Canoeing

Our second big summer holiday event involved our family splitting up.

This is starting to be a family tradition, where Mama and I go and do something together, while Mulan and Miya stay with the grandparents.  Last year Mama and I walked the Tongariro Alpine Crossing.

This year, Mama researched and then signed us up for a guided 3-day canoe trip down the Whanganui River with Canoe Safaris.

So, Laolao's flight back to China was on Thursday the 23rd of January.  That gave us one whole day to get ready for our canoe trip.

On Friday morning, after Mulan and Miya's swimming lesson at 8:30am, we dropped the girls off at the grandparents' (Nainai and Yeye).  Then it was time to start packing.

With no idea how much clothing we needed, we piled heaps of the old tramping gear in the car -- better too much than not enough.  The list of suggested gear seemed to say it could be cold and wet, so in went plenty of thermals and gore-tex.

Then we had the long drive down to Ohakune, the home of Canoe Safaris, where we had booked accommodation for the night.  Getting there around 8pm we had a quick dinner before crashing into bed; we needed to be up before dawn for an early start to the river.

We had a nice view of Ruapehu from our room, which we only got to appreciate on our return after we'd survived the canoe trip.

Before leaving the lodge we had to squash all our gear into one watertight barrel each.  Back in the car went all the gore-tex and most of the thermals.  And I still didn't need a lot of the stuff I packed in my barrel, as the weather was perfect the entire time.

Next morning, we met the rest of our paddling group.  Besides Mama and me, the only other paying customers were a father and his two teenage children.  To help us along we had a super-experienced guide, Erin, and a new guide doing a training run, Simon -- both were brilliant.

Piling into the van with the canoes on the trailer behind us, we drove to the starting point at Whakahoro.

After securing our barrels inside our canoes we had a quick river-side theory lesson on how to paddle and how to read the river.  Then we jumped in and started paddling.  Mama and I shared one canoe (Mama was the engine at the front while I was in control of our direction at the back).  Our two guides controlled the other two canoes, with the teens at the front.  The dad was in a one-person kayak.

Within minutes Mama and I were stuck on a partly submerged log.  I'd steered us directly onto it!  A bit of wriggling around and we were back moving again.  But it was a great learning experience, and we didn't make the same mistake twice.

Over the three days we had 90km to paddle.  The steady paddling, hour after hour, was tiring but enjoyable.  The first day was the hardest, and the next morning the old body was stiff, but by the end of day three I felt like I could keep going forever.  Just getting back to the basics of physical activity, eating and sleeping was very satisfying.  On the afternoon of the third day it was something of a disappointment to see power lines in the distance.

The Whanganui river is popular for canoeing and kayaking, and often we'd pass or get passed by other groups.  Mama and I had a bit of a middle-aged moment when we quietly grumbled together about a group of too-loud youngsters, yahooing their way down river with beers and loud rock music.

The occasional rapids were a lot of fun.  On the first day the dad in the kayak tipped over going through one of the rapids, and lost his sunhat forever.  Mama and I managed to stay (mostly) dry the entire time.

On the third day we encountered the biggest bit of white water.  Our plan was to hurry there in the morning, get through safely and then set up for lunch to watch the other groups have a go.  Our guides knew exactly what they were doing and had trained us well.  We all got through safely without capsizing.  But most of the other paddlers were wobbling and tipping out all over the place.

This was a good lesson in the importance of choosing the right guide.  Another good lesson was seeing two canoes stuck wrapped around rocks.  They'd been abandoned there until a change in water level might push them on their way.

On the second day we stopped off for a walk up to the Bridge to Nowhere.  This was a nice change of muscle use, and the upper body enjoyed the rest.

After long days of paddling, our two camp nights were a welcome pleasure.  We set up our tents while our guides prepared dinner.

All our meals were provided and prepared by our guides.  As they wisely pointed out, even if everything else were to go wrong during the holiday, if the food is good then everyone is happy.  And our food was excellent!  Breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks were all delicious, nutritious, filling and well-timed.  They even satisfied my vegetarian requirements.

It wasn't the sort of holiday where we took many photos.  It was only at the very end that Mama and I took a photo of each other sitting in "our" canoe.

Back in Ohakune on Monday afternoon, the other family had to immediately drive home.  We were more relaxed and stayed there one more night before heading back to Auckland on Tuesday.  Of course we wandered around the town and checked out the giant carrot.

Mama made another excellent choice for our couple-holiday.  I wonder what she has planned for us for next year.

Horses, of course

Mulan and Miya love horses.

They read horse books, both fiction and non-fiction, and love the idea of riding horses.

But we live in the city.  And we're super-busy with everything else that we do.  It's just not possible to squeeze in horse riding lessons during the week (unless we stop some other activity).

Our solution was to try a horse riding holiday camp over the summer holidays.

Mama did a bit of research online and found Kate's Riding Centre up near Kerikeri.  It looked good (at least to us city slickers) and we booked a 5-day camp for the girls.

The timing and the place were perfect, as Laolao from China was holidaying with us in New Zealand.  While Mulan and Miya were staying at the camp, Mama and I would be tour guides for Laolao, showing her around the Bay of Islands.  (We were last up there when we had our campervan trip in the winter of 2016.)

We left home fairly early in the morning on Monday the 6th of January, aiming to arrive at the farm by 1pm.

On the drive up we stopped to stretch our legs at Ruakaka.  No one else but me cared that it was a special back-to, where I used to go camping every year as a child.

At Kate's farm we had a very relaxed greeting.  The mezzanine of the farmhouse was scattered with various mattresses and as the camp kids gradually arrived they (we) took sleeping bags, etc up and organised the beds.

During the week I got the impression that the living environment and caregiver system for the camp kids was mostly free range.

Mama, Laolao and I stayed at the farm for another couple of hours, watching the kids get settled in.

Very quickly they were over with the horses, and we immediately saw that we had chosen the right horse camp.  Kate is brilliant in all horse matters and was an awesome teacher to the kids. I felt I could trust Kate completely, and the girls were in safe hands.

Kate really emphasised understanding horses, and using that understanding to be able to connect with the horses in a caring but in-control way.  She was great at explaining the reasons for why they do things the way they do.

Prior to this camp the only interactions Mulan and Miya had had with horses was a couple of sit-on and led activities.  But here at the camp it was hands-on all the way -- exactly what they were wanting.

No longer needed, Mama, Laolao and I left the farm, driving the short distance into Kerikeri and to our B&B we had booked online.

While the place we stayed at was lovely, the main problem was that it wasn't entirely private.  I had thought that we'd booked a granny flat -- a separate unit with two bedrooms, bathroom and living area (plus limited access to the kitchen in the main house).  It turned out that the living area that we had was not completely separate from the owner's area, and the owner was often in and out of "our" area.  Basically, we had two private bedrooms, but then shared the living/kitchen space with the owner.

Nonetheless, the owner was very nice and the stay was pleasant.  Watching wild rabbits on the back lawn was very relaxing.

We stayed here, and the girls stayed at the camp, for four nights.  We picked the girls up at midday on Friday the 10th.

Each day we visited the girls briefly for a quick hello and to see the improvements in their horse-skills.  But for the most part we left them to it.

Instead, each day we picked a different area and went sightseeing.

On Tuesday we drove over to see Kemp House and the Old Stone Store.

On Wednesday we drove into Paihia and caught the ferry over to Russell.

And on Thursday we went to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds.  Actually, I sat in the carpark reading for a few hours, while Mama and Laolao went into the grounds; I had already been in the grounds enough times.

Laolao loved Kerikeri, and was full of praise for the area the entire time.

And while I completely agree that Kerikeri is amazingly beautiful, I would still not like to live there.  My main complaint about Kerikeri is the roads.  I hated driving around there -- to get anywhere at all you have to drive, and the roads are often high-speed one-lane-each-direction and no median barriers/islands.

On Friday we got to the farm to pick up the girls just in time to get a few photos of them with their horses.

The girls absolutely loved their stay at Kate's.  I think we're decided that we'll return for more camps in future holidays.

On the way home we took the scenic route, driving through Opononi (seeing the statue of Opo the dolphin) and the Waipoua kauri forest.  Of course we stopped to see Tane Mahuta.

Belmont Music Centre

I haven't posted anything here for ages; I've been super-busy.

What's kept me busy over summer is Belmont Music Centre, and I'm only now just starting to feel that the crazy treadmill is slowing down slightly.

So, the initial problem was that the previous manager at BMC left suddenly midway though last year.  I wrote about it here back in September.

We survived 'til the end of the year, and finished off with an awesome 50th anniversary concert celebration.

But then in mid-December we had a decision to make.

No one else had stepped forward to take charge of running the Music Centre.  No one else wanted to be over-worked and under-paid, doing the boring, behind-the-scenes un-sexy work that is needed to keep things going.

In the end it was either me take over as manager for the 2020 year (with Gugu also doing heaps as the volunteer committee chairperson) or close the Centre down.

Reluctantly, I agreed to do the manager duties.  (Coz, yeah, homeschoolers don't do much all day, do they!)

And then the runaway treadmill started.

I didn't get much of a summer holiday; Music Centre took over the life of all of us in the family.  Most days I spent several hours on the computer on various Music Centre duties.  Amongst other things, over the past two months I sent over 750 Music Centre emails.

Mulan and Miya got involved, too, helping organise student enrolments and class timetables.

The end result is that we have increased student numbers by about 50%, and enrolments have doubled.  Music instrument hires have tripled.  We are now turning students away because most classes are full and we have no more funding to open any more classes.

We also discovered years of management neglect in pretty much every area.  In the past few years almost every volunteer helper had resigned without replacement, meaning we had no other experienced voices around.  There was a record-keeping nightmare, with scattered boxes of dated papers as well as gaping holes in more recent activities.  When people resigned they left no notes of their duties to guide their replacements.  Basically, we had to reinvent the wheel every step of the way.

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For those interested, here's how the funding works:

Belmont Music Centre is a non-profit that is partly funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Education.  The MoE has currently allocated to BMC 1190 paid teaching hours per year -- the BMC manager (me) allocates those hours to teachers, and the MoE pays those teachers directly.  (The teacher pay rates are set by the MoE, not the Music Centre.)

In addition to this, BMC uses the Belmont Intermediate School classrooms on a Saturday morning, and BIS signs up the BMC manager; I understand BIS is paid directly by the MoE for this.

The BMC manager (me) is also paid by the MoE.  MoE has decided that I get 398 paid hours per year, at approximately $30 per hour.

In reality, I have already put in over 400 hours during summer, and I expect there'll be at least another 400 hours throughout the rest of the year.

Anyone want a job that pays less than $15 an hour??!

(Mama used to do this sort of job back in China, when she was HOD of a language teaching university department with several hundred students.  According to Mama, what I did on my own was a three-person job.  Thanks NZ MoE!!)

For the various other BMC expenses -- accountant, insurance, instrument upkeep, music resources, etc, etc -- we charge the students a small amount.  This year we are asking $150 per class per year.  Students may also hire instruments at $50 per year.

Everything else is done by volunteers.

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In other words, BMC exists as part of the New Zealand taxpayer-funded education system to give an opportunity to local children to learn music at a level of quality that schools are unable to provide.

It's a really awesome service, and I fully support it.

But also quite clearly, the Music Centre is hugely underfunded.  MoE needs to re-think this.

At present, the Music Centre can only continue to run if many volunteers step in and offer their time and knowledge.  (And the Music Centre definitely doesn't work if people treat it as a right, with no other obligation to help out.)

Most people at BMC have been great.  And some people have been truly awesome!  But sadly there is still the small percentage of selfish people, who waste so much time with their back-and-forth thoughtless niggles.  Chasing up freeloaders and dealing with those who have an over-inflated sense of their own importance is not fun.

I'm exhausted.  I can't keep putting in the time and energy to BMC that I've been doing.  My health is suffering and my family needs me (Mulan would be starting secondary school this year, and I need to focus on organising her learning.)

Since most of the work for the teaching year is now done (hopefully!), I plan to continue as BMC manager until December.

But after that I plan to step back and merely be an unpaid volunteer assistant.

We've put the word out that BMC needs a new manager in 2021.  Anyone interested should come and volunteer this year, to get to know the system before taking over.

Sunday outing

Yesterday was Sunday, so we went to church.

I mean, we went to the zoo.

I mentioned earlier that we got a one year zoo pass, so we used that again -- it's our third visit so far.

Laolao came with us, too.  She's visiting us from China for the summer.

We saw the baby zebra,

listened to several zoo talks, and generally had a pleasant, relaxing day.

'Tis the season

My new favourite Christmas song is here.

Athletics

I still haven't got around to writing about the ballet show, as promised.  But anyway ...

On Saturday we were at Mt Smart Stadium for the Auckland Athletics Relay Champs.  Mulan was in the Takapuna Club Grade 12 girls team.

This was the first time ever that Mulan had competed in an athletics interclub competition.  (Miya competed last year in the North-West-Central Auckland zone day.)

The girls came third in both the 4x100m and 4x200m, and were awarded bronze medals.  They also competed in the field events relay, where Mulan did the long jump (one girl did shot put and another did discus).

The organisers really don't make it easy for the competitors.  The long jumpers are only allowed one run-through practice before attempting only two competition jumps. (In a normal competition jumpers would have a few practice jumps, and at least three competition jumps.)  Understandably no one is at their best and it means that luck plays a huge part in who is able to hit the board well in one or other of their jumps.  Too many field eventers got two no-throws/jumps.

I really hope that Auckland Athletics organisers consider changing this.  It seems that their motivation is to hurry everything through and finish at lunchtime.  In my opinion it would make for a more genuine competition if they stayed there a bit longer and allowed the children a fair attempt at their best.

Mulan's first jump was well behind the board, and while her second jump was on the board it was off her wrong foot.  At 3.94m, the second jump was her best on the day, though still far from what she can do (in practice she has done around 4.50m).  Nonetheless the other competitors were all in the same boat and Mulan came 4th out of 8.

Combined with the other two Takapuna girls this was good enough to get them another bronze medal.

Congratulations Mulan and the other Takapuna Grade 12 girls!  Awesome effort from all of you!!

The funny thing was that due to a quirk in the points system, had Mulan jumped a bit further in the long jump they would not have got a medal -- they would have been given 4th place.

This was the points table:

So, if Mulan had have got 2nd in the long jump (jumping between 4.00m and 4.21m) then she would have got 8 points (giving Takapuna 18 points) and Waitakere would have got 7 points (giving them 19 points).  So, Papatoetoe would have got 2nd (20 points), Waitakere 3rd (19 points) and Takapuna 4th (18 points).

When I showed this to Mulan she was delighted by her strategically perfect jump!

End-of-year music concert

We had a busy weekend.

First up on Saturday morning Belmont Music Centre (BMC) had its end-of-year concert.

We were up bright and early for that, arriving soon after 8am to unlock and help set up before the concert started at 10am.

(I wrote previously about how we've recently got more involved at BMC.  With still no manager as yet, my Big Sis has been helping out by doing the essential manager-duties to keep the Centre from closing.  I've been there when needed as her assistant.)

A few dozen BMC students (and most of the teachers) performed in various ensembles and bands during the concert, which lasted an hour and three quarters.  They all did an amazing job, and we were thoroughly entertained throughout.

The concert also doubled as a 50th anniversary birthday party for BMC, which first opened its doors in 1969.  Apparently, BMC started when the headmasters of three local schools -- Belmont Intermediate, Belmont Primary and Bayswater Primary -- got together and set things in motion for a Saturday morning Ministry of Education-(partly-)funded music centre.

The schools' opinion was that the local children's music education would best be developed by the schools joining forces and recruiting specialist expert music teachers to teach their children out of school hours.  Lesson fees were to be kept as low as possible to reach as many families as possible, with volunteers donating their time to help the kids.  A committee was formed, and teachers and a supervisor (now manager) hired.  The rest, as they say, is history.

It was all a bit like a Dr Who special, with previous supervisors and managers attending as VIP guests.  It was inspiring to meet BMC's first supervisor Oonah Caldwell.  Betty Dance, the supervisor when I was a student there in the mid-80s, also attended.

Mulan and Miya were also kept busy.  Before the concert, in between band warm-ups, they joined in with several other children to set up the decorations.

They were also active participants in the concert:

• Mulan and Miya played recorder together as a duet (and trio with their teacher).
• Mulan played flute in the wind ensemble (with one other student and their teacher).
• Mulan played cello while Miya played violin in the string ensemble.

Immediately after the string ensemble finished playing the final piece of the concert we had to pack and go, driving straight to the girls' end-of-year ballet show (we arrived at the ballet theatre less that 30 minutes before the dress rehearsal started -- we'd warned their ballet teacher in advance that they'd be a bit late!).

Unfortunately this meant that we missed the BMC prize-giving and party.  Both Mulan and Miya were awarded prizes in absentia.  Mulan, who will be too old to re-enrol next year, was one of a few students who were awarded medals for senior excellence.

(I'll write about the ballet show when I get time later.)