We land back to Auckland and I have to say, I’m quite happy with our upgrades to Jacky, we have so much storage now. We did it all without having to buy any new materials, so it was all from bits we had leftover.
We marked the one year death anniversary of a wonderful woman I feel blessed to have known, my only regret is that we did not get more time to talk, laugh and cry together. A beautiful weekend of deep feeling with a family ceremony was had. Jo’s one wish was that her ashes be put into an empty prosecco bottle and put out with the recycling, what a lady. Micheal, Gabby and I climbed one of DCO’s more popular tracks called The Pinnacles. It was a much tougher climb than we thought it would be but it was a lovely trek and I had my first experience of staying at a DOC hut. There were great views on the way up until we got to the very top and we were totally clouded in. We were worn out and sore but what an enjoyable trek it was.
After some last-minute tweaks to Jacky, we head off again to Womad in New Plymouth. The COVID19 has really started to come into my consciousness at this point but I’m still very much in denial. We hear of festivals all over the world being cancelled or postponed so we really don’t know what to expect as we arrive at Womad. As it turns out everyone still turns up as does the weather. We have 3 days of sun, music and good fun. The festival is really well organized and the music is just fabulous. A real highlight was a klezmer band called KermesZ à l’Est, they just rocked. We saw their 2nd performance on Sunday at a small stage, the pure joy and their energy was just fantastic, this is what music festivals are really about. The Blind Boys of Alabama were just fabulous also. So much good music and fun with the fam under the ever-changing Mount Taranaki.
