Wanganui

Wanganui from the Elevator on the hill beside the town.

Castlecliff Beach Wanganui.

There is a distinct possibility that we are going to be transferred to Wanganui - on the West coast of New Zealand and a much smaller and older town than Hamilton. We considered getting iffy about the whole idea since we are just beginning to find our feet (sort of) in Hamilton and have begun to meet people and feel a little at home. On the other hand, the nature of 'adventures' is the fact that you never really know for sure what is around the next corner, so we took a trip down to Wanganui to check the town out and meet a couple of the guys who work for MWH there. We are also well aware of the fact that our container has not yet arrived, we don't have school-going children and give all the appearances of being extremely flexible!

Wnganui is one of the first towns to be established in New Zealand ( I'm talking about the English arriving and doing the 'establishing') so parts of the town are extremely old indeed. At the moment there are few houses to rent - most people preferring to own their properties. There are however, some which come up from time to time apparently and so we are hoping that if we do move there, we will find something suitable.

Wanganui is built around the longest navigable river on the North Island and since it is also right on the coast, has quite a few pretty beaches. This side of the island, does have the black volcanic sand which we don't yet consider to be all that 'pretty' for want of a better word, but that being said, the ocean is still the ocean and the photo which we've included here gives you an idea of the sand and all the driftwood which this particular beach is known for. It was also a very gloomy, windy and cold day, so we admit that we probably didn't get to see Wanganui in her best light.

The elevator is very interesting and was apparently built so that the residential area on the hill behind it could be developed with the added draw card of it being easily accessible to town - by means of the elevator. We took the river and town photos from the lookout at the top of the elevator and these photos give you an idea of the size of the town and it's layout beside the river.

We estimate that Wanganui is probably about the size of one of the bigger towns on the platteland in South Africa - not quite a city, but bigger by far than a dorp!

We'll keep you posted as to the developments!

Dis al.