Nessie not sighted but the journey is worth it!

Today we drove from Inverness (a city celebrating winning the Scottish FA Cup) south to Glasgow, which took about 5 hours.  The journey took us along the banks of the 28 mile long Loch Ness and then through some wonderful mountin areas and past other lochs.

We have had some difficulty sleeping at night.  One reason for this is adjusting to the jet lag, but things are not helped by the incredibly long hours of daylight.  Last night we were in our room reading at about 10pm and realsed the curtains were still open, and it was still very light outside.  At 4am the birds were singing outside and the daylight was quite clear by 4:30am.

These first two photos are of Urquhart Castle which sits on the edge of Loch Ness.  We went and watched an 8 minute film summarising the history which is around 1,500 years.  The second photo, if you look closely, has someone you know looking out the barred window. Unfortunately we didn't get a photo of Nessie!

We enjoyed seeing highland cattle and sheep in many paddocks along the road side,but could only get to photograph some sheep as there were few places to stop.  Even though today is the last day of Spring and tomorrow is the frst day of Summer, there is still a lot of snow on the hill tops and temperatures are pretty cool.  During the day it got to about 11 or 12 degrees today and tonight's predicted low in Glasgow is 4.  

Tomorrow I catch a train into the city centre to meet with Senior Managers in the Scottish equivalent of the Ministry of Education.  I look forward to learning much more about my subject of study.

To Inverness and Beyond

The travel today has been a little frustrating because of the weather.  There has been intermitent rain all day. That's the good news.... the next three days are forecast to have "heavy rain."

We travelled from Aberdeen north-west, inland and planned to visit a castle or two and then see the northern coast - all of which we did.  However, our luck with castles was not great.  The first was called Fyvie Castle, built in the thirteenth century.  It was magnificent, but we had arrived too early and could only walk around the outside and not see inside.  The second was called Findlater Castle, which we travelled over very narrow country roads out a carpark.  From there there must have been a long walk to the castle, as we could not see it from the carpark, and there were few trees.  It was raining and we decided to skip it and look for other castles later on our journey.  Perhaps it was well named, and we might well "find it later."

The northern coast is wild and wonderful, with many fishing villages, and some wonderfiul farmland.  We were impressed with the man-made harbours in many of these villages, some built several centuries ago.

We have now arrived in Inverness, a pretty city, near the coast and at the rivermouth of the Ness River.  Tomorrow we will drive the length of Loch Ness - I wonder if we will get to see the very famous fellow who many people believe lives in this loch (a type of long lake between to long ranges of hills).  Then we head to Scotland's largest city, Glasgow.

Have I mentioned the great rental car we travelling in  ...??  A brand new, black, European Ford Focus. It's a great mid-size car.  The multi-function on board computer tells me we are getting 56 miles a gallon (that will only make sense to older people) which means it uses very little petrol... actually it doesn't use any petrol because it's a diesel!  We have done nearly 300 miles (about 500km) so far on half a tank of diesel.  The only minor difficulty is that it is a manual and I haven't driven manual cars for a long time, but am quickly getting back into it.

Here are a couple of photos from today's journey.

Here I am outside Fyvie Castle.  It is really quite magnificent and is surrounded by beautiful gardens and a lovely lake.  It looks a little like something from a fairy tale .. perhaps Repunzel is sittng in the high turret waiting to be recued!

Here is an example of a man-made hrbour, built in the 17th Century, in order to give fishing boats shelter from the many storms experienced in the North Sea.  This one is part of the town of Portsoy.

In the town of Elgin we found the ruins of what was once a magnificent Cathedral.  Actually, many other people had found it before we did  . . .  but it was, nevertheless, a fantastic place to visit.

Aberdeen - The Granite City.

After three nights in Edinburgh, we set off early this morning to travel up the east coast with the city of Aberdeen as our destination.

On the way was a school visit to a beautiful country village called Edzell.  The school has 75 students in four classrooms as well as a small pre-school.  The Principal impressed me as a competent and knowledgeable leader who has the task of overseeing two schools.  There are many similar arrangements for small  schools in Scotland, with one Principal leading two schools.  It only happens with small schools, of which Edzell was considered quite large.

This is the road leading into Edzell.  It felt almost magical to come into the village through a beautiful stone arch way and then drive slowly down the one main street which was immaculately clean and cared for.  We went to the address we had, and found a building with "Edzell School - 1902" on the front.  I went up to the main door and rang the bell, only to find it was now a private residence.  A new school had replaced it.

The new school has an interesting design allowing a flexible internal arrangement of having up to 4 separate classrooms, or they could all be opened up for flexible use.  The security set up was similar to schools in the USA and Canada, where a visitor, such as myself, cannot get into the school during class time unless the receptionist unlocks the doors.

At the lower end of the main street in Aberdeen is this castle like building which is actually home to the Salvation Army social services centre.  Aberdeen is oftern called the Granite City because most of the buildings, including houses throughout the suburbs, are made from a hard grey granite rock found in the area.

Another interesting thing about Aberdeen is that it is the main centre for the Oil Industry in the North Sea.  The docks were filled with ships of all sizes and purposes, and were packed into what appeared to be a harbour clogged up with too much traffic.

Edinburgh Castle

We caught the bus back into the central city today to visit Edinburgh Castle.  It was another day of showers and cool temperatures (11 degrees).  The weekend ahead is forecast for rain and thunder, especially on Sunday.  The TV forecasters talk about the disappointing Spring weather.  Oh well.  It is still very exciting to be here and the city of Edinburgh is a wonderful place to visit.

The castle is really amazing and we spent  two hours looking through.  More time could be spent there as there are many places to go through. The most intereting, for me, was St Margaret's Chapel.  Many royal people have attended services there over many centuries, and yet it is so tiny.  It would be very tight if 30 people were in the chapel together.  One thing I found interesting is the inclusion of three Scottish Kings named Kenneth.  They all lived more than a thousand years ago, so I guess the name was no longer a top choice.

The lines to get in were quite long and while we were lined up yet more rain came down.  I find it interesting that in a city that has so much rain, there is very little shelter in the streets.

Disneyland, then off to Scotland

We are almost half way through out travels and have now left North America and have arrived in Scotland.

The last days in California included a 14 hour visit to Disneyland and its new sister theme park called  "Disney California Adventure."  It was a long day and both parks were VERY crowded.  It was our bad timing to attend on a long holiday weekend, together with the park celebrating its' 60th anniversary. I was told by one worker that the day before there were about 75,000 people in the two parks combined and the day we were there was similar!  It meant long waits in lines - some up to an hour and a half - with a 4 - 6 minute ride at the end!  Wedecided to skip some of those and focus on things with shorter queues.


Our flight to Edinburgh was not a good experience.  We flew Air NZ (great airline!) from Los Angeles to Heathrow in London.  At check in our carry on bags were too heavy and we had to redisribute some heavy things into our suitcases.  My suitcase was just on the limit (23 kgs) and Mrs McLeay's was well under, but they told us to put everything into my bag which went well over the limit - but no charge.  Go figure?

At Heathrow we had two hours to get onto our next flight.  We had an hour long wait in line at immigration and then found our suitcases were already sent on.  We had to race to get to terminal 5 - up and done stairs and lifts and a 7 minute train ride - and got there too late.  So we had to ask for a new flight later in the afternoon.  We then had to go through another security check where my carry on luggage was completely emptied out and gone through by an official and Mrs McLeay had a full search done on her.  We were very tired and not too happy.

In Edinburgh we found our bags had come on the same plane as us and they never went through any inspection.

We picked up our rental car - a nearly new Ford Focus (European and very nice indeed) and drove to our hotel.  I am getting used to the stick shift again but had to get someone to show me how to find reverse (a bit embarrasing).  We also had to get all the dashboard information and GPS switched into English from German - I was not going to find any place I wanted following German instructions.

We went into Edinburgh late this morning - after a 12 hour sleep last night (no sleep all Monday night while on the plane).  It was a wet and cold day and not very pleasant.  However, we did walk the "golden mile" which is a very famous part of Edingurgh.  Tomorrow we will go back and visit Edinburgh Castle.

On Friday we head north and visit my first Scottish School in a little town called Edzell, on the way to Aberdeen.

Here are a few photos from the last few days:

Here I am in Disneyland's "Main Street" right at the beginning of the day - before the crowds built up.

This photo of Mickey's huge ferris heel, was just before the big light show in the California theme park.  It was a fantastic show of movies telling the story of Disneyland, all shone onto massive water fountains.

"The Golden Mile" is a famous street in Edinburgh but the pleasure was a lttle dampened by the weather.

Southern California

Hello again Everyone.  We have traveled several days without internet connection, and here we are in Morro Bay, just north of San Luis Obispo on the Californian coast.  Today is a "rest day" or catch up - mostly spent at the local laundromat and here in the library, catching up with people via the internet.  Tomorrow we drive to Los Angeles.  After a day at Disneyland, we will fly to London and then to Edinburgh in Scotland.

The past few days have included the following:

We traveled through an area called "The Avenue of the Giants."  The giants are the magnificent redwood trees of Northern California.  We stopped in several places and even saw a tree where cars could drive through the trunk of the tree.  Our Motor Home was too big to fit.  Here Mrs McLeay and I try to reach around a tree.  It was too big!!

This was very interesting to me.  This construction has been built to protect the road from huge rocks that fall down onto it.  It was very impressive driving through it.

I am very pleased with this photo.  I took it after we had crossed the bridge, and while still travelling along at about 60 km per hour.  I could not get a good look back, so put the camera out the window and just clicked the camera and this is the photo I got!  This bridge is on the coast south of Monterrey and is one of many very impressive bridges on the winding road.

All along the coast we were amazed to see snow covered rocks in the ocean like this one.

(It wasn't really snow . . .  Can you guess what it is?)

This beach is covered with hundreds of Elephant Seals.  There are several thousand that come here in April and May.  They stay for about 4 to 6 weeks and do not eat during that time.  They malt their hairy skin and have a new skin to begin the Summer with.

This is the huge rock off the coast of Morro Bay where we are currently staying.  Morro Bay is just north of San Luis Obispo, about four hours driving up the coast from Los Angeles.

California and a flat tyre

Hi Everyone.
We have re-entered California and are following the coast southwards.
Good news - my tooth ache has gone and I seem to be okay for the rest of the trip.  The antibiotic has really helped.
We have  been enjoying the wonderful scenery along the Pacific Coast of southern Oregon and now into northern California.  Unfortunately we have had our first problem with the vehicle - a flat tyre on the RV.  It is an inside tyre at the back of the bus, but compensated by the outside tyre.  We`have had to cut our travel short today and, instead of heading into the "Avenue of the Giants" (which refers to the Redwood Forests) we have had to stay the night in the town of Fortuna, and hope to get things fixed here in the morning before moving on.

Here are some photos from travel yesterday and today:

The bridges in Oregon were all very impressive.  We really enjoyed travelling over them and even made side trips to get to photograph them like this one.

Last night (Saturday) we stayed at in an Oregon State Park campsite by Humbug Mountain.  We walked out to the beach under the road bridge and up above us were dozens and dozens of swallows, busily building their nests under the bridge.  It was fascinating watching them working in pairs and "gluing" their construction material onto the concrete bridge, below the traffic.

This morning we crossed the state boarder into California. There are many beautiful ocean views with rocky sea shore vistas that are all worthy of photgraphing.  This rock had a hole right through it with the waves coming through.  It reminded me of a big rock not far from Kerikeri with a hole in it.  Do you know the one I mean?

Tooth Ache and Visiting Oregon Schools

Have you ever had bad tooth ache?  I had four days of it and it got worse each day.  It began when we were still in Canada, and got worse each day.  Finally, yesterday, I visited a dentist and received help.  A back molar with a possible infected root canal!  The dentist was great, helping me fight the infection and get relief from the pain, without pulling the tooth.  I think my dentist in Kerikeri has some work lined up when we get back.

In the coast of Oregon is the Lincoln Count School District.There are just over 5000 students in the district and I had the privilege of spending several hours yesterday afternoon (dentist visit in the morning) with the administrators learning how their schools all operate.  Today I visited two of the schools, one in Lincoln City and the other in the City of Newport.

I cannot take photos in the schools for privacy reasons, but here are the front entrances for the two schools I visited:

Taft Elementary School has around 500 children and has a new Principal who was a secondary Maths Teacher, then Vice Principal in the High School, and this year took over as Elementary principal.  I know this career pathway will be of interest to Riverview teachers, as it is quite different to what we do.

This second school is a K-3 school, which means it only goes up to Year 4.  There Lincoln School District has children from many different backgrounds and includes around 10% who are homeless or without a regular address, so there are many supports put into the schools to help them

The Spruce Goose and many other planes!

I dedicate this page to my older brother, Roger.  He will know why!

Just west of Portland, Oregon, is an amazing airplane Museum.    We stopped and visited for several hours.  The pride and joy of the museum is the biggest plane to fly in history.  For those interested, research Howard Hughes and the Spruce Goose - a fascinating story.  The plane only flew once and not very far, but is still the world record holder for the biggest plane ever to fly.


Here are some photos from the museum:

Outside the museum are many planes and jets from the beginning of flight to about 25 years ago.  The Spruce Goose is inside one of the display sheds and is so big I couldn't get a decent photo of it.

I liked this photo of a World War Two plane because of the name on the plane.  Can you see it.?  I think it might have been named after Mrs McLeay . . . .   Wait!  She is not that old!

This is a real helicopter hanging from the museum roof, carrying a replica of the Apollo 18 return capsule.  The helicopter is very big and powerful, but I think three men crambed into that capsule will have been very tight indeed!

 

Evergreen International was once a huge international air freight cargo company which, when it closed down, was used to set up the museum.  This real Boeing 747 has been placed on top of this indoor swimming pool complex, with water slides coming from each exit.  It is still being built.  You have heard me talk about our "chauffeur," Tim Cooper, (Mrs McLeay's brother-in-law) - well his last job was as a a manager in a huge aircraft service hangar in Hongkong, and he remembers having this plane in their workshops being serviced many years ago.

Here is another photo of the plane, from the other side.

Wifi frustrations and travel through Washington State.

Hi Everyone.

My last entries on this blog were from Kamloops in Canada, and now we are staying at a trailer park near Newport, Oregon, on the Pacific Coast.
An ongoing challenge is to find reliable internet connection, and this is often hard to do when staying in state park camp grounds and other trailer parks with poor or no connectivity to the internet.  I apologise for this and hope you haven't stopped looking for y posts.

We spent a night in Vancouver, Canada - a huge sprawling city which takes hours to get around. We stayed in an inner city trailer park which proved a mistake.  It was really a collection of very poor quality homes (trailer homes) which are not mobile and we were one of only two RVs in for the night.  There was no internet connection.
We drove around the city but found it hard to get back over different bridges to where we entered the city and which are "toll bridges" but with no instructions on how to pay. The bill will no doubt come in the post.

The next day we headed south, back into the United States, and drove almost all the way to the southern part of the State of Washington.  This photo, taken from the RV window while driving on the motorway, is the Seattle Space Needle.  It was the first of this type of building in the world, and I believe the same company built the Auckland Sky Tower many years later.  The Sky Tower is much taller.

We stayed the night camped beside the Colomba River, about 50 miles (80 km) from the river mouth. We are in Washington State, and the other side of the river is Oregon. These huge ships were going up and down the river to the city of Portland, Oregon.  The docks are 68 miles up river from the ocean.  How far is that in kilometres??

The ship above, with Mrs McLeay in the picture, has just delivered hundreds of cars and is heading back to sea, while the ship with me in the photo is hauling some form of wheat or other crop for the markets.

This next photo will really only mean anything to some family members.  We had a surprise meeting with friends of ours whom we had not seen for 25 years!  Jim and Kathy Jo Estes lived with us in Ecuador in the 1980s.  Mrs McLeay and I taught their 4 children (all adults now!) in the little mission school there.  Jim was the hospital administrator and, after he went to a bigger job in the mission, I took over as the hospital administrator.  Mrs McLeay and Kathy Jo keep in touch through Facebook and made arrangements to meet for breakfast in Portland. They were heading north and we were heading south.  What a neat time!

Over the Rockies

The temperature has changed hugely.  Two days ago we were driving in snow to visit schools in Alberta.  Right now it is 27 degrees Celsius!

I could include dozens of photos here to try and share the magnificent beauty of the Canadian Rocky Mountains.  This post is being made in Kamloops, after a 500 km drive from Banff.  Banff is like Queenstown in the South Island, only the mountains are even bigger and the scenery is just amazing.





Here I am in front of the Banff Springs Hotel - a very famous building opened in 1888 to host Queen Victoria when she came to visit.

Here are photos of two of the amazing mountains we past as we crossed over the Rockies.  It seemed that every corner opened up new images of grandeur and beauty.  What an amazing place!  

Every road sign is in two languages.  English is one.  Do you know what the other official language is in Canada?

As`we traveled today we kept looking for wild life and Mrs McLeay was especially thrilled when she saw a black bear.  These animal bridges help the animals get from one side of the highway to the other without having to cross the road.  The bridge has trees and grass all over it so it is a natural place for the animals to go.

This photo shows something which is amazing.  There is a very long train in this photo.  It can be seen in three different places.  The end of the train is in the foreground, just below where I am standing, amongst the trees.  The train winds around and upwards into a tunnel near the top left part of the photo.  The tunnel goes around in a circle inside the mountain and the front of the train is coming out of the mountain just below the carriages going into the mountain.  We estimated the train had to be over 2 km long!!! 

Star Trek!

Have you watched any Star Trek movies or the old TV shows?  

One of the towns in the Palliser Schools Region is called Vulcan.  Mr Spock, from the original "Star Trek" TV series was from the planet "Vulcan" so the town has become one of the "Star Trek" tourist places to visit.

I got a couple of photos which some of you may enjoy.  If you are not a "Trekky" fan, just skip this and look for the next posting.

Look closely at the photo below and you will see that Mr Spock has grown a beard!

This model of the star ship Enterprise has a large solar panel beside it which stores energy and at night all the lights come on.  We didn't have time to stay for the evening  to see this happen.

Palliser Regional Schools, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.

Two days visiting an amazing group of schools.

On Thursday and Friday, May 7 and 8, I had a fantastic time learning all about the Palliser School District.  The Associate Superintendent, Mr Ken Garinger, gave up two full days to talk with me and take me to a total of 7 schools and I met with 8 Principals and Vice Principals to learn from them about their appraisal systems.  In truth, I learned a great deal more, and absolutely loved my time.

The visits included going to three Hutterite Schools, on their rural colonies - and it was snowing as we traveled around - a late winter blast.  Each had a class of around 20 children ranging from Kindergarten to 9th grade (the children finish school on their 15th birthday!) and each class sang to me in their native "low German" language.  The last of these schools also provided me with a tour of parts of the "colony" led by the oldest boy and girl.  I went through their dairy farm - 125 cows indoors all year round!!  This included the bulls and some heifers, etc.  I did feel sorry for the animals, although they were very well cared for and everything was very very clean.  I could not take any photographs at all on these colonies.  All the children wore the same black clothing and no technology and very little of colour was in the rooms (although I did see a photocopy machine in one).  They were very well mannered and very well behaved.

Here are some photos from my time in the Palliser Schools:

Here I am with two principals and a vice principal.  The man is a first time principal.  I couldn't visit his school (it was Friday and the children at his school only have classes on Mondays to Thursdays).  However, his senior class did a google recording of the children singing "Te Aroha" for me as a welcome, and he did a mihi for me to welcome me there.  Talk about special!!  I have the video!

This new vice principal had just completed her first appraisal (they call it an evaluation) and after talking about it, she showed me around her school.  They have two new "mobile classrooms" to help with roll growth.  However, it includes having complete indoors access from the main school into the rooms to ensure all weather conditions are covered and help with security.

This photo shows Mrs McLeay together with Tim and Jan Cooper (the Chauffeur and the Chef), all being hosted to lunch at a restaurant with the Board of the Palliser Regional Schools.  It was May 7th and Mrs McLeay and I had our wedding anniversary.  They heard about this and had the restaurant bring out a special dessert for us to enjoy! The man on the left is Mr Garinger, the Associate Superintendent.

Into Canada

Into Canada!
We drove north into Canada today (Wednesday).  I have two very busy days scheduled visiting schools tomorrow and Friday.  We`are based in the town of Lethbridge, Alberta.  The Palliser School District here has been amazing in setting up two full days of school visits starting at 9am tomorrow.  I will be visiting about 10 schools, including 4 schools in small "Hutterite" communities, which I am really looking forward to.  I will try to do an update after these visits are all over.  Included in the schedule is a meeting with the Lethbridge press tomorrow afternoon.  There has already been a lengthy article about my coming in the local newspaper!!  Talk about pressure!

We`travel together with Tim and Jan Cooper - the Chauffeur and the Chef!  They are fantastic company and own the motor home we are in.  Here are a couple of photos of where we are tonight. Some motor homes (not ours) are really big buses and can cost as much as a house.

Gallatin Gateway School

Visiting Gallatin Gateway School in Montana

After two great days at Yellowstone National Park we headed north into Montana.  I visited a really interesting "small" school called Gallatin Gateway School.  It has about 150 students from kindergarten to Grade 8.  Here are some interesting things I found in this school:

• There is a separate class for each year level, so there are 9 different  classes.
• The smallest class has 8 students and the largest has 22.
• If a class has more than 20 students then, by Montana State law, the class must have a teaching assistant (Teacher Aide) for a minimum of 90 minutes each day.
• There are specialist teachers for Sport, Art, Music, Library, Computing and Science.  Some of these are part-time positions and some teachers are specialist in several subjects.
• The school has two Learning Needs Teachers and a Counsellor.
• There are 14 teachers altogether, plus the Principal.
• There are separate classrooms for Art, Food Technology, Computers, Science, and a huge basketball stadium.
• All children have breakfast and lunch at school and these are provided in a special dining room.  There are two employed cooks in the kitchen.
• Every classroom is permanently locked so no one can get in from the outside.  This is the same in almost every school in the USA to keep all the people in the school safe from intruders.
• The Principal is also the Superintendent, as this is a school all by itself (that's why I chose it).  She has 12 different jobs including things like bus controller, curriculum leader, safety controller, food manager, etc., and has a different job description for each job.
• The Board does her appraisal for her - for all 12 job descriptions - and they all have to be done with the whole board present!
• The people were all very friendly and welcoming and I really enjoyed my time there.

Here are two photos of the outside of the school: