Archive: October, 2009

Havelock trip

No comments October 2nd, 2009 mobilenvidia

Day 1
Arrived in Havelock on Friday night.
Saturday morning me and my father in law headed off to put a mobile irrigator onto a trailer.
It meant fighting with 200m of 75mm Alcathene by rolling it back up.
After thinking of using the vehicle to pull the pipe around the trailer it became much easier.
Once done it was time for a few beers to replace the sweat lost :)
Havelock is on the top of the South Island at the head of Pelorus Sound.
Pelorus Sound is a drowned river valley, where the sea level has risen faster than the valleys can fill with silt.

Day 2
A couple of friends arrived and the Inlaws went on their way with a very full trailer.
We headed off down the Wairau valley outside of Blenheim.
Stopped at Wairau valley wines, Allan Scot lunch stop and an amazing Sauvignon Blanc sticky.
Then lastly on to Saint Clair, very nice selection of wines.
The girls did some more shopping of quilt and chocolate shops.
Luckily for me the girls held back on the winetasting and drove us home.

Day 3
A day of doing nothing, it rained all day, and was the first day where we didn’t do anything.

Day 4
Weather still not great, but we headed of to Nelson.
Nelson is along with Blenheim NZ’s sunniest city, but not this day, as it decided to pour doen.
The girls managed to get to some of their shops, i was happy with a nice lunch

Day 5
The long drive back to Swannanoa (near Christchurch)
Very nice drive back down the Kaikoura coast, had a very nice feed of Fish and Chips in Kaikoura.
Got back to friends house late afternoon, had a numb bum from sitting in car for far too long.

Day 6
Didn’t do much, Nyree wanted to do some shopping and get away from the kids for a while.
So the day was spent with them, and after lunch had to have a snooze.
Once Nyree got back I slipped away to find a Husqvarna dealer to get some parts for the chainsaw mentioned elsewhere.
Grabbed a sparkplug, an Airfilter and a bar nut for the little husky.
Am looking forward to anctually cranking this baby up.
Tomorrow the journey to Timaru then on Sunday back home.

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Wellingon trip pt II

No comments October 2nd, 2009 mobilenvidia

Day 4
I was as crook as dog all night, so this day for me was a right off.
Did manage to get to the Ferry to see Johua off who was going to Somes Island a former quarantine Island now Native wildlife sanctuary.

Day 5
Feeling a bit better as the worst of my tummy bug seems to be over.
This morning we were of to Karore Wild life sanctuary.
A very cool place for birds and reptiles.
Those of you who are Lord of The Rings fans will know this place instantly.
Here a whole heap of endangered Birds and reptiles are kept and bred to be released back into the wild.
The park has a $2.5million 9km predator fence around it, quite engenious and keeps most vermin out.

That afternoon I took the kids back to Te Papa as I had not seen it my self yet.
The kids loved it the first time round and couldn’t wait to show me their favourite exhibits
The Earthquake house was a big hit, as was the technology wall.
Here giant screens allowed to to place pictures and manipulate them.
Quite funny as it was run on MacOS and i witnessed it crash with a fatal error (so Macs arn’t infallable)
All very well done, must have taken huge processing power to run all the screens.
Dinner that night was at the Lone Star, a big NZ success in the restaurant trade.
Very good value for money meals.

Day 6
This is the part of the trip I was looking forward to most.
We were on the way to see the ‘Weta Cave’
This is where Weta Workshop display some of the miniatures and show a little behind the scenes movie (not seen anywhere else)
Josh thought the Movie was ‘Awesome’ as did I, didn’t realise that Weta did so many movies.
After this it was a quick dash to the Ferry terminal.
The Ferry trip back was much nicer than the trip up, the return boat was much newer and had a lot more to do and walk around on.
With 2 kids this time much easier to keep entertained.
Nice smooth crossing and the car waited for us on the other side.
Drove to Havelock and this completes our wellington leg of the journey

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