After yet another whirlwind visit to Melbourne we arrived back in Opua last Friday. Bright Sea was sitting waiting patiently on her mooring where we left her, the local bird life had largely ignored her in favour of alternative pooping sites and her batteries had enjoyed a ten day break with no demands on them for recharging devices of any kind. But while the boat has been enjoying some quiet time, it’s been an eventful ten days for us; I attended the Applied Linguistics Association of Australia annual conference at Monash University and at the end received notification that an application to restart my PhD there (this time in Applied Linguistics rather than Education) had been successful… along with a full scholarship to study via external mode enrolment. I’m feeling excited, daunted and incredibly grateful all at the same time; very much in awe of how things have fallen into place this year for us to transform our lifestyle in ways we barely dared hope would be possible. In 2015, my sons gave me a birthday card that said ‘Some years are destined to become legendary…’. That was just before we headed off on our trip up the East Coast of Australia. In many ways 2015 was legendary… but then I’m not even sure how to begin describing 2016.
Tonight we’re anchored outside Matauwhi Bay, near Russell. A short dinghy ride into Russell Boating Club led to the discovery of some pylon art, with a tiller showing a ‘race face’; maori style! This is a place steeped in history; the local church still has musket holes in the outside walls from battles fought in the 1800’s and the graveyard tells many stories from those, through to more recent times.
We’re very much looking forward to seeing in 2017 on board, sharing some time with visiting friends and family and enjoying everything Northland has to offer.
