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Returning, still rather hungry and footsore, to New Zealand and Victoria University, I spent the rest of 1959, like Peter, working on my MSc thesis. Our theses consisted of joint manuscripts and one solo effort each. Peter worked up the sedimentology of the Beacon Sandstone strata and I fear I insulted the mineralogy of the Ferrar Dolerite sills. (It was my one and only foray into igneous mineralogy and is now properly lost and forgotten.) I was busy the whole year, but after the action and excitement of VUWAE 2, felt somewhat unsettled. Then in late November Bob Clark received a cable asking if he had a candidate suitable for a research assistantship in Geology at the University of New England in New South Wales. The position would allow study for a PhD. Although the New Zealand Geological Survey had offered me a position in sedimentary petrology upon completion of the MSc, the chalice of an Australian adventure with a bonus PhD candidature proved irresistible. I obtained leave of absence from the Survey, which could perhaps see two advantages: I might learn something about sedimentary petrology in the course of the PhD and, probably more importantly, they would benefit by a two- to three-year salary saving. In July 1960 I took up tile assistantship at the University of New England, a charming rural campus situated at about 1000 metres altitude atop the New England Tablelands. Rural research was much emphasized and because of the University's farms and extensive campus, it claimed to run about a student to the acre (fewer during droughts). Signing me onto the staff the Registrar apologized for the smallness of my salary. I didn't tell him it was £50 more than my Survey position in New Zealand. |
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