Iris makes the most of life

180315PBIris.jpg ALL ABOARD: Iris Bale took a trip on the Waimarie - and loved every minute. PICTURE / PAUL BROOKS

Ninety-year-old Iris Bale flew down to Wanganui from Auckland last week, stayed at the Grand Hotel, was picked up by a vintage car on Wednesday afternoon and driven to the Whanganui Riverboat Centre, where she boarded PS Waimarie for a bucket list trip of a lifetime.
"My husband used to fish in this river," she says. "He used to come back and say how beautiful it was. I never went with him on those trips."
Iris and her husband Viv came out to New Zealand after the war and settled in Auckland, opening a sporting goods shop in Queen St.
Now widowed, Iris says she has been on her own for eight years. "You have to create a life completely different from the one you had," she says. "The first thing I did was join Toastmasters. That gave me the confidence to get out." She also took up croquet, plays chess every Tuesday and she participates in Mainly Music "for the children". She says she worked at Mainly Music on her 90th birthday and the children helped blow out the candles on the cake.
"Now I'm this age, I've got to do as much as I can," she says. "I can't go down that road of feeling sorry for myself.
"I have a big garden, which is a great joy to me."

The following day she took a flight over the city before taking a commercial flight back to Auckland.