A beautiful day working on the roads

There are a couple of 'utes' which are used by all the guys at MWH for going out on site inspections. Some of the guys hate driving in a filthy bakkie and so the said bakkies get a quick scrub-up with the Hamilton acquired water blaster before heading out for a day on the roads near New Plymouth.

We spent the day working between the two mountains - occasionally (and if the sky is clear) you can see both of them on either side of you.

This almost finished wooden house is being

erected beside the State Highway and is positioned (as you can see) right on the road and incidentally on a fairly sharp bend. Since we know that the road is a busy one and carries a fair amount of heavy traffic, we can't understand why anyone would want to build their 'castle' there. Admittedly, the surrounding scenery is spectacular but surely there was a good spot just a bit away from the road itself?

We have often wondered if the farmers who live and work in this fantastic scenery, realise how lucky they are or whether they are mostly concerned about the extra feed that the cows need to get - this lot had just been delivered a tractor load of extra special feed and were hard at work chewing - after a while they were all neatly arranged within the tractor tyre tracks. If you were feeling artistic, you could design the cows in the field by the way you drive the tractor!

Many things in New Zealand have two names - Taranaki is also known as Mount Egmont, but it seems that Taranaki is it's preferred name.

Although we were actually out on the roads working and checking out whether work has been done and which things that have suddenly appeared as a result of the rain need attention, it's hard not to notice how beautiful the scenery is around you! This picture shows you just how spectacular the volcano in the Taranaki area is - apparently there are very few volcanos world wide which have snow covered slopes - Stephanie would be the one to ask about that!