23 September - the Paihia Trip - by Maria VK5BMT

When I departed Adelaide at 8am in the morning, local time, I had no idea that I would fmd my flight from Melbourne to Auckland delayed by 4 1/2 hours, my luggage missing and my hotel accommodation messed up. I was a little disheartened to arrive so much later in Auckland to find Dave ZLlAMN and Aola ZLlALE faithfully waiting for me to appear, but it certainly was a wonderful sight to see the placard YL2000 being held up to welcome me.

Noriko 7K3EOP and I talked until 12.30 am before we both retired to bed, having found we had so many similarities in our lives, we both had a wonderful husband aged 68, both of us being 12 years younger. On top of that we both had two daughters aged between 25-30 one of which on each side of the fence was involved in IT. As a result we built on that base and enjoyed an extremely good relationship for the entire time we were together.

Next morning in the same clothes I met up with Gwen VK3DYL, Ruth LA6ZH from Oslo, Ruth IT9ESZ and Vincent from Italy, Ella G0FIP from England, Ted OHlBV and Maya OHlMK from Finland, Birgitta SM0FIB, Lars SMSCAI and Eine SM0UQW from Sweden, and also Raija SM0HNV - whom I had met before in Geraldton, Western Australia, four years ago for - breakfast, before we travelled by taxi to the Northliner bus departure point where the last two members of the group joined up. Bev VK6DE and Poppy VK6YF had been staying with Celia ZLlALK and Geoff ZLlAKY, who together with Jacqueline ZLlJAQ and Alwyn ZLlCCJ waved us off en route to Paihia.

On arrival at the Aloha Garden Motel, we took a quick taxi trip into town to buy tea and food for breakfast etc. The taxi fare was $5 and it took up to eight or nine people at once so the fare came to just 50 cents each! Most of us ended up with fish and chips for the evening meal for which we gathered in the room occupied by Ella and Raija. The next night Noriko and I made dinner in our room and joined Gwen and friends next door bringing our full plates with a pan lid on top to keep them warm.

On Monday morning we set out for our Supercruise Cream Trip including the `hole in the rock'. A nasty weather front struck us while we were at sea, and for an hour or more, driving rain obliterated any view we might have had. By lunch time the rain had cleared but the rising wind made the waters quite rough and we endured some very nasty lurches as we crossed from protected waters into the open sea. Bev and Noriko seated upstairs with us had gone outside to take a photo and were stranded there hanging on for dear life as the captain did his best with the difficult conditions prevailing.

We did get to see the ' hole in the rock', the captain steered the boat in from the exit side, the pressure of the wind funnel was tremendous but we were pleased he could do as much for us daytrippers. When we made it back to calmer waters it was a case of uncurling clutched fingers from seat supports and cleaning up downstairs where someone was ill. It was a very challenging trip, in a way like the two hours crossing my husband Keith and I endured on our trip home in our 5.5 metre sharkcat named 5miketango, from Port Vincent across the gulf back to Adelaide!