint. Admirably, fobbed off with a glass of warm white wine, he wrote a poem instead of getting angry, and in 1957 the song that resulted became Australia's most successful single.

The pub, in 2013 anyway, was still a brightly-lit, basic place full of leathery old boozers, its only nod to sophistication the wide-screen TVs on the walls. I did a review of it anyway, which you can read here. Earlier that year they'd done a 70th anniversary re-enactment of the draining of the town's beer, with an audience of thousands. The town itself had little else of note, and would have been hell for a hungry vegetarian. 

The most notable bit of that whole visit was when we went to a nearby cattle station for a farm tour. No-one there knew anything about it, so I just went to the toilet instead. When I flushed it, two small brown frogs were washed out from under the rim, and disappeared down the loo. Still feel bad about that.

Oh, and one other thing that I learned from the flood reports - there's apparently a town in Queensland called Yorkeys Knob. Not in the least surprised to read that.