Dear Class.

I am now in Dunedin with my Mum and Dad who are celebrating being married for 60 years.  They got a card from the Queen, the Governor General and the Prime Minister to congratulate them.

 It was raining when we left Paraparaumu so I don’t know if you had your RUN, JUMP, THROW practice  or if you had Jump Jam in the hall with Mrs Cameron and the other syndicate classes instead.

When I first started writing this I was on an aeroplane flying high above Cook Strait.  All I saw out the window is cloud below us and where there was an occasional gap I saw the blue sea far below, with little flecks of white where there were whitecaps where waves were cresting.  They were only glimpses though the clouds because there was so much cloud. 

When we took off from Wellington it was awesome to see the city landscape below with the tall buildings and windy roads.  As we climbed higher everything below got smaller and smaller, until the city looked like a model …. Amazing to think that way down there thousands of people were at work or going about their daily lives.  

Mrs Corlett was sitting beside me…. She isn’t keen on flying and was less than thrilled when the announcement came over the speaker system to ask us to put on our seatbelts as we were about to hit some turbulence.  She already had organised a couple of sick bags in the seat pocket in front of her so she could grab them at short notice.

When you fly above the clouds you look down on them and they look like they would be solid but soft and fluffy like cotton wool, and also kind of lumpy like –snow on a rocky hillside.  You could almost imagine jumping out of the plane and bouncing on the clouds .... but of course you would just go straight through because clouds are only water vapour.  

As we got further south there was less cloud but as I was on the west side of the plane I could only see the sea which looked like the skin of an orange, with little ripply patterns.  There was also a ship, easy to spot against the blue of the sea because of the white wake behind it. 

The air hostesses gave us coffee and nibbles.  I had both the biscuit and the chips as Mrs Corlett didn’t want hers – SCORE!  The funny thing was that on the chip packet the brand name was “Pass the dip”, but then there was no dip to go with them.  

When we were above Oamaru the hostess brought around the lollies.  People chew them as it helps equalise the pressure in your ears, otherwise they can hurt when you ascend or descend due to air pressure dropping the higher you go.  I’ll scored a few of them as well – but they will all be eaten by the time I head back so sorry I won’t be saving them for you.

Here are some photos for you.

Notice how the paddocks form a pattern like a patchwork quilt.

The yellow gorse was bought to NZ by the early settlers from Scotland.  It was used to make prickly fence hedges on farms.  It also reminded them of "home". , but has turned out to be a real nuisance weed that spreads rapidly.  The gorse bushes look like yellow mushrooms!

Right: Did you think aeroplanes have solid wings.  When the plane landed the pilot moved the flaps in the wings and you could see the runway through the big gaps in the wings.

When there is no cloud you can see for miles.  

As you fly in low the houses and farms seem to get bigger again.

Have a great day and welcome our reliever  to our class family by using your good manners and following all her instructions

Have a great time at the Marae.

Regards,

Mr Corlett