Travelling in New Zealand

There comes a point in travelling when you don’t know where you are, and I seem to have reached it. If it’s Tuesday, it must be Wellington. And yes, yesterday was Tuesday. I got up at 5.45am to catch the Trans-coastal train from Christchurch to Picton, to connect with the Inter-Islander ferry to Wellington.

A dark, foggy start in Christchurch soon became a sunny, clear winter day on the Pacific coast. New Zealand never fails to amaze. The scenery is almost too picture-postcard perfect to be real.

The Cook Strait was its usual self - a deep swell running through the channel from ocean to ocean, and the wind ‘blowing like buggery’ as  I overheard someone say on deck behind me.

I’ve missed the Tuesday poem deadline, but I’m struggling to keep up with deadlines of any kind. Everything is upside down here, the night sky, maps, time, my life. It was my birthday on Sunday and you suddenly get a feeling of time slipping away behind you. Yesterday I was interviewed over the telephone by a journalist for a New Zealand magazine (Eleanor Black for Next) and I was barely able to be coherent!

Christchurch and the southern alps

I've just exchanged the rain forest and beaches of  the North Island for the mountains and rivers of South Island.  Christchurch is one of my favourite NZ cities - small enough to feel homely, but big enough to have good shops and facilities, including a wonderful art gallery.
Today we drove out of the city for about an hour towards Arthur's pass into the centre of the snow covered peaks along the Waimakariri river.  I love the rivers here - they are about a mile wide with multiple channels of  turquoise snow melt, running fast and cold.   The mountains were amazing - freshly covered with snow.  Only the night before over a thousand people had been stranded on Mount Hutt because of the blizzard.  No sign of it today - only sunshine and glittering snow fields.

Book Launch in Auckland

There is nothing more satisfying for an author than seeing their books piled in a bookshop window!  In this case it was the Women's Bookshop in Auckland, run by Carole Bleu -  just one of those fabulous independent bookshops run by dedicated owners passionate about books.   The booktrade has been hit in New Zealand like everywhere else and bookchains are teetering on the brink of extinction.  As an author, I hope that the independents are going to survive because they put in so much hard work and they really care.

Carole organised a wonderful evening with wine and nibbles and a good crowd of book-lovers.  I've never had to give a talk perched on a table behind the counter before (just as well I'd only had orange juice!) but it was great fun and Carole was behind me to make sure I didn't fall off.  The talk was chaired by the brilliant Sarah Sandley, publisher and chief executive of New Zealand Magazines and one of the founders of the Katherine Mansfield Society, which now has an international membership.  It was a lovely evening.

Then it was off for fish and chips - the fish here is unbelievably good -  and the glittering lights of Auckland City.

The Tuesday Poem

Katherine Mansfield on New Zealand


From the other side of the world,
From a little island cradled in the giant sea bosom,
From a little land with no history,
(Making its own history, slowly and clumsily
Piecing together this and that, finding the pattern, solving the problem,
Like a child with a box of bricks),
I, a woman, with the taint of the pioneer in my blood,
Full of a youthful strength that wars with itself and is lawless,
I sing your praises, Magnificent warrior; I proclaim your triumphant battle.

This is from a poem that Katherine wrote to the Polish poet Stanislaw Wyspianski, when she was only 21. Her hymn of praise to the poet became an elegy for her birth country - she wrote most of it while in Germany after her baby was born prematurely and died. I think she was probably homesick.  She wrote the poem in the style of Walt Whitman, with long, declamatory lines and a lyrical rhythm.  It was translated into Polish by her lover Floryan Sobienowski and published in Poland.

For more poems go to  The Tuesday Poem blog.

Katherine Mansfield in Auckland

I'm now in Auckland, staying in a budget hotel in Grey Lynn, because tomorrow evening - Tuesday 10th August - I have to do a talk and Q and A session at the Women's Bookshop to promote my new biography of Katherine Mansfield.  Penguin have produced a lovely design for the book, which looks like this:

Tonight Neil and I are going out to dinner to celebrate publication with the publisher, a couple of friends, and Sarah Sandley, who is going to introduce me tomorrow night and chair the discussion.  I'm really looking forward to this evening, because so far contact  with everyone at Penguin has been  by email which is very impersonal and it's great to meet the people behind the names.  Contrary to public perception, it's not the normal thing these days for publishers to wine and dine their authors.  Unless you're Lee Childs or J.K. Rowling, they can't afford to do it! 

Auckland is a big, sprawling city, spread out around the various inlets from the oceans on both sides of the north island.   We've been lost several times just finding our way round.  I have also, unfortunately, had my email account hacked and so my entire data base has been receiving spam purporting to come from me.  Ugh!   But this is one of the penalties of using WiFi on the move  - many of the networks have poor security, but what can you do?  I will have to find time to change my mail address which is a bit of a pain, but can't be helped.  What I need is a nice glass of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc to cheer me up!

Welcome to New Zealand

This must be one of the friendliest countries in the world. Something to do with the fact that although it’s bigger than Britain, only about 4 million people live in the whole of it, whereas Britain now has a population of about 70 million. Here in NZ people still feel like talking to you and they’re very glad to see a new face.

I’ve almost recovered from the jet-lag, except that at 6pm promptly, my legs turn to jelly and my head disconnects from the rest of my body. Last night I stayed awake until 9pm, and tonight I hope to manage 10pm.

One of the wonderful things about New Zealand is the ocean. It has some of the wildest and most beautiful beaches in the world. Ninety mile beach (actually only about 60 miles long) is the most famous, but around every corner there is another stretch of rock and sand. The sea has an uninterrupted run round the southern hemisphere before fetching up on the land here, so the surf can be spectacular. Is there anything better than walking, alone, for miles along the sand listening to the sea? I’m currently at a place called Baylis Beach, somewhere north of Auckland, where the surf is amazing and there’s a wonderful little bar and bistro called the Funky Fish. It’s raining, but then it is winter here and it’s not much different from the northern English summer!

One of the least wonderful things about New Zealand is the infra-structure. It can be very difficult to find internet access once you’re out in the back-blocks. Apparently McDonalds have free WiFi, but I haven’t found a McDonalds yet. So that explains why I haven’t been able to put anything up on the blog for few days. A small population means a small consumer base and fewer people to pay for things - so New Zealand struggles to provide services that are taken for granted elsewhere. Decent television being one of them. NZ TV is one of the most boring I’ve ever seen. Apart from the programmes they import from elsewhere, there’s very little you’d want to watch. And anything decent gets exported pretty quickly - like the Flight of the Conchords - leaving a big gap.

The three days I allowed myself to recover from the flight are almost over and tomorrow I have to start work - preparing for the talks and interviews that Penguin have arranged for me here. I’m never very confident about them, and the only way I cope is by doing as much preparation as possible.  In the meantime, I'm going to take another walk along the beach and see what the ocean has washed up.  Some strange and wonderful things floating in from the Tasman sea.

Travelling Jazz

This has been a very busy week, with no time for blogging at all. On Monday, authors Wendy Robertson and Avril Joy  (both wonderful bloggers) came over to interview me for their excellent new writing programme on Bishop FM. I was so nervous I forgot to take a photograph, but we became engrossed in talking about writing and books over lunch and it was a lovely afternoon.

On Tuesday I headed off to Italy by air to meet up with Neil, pick up all our belongings and drive the car north through Europe, back to Cumbria. We stayed overnight in Dijon, in the heart of the Bourgogne wine country. Unfortunately, there’s a limit to how many wines you can taste in one night! (In my case, about two)

Bit of wishful thinking in Dijon

Back in England we queued for hours on the M25 (for non-brits this is London’s orbital parking lot), aiming for Herefordshire and the Titley Jazz Festival, where some of Neil’s friends were playing. Neil used to organise the now legendary Appleby Jazz Festival, until funding fell through, so he has frequent cravings for a jazz fix, and Titley proved a convenient stopping off point on the way home. It also has a small steam railway, and the festival takes place in a marquee almost on the platform.

We were lucky to find a bed and breakfast cancellation for the night, but last night we spent in the car driving north on the motorway, arriving here at 4am. Just time to throw the washing in the machine and the rest of our clothes into suitcases in order to leave for New Zealand tomorrow for the book launch. I’ve done about three thousand miles already this week, only another eleven thousand to go!!