Flashback

This morning at 8:54 after running an errand in Waikanae town, I was idling at the traffic lights on SH1 to return home (waiting at the level crossing lights), when the oncoming train siren alerted me of something different. The hooter was not the regular suburban train sound, so I peered ahead between the waiting cars.

Not the expected posh grey electric unit – a bright yellow KiwiRail. Memories from three and a half years in February 2011 floated back…

(Above): Sitting on Wellington station early morning waiting for the Overlander to leave. There is only one trip each day.

(Above): A picture of a trans-country “Overlander” entering a tunnel on the day-long trip which we enjoyed the day before St Valentine’s Day 2011 from Wellington to Auckland

(Above): One of our fellow-travellers who pretended to have a little-boy train-driver aspirations at one of the stops en route to Auckland.

Wait.

There’s someone behind me with his hand on the hooter. Goodness gracious – While I’ve been daydreaming and reminiscing about 2011, the traffic in front of me has started moving off and Mr Hooter behind me is impatient…

150 Days

Isn’t it amazing how time flies when you’re not paying attention? It has now been 155 days since we left Johannesburg on Christmas Eve. We’ve seen summer and autumn and are standing on the brink of winter, our fifth mensiversary, if you will.

Searching through my pictures for an appropriate image to associate with this subject, I happened to find this picture. It was taken during the second half of January 2011 and it shows our waking/sleeping adjusted hours timetable based on my planned JAC project, a highly-successful (in my opinion) program to maximise one’s acclimatisation to adjusting to vastly differing time-zones over a short period of time.

(Above): The last few days of the JAC project, with departure from Cape Town on holiday to New Zealand on 2 February 2011. The times in brackets refer to JAC-time, for Sunday 31 January, we went to bed at 1:30pm (as the neighbours were preparing to have lunch) and we were due to wake up that evening at 9:30pm to start our Monday morning. It sounded strange, but worked out perfectly well.