The Secret to Survivin’

With the sad news of Kenny Rogers’ death, we started our day with a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, hot crossed buns, coffee, and The Gambler lyrics looping in our heads.

With instructions from Niccy on what required harvesting from her garden today, our morning chores began, with occasionally pausing to take in this wonderful place.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

After an unsuccessful call to RBC Rewards Travel and Air NZ to discuss our options for new flights, and a successful call to Mitchell and Gloria (Jody’s parents) to provide an update and gush about our amazing surroundings, the group decided we would take a drive into Dunedin and Mosgiel.

• 

• 

The twisty rural road out of Purakaunui offers amazing views of fields of sheep, old rock walls in the pastures built by Maori warriors, water views, and scrappy, wild chickens on the side of the road! As we drove, Will provided us with local knowledge of the area. We stopped at a great hillside viewpoint of Port Chalmers at a memorial to Captain Scott, whose 1901 and 1910 expeditions departed from the Otago harbour; now the port (typically) is busy with daily cruise ships and container ships docking.

• 

• 

• 

The road through Dunedin eventually brought us to the airport, where Jody and Michelle went in to speak directly with an Air New Zealand representative. They were basically instructed to purchase flights home on our own dime. Ugh! With information about Air NZ offering credits for cancelled flights (which we couldn’t access to apply to new flights we were trying to book) and information online that they would be ceasing international flights to Vancouver after March 30, we contacted a travel agent to attempt to schedule new flights home. The flight board at the Dunedin airport provided us with another reminder….RELAX.

• 

• 

Will’s elderly grandfather, Dave, lives in Mosgiel; so a detour to pay him a visit ensued. Mosgiel is part of Dunedin, but separated from the city by hills. It takes its name from Mossgiel in Ayrshire, the farm of poet Robbie Burns, who was the uncle of one of Dunedin’s founders.  Desperate times call for desperate measures, so a glass of whiskey was shared with Dave across the fence (we brought our own whiskey and glasses). What a sweet way to meet him and for Will to wish him well. Dave, a very learned individual, commented on how he was impressed with Jacinda’s (NZ PM) speech as it had no grammatical errors, but he thought that the entire world situation, along with whiskey over the fence, was “disgusting”. 🙂

• 

• 

Despite most businesses being shuttered, we found a cafe in Mosgeil to contemplate the situation, while enjoying Jody’s first flat white and a meat pie…yum! We did learn that Heidi, our new found travel agent (from NFLD!) had reserved us (T&J) tickets for March 27th.

• 

• 

A relatively quick, but enlightening, visit with Will’s dad Kim was next on the agenda. He owns beautiful property on the hill overlooking Mosgiel and Dunedin, with horses and a herd of stags.

• 

• 

Back in the oasis of Purakaunui, a pile of firewood greeted us in the driveway and the “Canadian wood stackers” settled in for appetizers of meat pies (the best!) and a supper of porterhouse steaks and salad. We promised Niccy we would stack all that wood for her! Another silver lining to isolating here was that Niccy had heaps of food prepared for a crowd to be visiting for the film screening, so our job was to help her eat things up! Challenge accepted!

• 

• 

• 

• 

A got a real kick out of reading the entertaining descriptions on the back of bottles and other products in NZ!

• 

• 

Tonight’s movie screening was the “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” – A national manhunt is ordered for a rebellious kid and his foster uncle who go missing in the wild New Zealand bush. You’re a real bad egg, Ricky Baker!

I vowed by the end of the day to have secured flights home to Canada, so we decided to stay up late and attempt a last ditch effort to reschedule our flights through RBC Rewards Travel. After the agent looking at all options available to us, she concluded through a teary voice, she had no options available to us to transit before the March 30th deadline. With some panic of no known end date to our time in NZ, we bit the bullet and secured new flights through Heidi on March 27th.

As I struggled to get to sleep after phone calls and emails until 2am, I reflected on the secret to survivin’ . I think all you might need is food, socialization – even if it is at a distance, laughter, and physical activity!