Trains

THE TE HUIA TRAIN THAT TRAVELS BETWEEN HAMILTON AND AUCKLAND 

FRANKTON RAILWAY STATION,  HAMILTON 

A KIWIRAIL DIESEL LOCOMOTIVE 

Ford Ranger Wins

 

Guess what?  The new Ford Ranger, released here last August, has won the Automobile Association (in association with Driven, a vehicle sales magazine) New Zealand Car of the Year Award for 2022.

It is a great looking vehicle and I am seeing lots more of them on our roads now.

Every one of these vehicles fails to meet the emission standards for a Clean Car, set by the Government, meaning that before you can register your vehicle you must pay a “fine” of between $1840 and $3910 (depending on which model you purchase).

The retail price of these vehicles ranges from just under $50,000 to just over $80,000, so they are not the cheapest vehicle to purchase.

What surprised me was that there were over 5000 standing orders for the vehicles before they were even released, and sales are continuing at a steady rate.

I am not an electric vehicle enthusiast, as they bring with them a whole new range of environmental issues, but fail to see why so many people need to have such a big gas-guzzling monster to get them from A to B.

Some farmers may have a need to own one, and I have no argument with that.  They require vehicles that can handle our rural roads and carry farm equipment when needed.  No problem, that is classic Form Follows Function usage.

What I take exception to is the number cruising around our city streets.  There are too many to all be farmers come to town for the day. 

These vehicles are big and take up a good portion of the road.  They often extend out of, or completely fill, city parking spaces.   Being a driver of a small car (Suzuki Swift), I find it quite unnerving to be passed by one of these being driven at speed.  You feel like they are pushing you off the road.

Perhaps my experience is the exception, and I have been coming across Road Bullies, or drivers who really don’t know how to properly control a large vehicle.  It certainly feels like they are being driven by more aggressive people than your normal farmer.

The Ford Ranger might look good, but so far it doesn’t get my vote for the most popular vehicle!

Margaret 😊

 

Annabelle

 

I was leafing through a photo album and came across this photo of an old truck we once briefly owned.

Beside this 1977 photo is the notation “Annabelle, 1946” but I never put down what kind of truck it was – can anybody hazard a guess?

We nearly always named our vehicles, and this truck got called Annabelle.  She didn’t really deserve such a sweet name as she had rather a temperamental attitude.

Starting on a cold morning was a no-no, and even in the best of times she would splutter and cough. 

Expect her to drive down our steep hill and you were asking too much – the explosive protests would be loud and long all the way down.

The backfiring exhaust used to belch out a trail of flames and black smoke that would send the sheep fleeing across their paddocks. 

Occasionally, neighbouring farmers would be seen standing with mouths open and stunned looks on their faces.  Just as well we never drove the old girl into town!

My husband was no mechanic and we couldn’t afford to have the truck repaired, so after a few months we sold her to a vintage truck enthusiast. 

I like to think she still exists somewhere, perhaps the pride and joy of some museum collection.

Who knows?

Margaret 😊

 

HEADER PHOTO for November 2022

This beautiful waterfall is named the Marakopa Falls and is on the road to Waitomo Caves near Te Kuiti.  The water cascades down 35 metres (115 feet) and could be seen from a viewing platform at the end of a short steep track through tawa and nikau forest.

Unfortunately, this lookout was permanently closed in February of this year as subsidence had made it too dangerous to use.  There are plans afoot for another platform to be built sometime in the future, probably at a slightly different location.  Until then, we have to rely on photos to see these stunning falls.

A Slight Mishap

 

Sometimes the days seem to slip by so fast and when I look back I wonder what I actually did with my time.  Thank goodness I keep a journal to remind me!

After much thinking about whether to or not, I finally went and had my second covid booster shot.  I know many people this time round who are not going to have it, but as I fall into both the Seniors and the Immunocompromised categories I decided it was prudent to do so.

I had the usual after-effects – headache, sore arm, lethargy.   Nothing too major and I just needed to rest for a couple of days and drink lots of water.

That would have been fine, only son needed me to move my car so that he could get out.  It is only a matter of backing down the drive, waiting for him to back down, then driving back up again.

Only, because of my grogginess (at least, that is what I am blaming!), I failed to see that the wind had blown the gate partially shut.  You can guess what happened.

With a mighty crash, my car and the gate had a close encounter and I nearly died of fright. 

It wasn’t too bad though.  The gate now has a big dent in it, there are superficial scratches on one car door, and the casing for my wing mirror was broken.

The last couple of days, my dear son has been tinkering around with the casing and gluing it back together again.  This afternoon he put it all together and everything works.  Thank goodness for that.

Always remember the Golden Rule of Safe Driving – check to see what is around your vehicle before you hop in!

Margaret 😊

 

Patience is a Virtue

 

Patience is something many of us need to have more of, especially when out driving on the road. 

Every day, we see too many drivers picking the fastest moving lane and then pushing their way into the lane they actually need to be in.  They seem to think that just by turning their indicator on, they have automatic right to pull over.  

I saw these wind-swept clouds yesterday morning

In the last couple of days, I’ve been caught up in some awkward traffic situations, and it still surprises me how grumpy and impatient people can get when they can’t speed along as usual.

Faulty traffic lights that let through 1-2 cars before turning red again have resulted in long long queues of vehicles sitting in the hot sun.  And so, what happens?

One car runs an orange light and another car takes off from a green without looking – with the end result being one nasty crash.  As we negotiated our way through all the police cars and ambulance, there were people who were stopping to ‘rubber-neck’ and others who seemed to think there was no reason why they should try and slow down a bit.

Sitting beneath this tree would've been nicer than sitting in traffic

I collected grand-daughter from school this afternoon and we ended up in another queue.  We were still moving, and it was quite comfortable until we suddenly realised there was a car right beside us trying to sneak through (and I mean, RIGHT beside us – we could easily have touched him out the window).  He pulled in behind us again when he realised there was a car parked up ahead. 

Actually, there were several cars parked up ahead and a schoolboy was sitting on the grass beside his mangled bicycle, so obviously that had been an accident as well.

Our weather has been quite summery but the other day we had light drizzle all day.  I’m aware of light rain on dry roads causing slippery situations, but got an awful fright when I went to take off from a round-about (just a normal take-off, I wasn’t speeding) and I suddenly was sitting in the one place with this awful noise and lots of smoke.  I think it would have made a boy-racer happy, but all I could think about was my poor tyres!

Be patient everyone 😊

Margaret.

Lock Down Day Ten

Today, Friday 3 April, is Day 10 of our total lockdown.  Have I gone totally bananas yet?  Well, I hope not but I was incredibly grumpy this morning!

I found more pantry moth grubs and discovered some seedlings I had forgotten to plant.  There was a dead mouse sitting out on the terrace and our toilet cistern has begun leaking again.  Blah, blah, blah – just one of those days, really.  They happen sometimes.

Coastal sunset in The Catlins, South Island, NZ

Anyway, son went to the supermarket and managed to find some gunk while he was there (three times the price of a hardware store) so that should fix the toilet.  He also got rid of the mouse.

While he was out I gave my car its weekly exercise – start it up, back down driveway, turn around on the road, drive back up our driveway and stop.  I know vehicles can deteriorate if left sitting unattended for several weeks on end, so Friday has become Car Exercise Day.

My sweet little Suzuki Swift, parked on a mountain

After that I tackled our pantry.  Every item has been removed and checked for moth contamination.  Some food has had to be thrown out (hate doing that), and the rest has been put into sealed Zip-Lock bags before being returned to their containers. 

The shelves have all been scrubbed down and disinfected.  I am hoping that, a bit like fruit fly, when there is no food available the pest will disappear.  As a bonus to all this, the pantry is sparkling clean and very tidy!

The sun rising over Zion National Park, Utah, USA

This evening I will plant out the viola seedlings and hope they survive.  We are still under water restrictions, although not as bad as some places further north from here, but I can water them in with a hand-held hose.

Son reported our local Pak’n’Save supermarket was out of or very low on several items, the strangest being six lonely carrots sitting in a large bin!  They have flour again, but only in 20kg bags, and all of the loose bulk food bins have been packaged up into huge bags.  I wanted a few walnuts, but I now have enough to last me for months.

The sun is shining and I feel much better for having achieved something today. 

Keep smiling J

Margaret.

LINKING UP WITH Skywatch Friday

Taumarunui, The Heart of the King Country

Piriaka Lookout, near Taumarunui

Earlier this year I made an extended road trip down to the South Island, staying with various friends and family along the way.  It was wonderful being able to see more of my own country and I thought perhaps it would be nice to record some of the places I visited during that trip.

Today I would like to show a little bit of Taumaranui, a town located in the heart of the King Country in central North Island.  The settlement grew up beside where the Ongarue River joined the Whanganui River, and was originally founded by Maori who used the rivers extensively as canoe routes.

On the main road there is a large boulder with a top hat sitting upon it.   An amazing site and I had to go and investigate further.  Apparently it commemorates the time when the Maori king, Tawhiao, threw his hat onto a map of the North Island during negotiations with Governor Grey and declared that all the land beneath his hat was banned to all European access.  And so the King Country came into being.

The Top Hat of King Tawhiao

Further along the road was another edifice, this time a moa made out of driftwood.  These huge birds were flightless and became extinct about 600 years ago.

Moa, made out of driftwood

Piriaka Lookout is only a few kilometres south of Taumaranui (say tower-mar-ra-noo-ee) and has a great area for pulling off the side of the road and looking out over the surrounding countryside.  I was fortunate to see an electric train on the Main Trunk Line below, and also got my first glimpse of the mountains of Tongariro National Park.

Passenger train on the Main Trunk Line

Distant view of mountains in the Tongariro National Park

Hope your day is a good one,

Margaret