Searching for locations: Kaikoura, New Zealand, and, of course, the whales

I’m sure a lot of people have considered the prospect of whale watching. I’m not sure how the subject came up on one of our visits to New Zealand, but I suspect it was one one of those tourist activity leaflets you find in the foyer of motels, hotels, and guesthouses.

Needless to say, it was only a short detour to go to Kaikoura and check out the prospect.

Yes, the ocean at the time seemed manageable. My wife has a bad time with sea sickness, but she was prepared to make the trip, after some necessary preparations. Seasickness tablets and special bands to wear on her wrist were recommended and used.

The boat was large and had two decks, and mostly enclosed. There were a lot of people on board, and we sat inside for the beginning of the voyage. The sea wasn’t rough, but there was about a meter and a half swell, easily managed by the boat while it was moving.

It took about a half hour or so to reach the spot where the boat stopped and a member of the crew used a listening device to see if there were any whales.

That led to the first wave of sickness.

We stopped for about ten minutes, and the boat moved up and down on the waves. It was enough to start the queasy stomachs of a number of passengers. Myself, it was a matter of going out on deck and taking in the sea air. Fortunately, I don’t get seasick.

Another longish journey to the next prospective site settled a number of the queasy stomachs, but when we stopped again, the swell had increased, along with the boat’s motion. Seasick bags were made available for the few that had succumbed.

By the time we reached the site where there was a whale, over half the passengers had been sick, and I was hoping they had enough seasick bags, and then enough bin space for them.

The whale, of course, put on a show for us, and those that could went out on deck to get their photos.

By the end of the voyage, nearly everyone on board was sick, and I was helping to hand out seasick bags.

Despite the anti sickness preparations, my wife had also succumbed. When we returned and she was asked if the device had worked, she said no.

But perhaps it had because within half an hour we were at a cafe eating lunch, fish and chips of course.

This activity has been crossed off the bucket list, and there’s no more whale watching in our traveling future. Nor, it seems, will we be going of ocean liners.

Perhaps a cruise down the Rhine might be on the cards. I don’t think that river, wide as it is in places, will ever have any sort of swell.

It continued in London – Episode 25

A small job, really?

…

Nothing Rodby did, didn’t have an ulterior motive, and as cynical as that sounded, I had to wonder what it was.

Rodby just didn’t understand I didn’t want to go back to that life of always looking over the shoulder. Disappearing and reinventing myself with Violetta changed my life.

Now she was no longer there, it was like that cloak of invisibility had gone. Rodby hadn’t said as much but I knew he was going to formally ask me to return to work, citing the reason I’d be better off doing something rather than dwelling on the past.

It was hard to dispute that fact. I needed something to do. Just existing even in a place like Venice was not living. And finding someone else, well, I was not sure what Violetta might think, but I knew she would not want to see me like this.

I was not sure how going to the opera as a plus one was going to make a difference, and I was trying not to play down Martha’s invitation. She didn’t share her passions with just anybody, nor would she be a cohort in one of Rodby’s recruiting schemes.

He was not so circumspect

So, I dusted off the tuxedo one more time, even though I didn’t really feel in the mood for anything. Time had not made me a size too large or smaller, despite the good life I’d had over the last few years. Italian cooking was hardly the manna dieters went to as a first choice, but then, I was not under so much pressure to stay fit.

This was in part due to the fact I didn’t forsake the fitness regime I had adopted for many years; I just didn’t go at it so hard, and it had served me well. The suit still fitted.

The text from Rodby arrived about ten minutes before the car was due to pick me up outside the front door. I was hoping I would not have to get a cab, expecting I would have to get myself to the Royal Opera house

When I reached the curb, the car was waiting, the chauffeur waiting to open the door for me. My first impression, he was more a bodyguard than a chauffeur; I could just see the earpiece connecting him to an invisible army.

As the door opened, I could see there was another person in the car, and, at first sight, I thought it might be Martha, Rodby, who detested opera, somehow getting out of going, but it was not.

It was another woman, very elegantly dressed about my age or perhaps a few years younger though she had managed to keep what must have been, in her younger days, devastating beauty.

A princess perhaps of a foreign country, she had that classical European look. Martha knew a lot of different people, rich, poor, aristocratic, and others like me.

I climbed in and the chauffeur closed the door.

“Welcome, said the spider to the fly.” She said it with just a hint of a smile, discernible in the light striking her just right from a streetlamp overhead.

“Rodby didn’t tell me there was another guest, so please forgive my momentary surprise. My name is Evan Wallace, but no doubt you already knew that.”

“I did. It was going to be my next question. Rodby would be very annoyed if I picked up just any man off the street. I am Countess Heidi von Burkhardt, though I do not want you to use that title tonight. I am, today, just Heidi.”

“Then just Heidi it will be.”

The car eased its way out into the traffic quietly and smoothly. It was so quiet I could just hear the symphony playing in the background, one I’d heard before but could put a name to. Just yet. It would come to me.

“Rodby failed to mention you would be coming to the opera.”

“He would. Martha’s idea, she seems to have this soft spot for you, or at least that was the impression I got when she mentioned you might be coming, and I suspect she might also be dabbling in a little matchmaking.”

It wouldn’t be the first time. She had tried finding someone for me after Violetta died, but I told her it would be too soon. Perhaps she had assumed enough time had passed.

“There isn’t a Count?”

“There was, but he passed some months ago. It would not have mattered though; we had an unusual and mutually agreeable arrangement. I spent his money, and he did, well, whatever it is Counts do. He didn’t tell me, and I didn’t ask, but I suspect it killed him in the end.”

“Did you love him?” An odd question that had popped into my mind and was out before I could stop it.

“My. Martha did warn me you could be direct; she called it refreshingly honest.”

“Sorry, sometimes the words come out before I consider whether they’re appropriate or not. Just ignore that question “

“No. It’s one I asked myself after his passing, and truth be told, I did. I had such romantic notions when I was young, that I was going to find a prince and marry him. I didn’t find the prince, but I live in a castle, with turrets and towers and dungeons. Just no dragons, except for the housekeeper.”

She shuddered.

Cold or memories?

“You live there?”

“I did, I haven’t been back since Gustav died, but I will have to, some inheritance matters have come up, and I’ve been summoned to Bacharach to meet with the Rechtsanwalte. Perhaps I’ll go after the opera, literally joy followed by pain.”

The car stopped and we arrived outside the Royal Opera house. For a few seconds, the smile had disappeared, and it was replaced with a frown, no doubt brought on by the thought of facing the German legal system.

Then, as the door opened, she changed.

No one told me she was a celebrity and there would be limelight, flashing cameras, and a host of journalists.

Searching for locations: Kaikoura, New Zealand, and, of course, the whales

Needless to say, it was only a short detour to go to Kaikoura and check out the prospect.

It took about a half hour or so to reach the spot where the boat stopped and a member of the crew used a listening device to see if there were any whales.

That led to the first wave of sickness.

By the time we reached the site where there was a whale, over half the passengers had been sick, and I was hoping they had enough seasick bags, and then enough bin space for them.

The whale, of course, put on a show for us, and those that could went out on deck to get their photos.

By the end of the voyage, nearly everyone on board was sick, and I was helping to hand out seasick bags.

Despite the anti sickness preparations, my wife had also succumbed. When we returned and she was asked if the device had worked, she said no.

But perhaps it had because within half an hour we were at a cafe eating lunch, fish and chips of course.

This activity has been crossed off the bucket list, and there’s no more whale watching in our traveling future. Nor, it seems, will we be going of ocean liners.

Perhaps a cruise down the Rhine might be on the cards. I don’t think that river, wide as it is in places, will ever have any sort of swell.

It continued in London – Episode 25

A small job, really?

…

Nothing Rodby did, didn’t have an ulterior motive, and as cynical as that sounded, I had to wonder what it was.

Rodby just didn’t understand I didn’t want to go back to that life of always looking over the shoulder. Disappearing and reinventing myself with Violetta changed my life.

He was not so circumspect

This was in part due to the fact I didn’t forsake the fitness regime I had adopted for many years; I just didn’t go at it so hard, and it had served me well. The suit still fitted.

As the door opened, I could see there was another person in the car, and, at first sight, I thought it might be Martha, Rodby, who detested opera, somehow getting out of going, but it was not.

It was another woman, very elegantly dressed about my age or perhaps a few years younger though she had managed to keep what must have been, in her younger days, devastating beauty.

A princess perhaps of a foreign country, she had that classical European look. Martha knew a lot of different people, rich, poor, aristocratic, and others like me.

I climbed in and the chauffeur closed the door.

“Welcome, said the spider to the fly.” She said it with just a hint of a smile, discernible in the light striking her just right from a streetlamp overhead.

“Rodby didn’t tell me there was another guest, so please forgive my momentary surprise. My name is Evan Wallace, but no doubt you already knew that.”

“Then just Heidi it will be.”

“Rodby failed to mention you would be coming to the opera.”

It wouldn’t be the first time. She had tried finding someone for me after Violetta died, but I told her it would be too soon. Perhaps she had assumed enough time had passed.

“There isn’t a Count?”

“Did you love him?” An odd question that had popped into my mind and was out before I could stop it.

“My. Martha did warn me you could be direct; she called it refreshingly honest.”

“Sorry, sometimes the words come out before I consider whether they’re appropriate or not. Just ignore that question “

She shuddered.

Cold or memories?

“You live there?”

Then, as the door opened, she changed.

No one told me she was a celebrity and there would be limelight, flashing cameras, and a host of journalists.

Searching for locations: The Kingston Flyer, Kingston, New Zealand

The Kingston Flyer was a vintage train that ran about 14km to Fairlight from Kingston, at the southern end of Lake Wakatipu, and back.

This tourist service was suspended in December 2012 because of locomotive issues.

However, before that, we managed to go on one of the tours, and it was a memorable trip. Trying to drink a cup of tea from the restaurant car was very difficult, given how much the carriages moved around on the tracks.

The original Kingston Flyer ran between Kingston, Gore, Invercargill, and sometimes Dunedin, from the 1890s through to 1957.

There are two steam locomotives used for the Kingston Flyer service, the AB778 starting service in 1925, and the AB795 which started service in 1927.

The AB class locomotive was a 4-6-2 Pacific steam locomotive with a Vanderbilt tender, of which 141 were built between 1915 and 1927 some of which by New Zealand Railways Addington Workshops.

No 235 is the builder’s number for the AB778

There were seven wooden bodied passenger carriages, three passenger coaches, one passenger/refreshments carriage and two car/vans. The is also a Birdcage gallery coach. Each of the rolling stock was built between 1900 and 1923. They were built at either of Addington, Petone, or Hillside.

I suspect the 2 on the side means second class

The passenger coach we traveled in was very comfortable.

This is one of the guard’s vans, and for transporting cargo.

The Kingston Railway Station

and cafe.

A poster sign advertising the Kingston Flyer

The running times for the tourist services, when it was running.

It continued in London – Episode 24

What’s the Opera got to do with it?

…

I had hoped never to see Rodby again, and yet here I was in that oppressively warm wood polish-smelling office of his, sitting uncomfortably opposite him, a very large and clear desk between us.

In all the time I’d known him, and those visits to his office, there had never been anything on it. Not even a phone.

The last time I was in this position, to inform him of my retirement, I’d been reluctant to put the resignation envelope on the pristine surface.

Significantly, it was a month to the day after I left Larry’s mother’s house in Sorrento.

The day after I went with Cecilia to her audition, and she smashed it, getting the role from a rather astonished casting director, and director. He was calling it a possible break-out performance, in a whole different language that I didn’t understand.

That same night I found Juliet dining alone in the hotel restaurant and told her the good news, but her brother had already called her. We had dinner, and it could have been more, but there was that Cecilia thing in the back of her mind so we parted as friends.

And at a loose end, Venice no longer hold any significance for me, I moved back to London.

I should have gone to Paris. There, it would have been harder for Alfie to find me.

He had been giving me the ‘come back’ look, one that I had taken a long time to learn how to ignore.

Seeing he wasn’t making any impact, he said, “They found Larry.”

An enigmatic statement. Who found Larry?

“The Italian police recovered the body, in a little-used area of Lake Como. No signs of physical damage, not shot or stabbed, but apparently, he died of natural causes. We’re still waiting for a definitive coroner’s report. You never really elaborated on what happened at his mother’s house.”

My report was short and lacked detail, more notable for what I didn’t say rather than what I did.

“Nothing to tell. Brenda just told him his days of running the organization were over, she and Jaime Meyers had collaboratively taken over, and things would be different. I notice several other hard-line criminals have been taken off the streets since, so Inspector Crowley’s arrangement with her is working. A win-win situation. And you don’t have to deal with Larry anymore.”

“That’s the problem. If something is too good to be true, it generally is. I have to wonder what has replaced him.”

“I’m retired sir. No longer interested. Why am I here?”

I could see he had more, possibly to pique my interest, but just shrugged.

“Nothing of any importance. I thought you might want to know what happened to Larry. And Martha wants me to go to the opera tonight and she specifically asked me to ask you, and as you know she does not take no for an answer.”

I shrugged. He was right about his wife, a force of nature to be reckoned with. I had met her several times, and she had been intrigued with Violetta and had been devastated when she learned of her death.

“Then I guess I’d better dust off the monkey suit.”

“Good. I’ll text you where and when and send a driver to pick you up.”

Skeletons in the closet, and doppelgangers

A story called “Mistaken Identity”

…

How many of us have skeletons in the closet that we know nothing about? The skeletons we know about generally stay there, but those we do not, well, they have a habit of coming out of left field when we least expect it.

In this case, when you see your photo on a TV screen with the accompanying text that says you are wanted by every law enforcement agency in Europe, you’re in a state of shock, only to be compounded by those same police, armed and menacing, kicking the door down.

I’d been thinking about this premise for a while after I discovered my mother had a boyfriend before she married my father, a boyfriend who was, by all accounts, the man who was the love of her life.

Then, in terms of coming up with an idea for a story, what if she had a child by him that we didn’t know about, which might mean I had a half brother or sister I knew nothing about. It’s not an uncommon occurrence from what I’ve been researching.

There are many ways of putting a spin on this story.

Then, in the back of my mind, I remembered a story an acquaintance at work was once telling us over morning tea, that a friend of a friend had a mother who had a twin sister and that each of the sisters had a son by the same father, without each knowing of the father’s actions, both growing up without the other having any knowledge of their half brother, only to meet by accident on the other side of the world.

It was an encounter that in the scheme of things might never have happened, and each would have remained oblivious of the other.

For one sister, the relationship was over before she discovered she was pregnant, and therefore had not told the man he was a father. It was no surprise the relationship foundered when she discovered he was also having a relationship with her sister, a discovery that caused her to cut all ties with both of them and never speak to either from that day.

It’s a story with more twists and turns than a country lane!

And a great idea for a story.

That story is called ‘Mistaken Identity’.

Read an extract tomorrow.

Searching for locations: Salzburg, Austria

Along with My Fair Lady, another of my favorite musicals was Sound of Music and having seen it a number of times over the years, it had conjured up a number of images of Salzburg in my mind, and with them a desire to go there. We had been to Salzburg once before, an overnight train stop between Vienna and Innsbruck, an afterthought, but what we saw then was reason enough to come back later and spend several days.

A pity then the day we arrived, and for much of our stay, it rained. But, like hardened travelers, very little stops us from doing anything, and particularly sightseeing.

We stayed at the Crowne Plaza – The Pitter in a very well-appointed room. Breakfast included, it was a great way to start the day. The afternoon we arrived we went for a short walk to the old city passing through the Mirabelle gardens with the Pegasus Fountain, Rose Garden, and Dwarves Garden. Later we discovered that the archway had been used in part of the filming of Sound of Music.

We took the Festungsbahn funicular railway up to the Fortress Hohensalzburg, dating back to 1077, and the largest fortress still standing in Europe. We spent a pleasant afternoon wandering through the rooms and exhibits and then had lunch at a café, the Salzburg Fortress Café, that overlooked the countryside. This was where we were introduced to Mozart Gold Chocolate Cream added to our coffee.

It led us to search for the product which we eventually found in a confectionary store, Holzemayr in the Alter Markt. Not only sis we find the Gold liqueur there was also a dark chocolate variety as well. We bought a whole box to bring back with us, as well as a number of other chocolates including Victor Schmidt Austrian Mozart Balls, a delicious chocolate and marzipan combination.

With another afternoon to spare we visited the Salzburg Residence which previously housed Salzburg’s ruling prince-archbishops. We visited the reception rooms and living quarters, as well as the Gallery. It is as ornate as any of the palaces in Austria, resplendent with furnishings and paintings. After that, the visit to Mozart’s birthplace was something of an anticlimax.

But, what we were in Salzburg for, the Sound of Music tour, and the places we visited:

The Mirabelle gardens, where Maria sang Do Re Mi in front of the gates to the gardens. We spent some time here before and after the tour, and also has a look inside the Mirabelle Palace, which is not open to the public as it is the city administrative offices.

Leopoldskron Palace where the boating scene was filmed as well as exteriors. They were not allowed to film inside the place and were only allowed to use the exterior. An interesting tidbit of information, one of the children nearly drowned.

Heilbrunn palace is now home to the gazebo where Rolf and Leisl sang their song, ‘16 going on 17’. The interesting part of this was the fact the Gazebo used to film the scene was much larger than the actual Gazebo on display.

The walkway from the fortress back to the old city passes Nonnberg Abbey where Maria was a novice, and where the opening scenes were filmed. A number of scenes were filmed here, including the song ‘Maria’ in the courtyard. The tour only showed the exterior of the Abbey.

Salzburg lake district where panorama and picnic scenes were filmed. Even on the dullest of days, during which throughout our tour in continually rained, the scenery was still magnificent.

Mondsee church, where the wedding scenes were filmed. It was surprising just how small the church really is. It was also a stop to have afternoon tea or some ‘famous’ apple strudel.

Needless to say, we watched Sound of Music straight after the tour and managed to pick out all of the places we had been to. The only downside to the tour, singing along to the songs. I’m sorry, but I do not sing, and some of those that were, well, I say no more.