Chris Skudder - New Zealand House Swap page 6 of 6
Like many who practice home exchange, this was a family affair, but little did we know by the end of the trip we’d be swinging from the branches of the family tree. Skudder is anything but a common name, you’ll find the odd few in Kent but that’s about it, so when I walked into O’Keefe’s fishing shop in Rotorua asking about local fishing guides I hardly expected the guy behind the counter to come back with, ‘Well, you could try Ernie Skudder…’ Come again? ‘Ernie Skudder, he’s good….’ And so he was, fully booked up for fishing sadly, but once in the knowledge that we were Skudders from England, sending the full family history flowing down the ‘phone.
‘We’re all related over here, you know,’ he said, relaying the story of how his great-grandfather had been one of two brothers who set sail from Kingston-On-Thames in the mid nineteenth century, jumping ship in Australia and eventually making a name for himself in the new colony New Zealand’s Bay Of Islands. He even gave us the lowdown on the former All Blacks rugby player George Skudder who my late father had written to without hearing anything back many years before. Turned out his family had lived down the road.
‘You’ll have to visit Skudders Beach’ he enthused, and before we knew it we were making plans to visit the small inlet near Kerikeri in the country’s semi-tropical north, the only place in the world carrying the family name.
On route to Skudders Beach
Going this far north meant venturing away from our home exchange venues, but it was worth every kilometre of the long drive. I don’t suppose into her ninth decade my mother had expected to spend a night afloat on an old car ferry-turned-houseboat touring round the Bay Of Islands, but ‘The Rock’ was a memorable experience.
She passed up on the night-kayaking and snorkelling but got a taste for the eggs of sea urchins and massive mussels plucked from the rocks beneath the clear waters. Her trip was complete though when the next night we were let down by a hotel booking mix-up and forced to find alternative accommodation as the end of the day drew near.
I’d barely recovered from the slanging match in the hotel lobby when by chance we found the new, colonial-style Kerikeri Park Motel, and also by chance, the owner was in the process of naming his rooms after notable local families. He heard our story and told us that room three will now have the name ‘Skudder’ across the door. A few photos under the sign for ‘Skudders Beach Road’ a mile or two away and the trip was complete.
After four weeks away we returned to our own house in Berkshire to find that, yes, it was still in one piece having been home for that time to an American couple, Suzie and Wayne from beneath Mount Baker in Washington State. They’d used our home, ridden our bikes, driven our car, paddled our canoe (and fed our cat) for the past month while we’d been away. House-sitters to order, if you like, with a very nice pay-off to come, the return exchange in the Pacific Northwest whenever we’d like to visit Uncle Sam.
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