Photo by Rod Witte The yacht trip to Great Barrier Island was exciting enough, but that
was only the beginning. Planning students are sadly not good at
planning. One of them forgot to take her medication.
Sailing a sick student back to hospital was not an option. Fortunately a navy boat was at Barrier for an exercise. They took my student to the airfield and she was flown from there to the hospital. This was not a drill. This was real planning. It was a steep learning curve which tested us to our limits. The life of the student, and my future, were both on the line and the other students knew it. We celebrated by first climbing Mount Hobson and then having a swim in the hot pools.
More adventures followed. Planning becomes exciting when you are dealing with whatever unknowns life throws at you. Kaikoura Island, which would eventually become a sanctuary, Orama and other communes, and the deserted whaling station.
It was a long sail home, passing Port Abercrombie around 8am and not reaching the mooring at Karaka Bay until after midnight. I slept on the boat, too exhausted to do anything else.
I walked into the Department, knowing that none of the other lecturers, sitting safely in their offices writing academic papers, could possibly understand the concept of “action” education. When you do you remember. We all knew we would remember that trip for the rest of our lives. It felt sad to return to forgotten and irrelevant PhDs gathering dust on university shelves. However not everything was boring. The students had the last laugh. The entry door to the Department was covered with a magnificent mural photograph of their nude lecturer at the hot springs.
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