Dad visits the South Island

Paul here, invited to take over for the following few pictures.
As many will know my father passed suddenly (but not that unexpectedly) last December requiring a rapid trip to New Zealand with my children.
Last August we planned a 3 week holiday in New Zealand, this was to be 2 weeks in the South Island based around Wanaka and a few days in the surrounding towns. This was then a week in Auckland visiting my father and doing a few fun things too.

My father’s wishes were for a simple cremation and no service, sorry to disappoint but he got a service, not for him but for his family and friends. It was simple with 3 other speakers besides myself. The cremation he did get, interestingly (and have been told sometimes it happens) there was enough ashes to fill two of the standard boxes.

There was no instructions about what to do with them and to the best of my knowledge my mother’s ashes were left with the undertaker. They are no longer in business and my attempt to contact them failed.

As far as I know my father never visited the South Island of New Zealand whereas Wendy and myself have. We know of a beautiful viewing area above Queenstown and I thought that would an ideal place for one of the boxes’ contents to be placed.

Normally the wind is quite wild at this altitude but on the day we flew into Queenstown the weather was hot, sunny and very still. The intention of just tipping them and letting them blow in the wind was changed to; make a small mound of them on an exposed corner and allow the wind and rain to blow them away later.

In two weeks time we fly back to Auckland and intend to visit again as it is an afternoon flight.

Back to Wendy. It was a beautiful day and with a view back to these "The Remarkables" it is a wonderful place to now have in our memories and something he would have loved even though he never wanted any fuss.

                xoxoxoxoxo