Museum visit

The weather over the past few weeks has been decidedly unpleasant - very wet and very windy and very constant!
Cabin fever sent us out on a 'avencha' and we wandered out with the view to visiting this museum which we have been threatening to do for ages.
The pioneers in New Zealand have, it appears, faced the same struggles which peoples all over the world have faced and have settled themselves, for the most part, as best they could and with all the knowledge which they brought with them from 'home'. The life-size models in most of the exhibits are really well done and we particularly enjoyed the humour which has been so skillfully incorporated into the museum without having any of the pioneering spirit disrespected in any way.


There are so many thoughts which come to mind when one considers why this fellow is looking so incredibly distraught and 'moedeloos' - we, of course, have our own opinions about that. After all, 'as jy rêrig so graag daardie fiets wil ry, dan moet jy maar die gevolge daarvan dra! ' and more to the point - 'as jy dom is, moet jy suffer'!









The chappie up on the wagon has the little guy's teddy bear, by the looks of things - and there is a tantrum going on which Mother is studiously ignoring while she pours herself and farmer Jack a cup of koffie kapitaal!

One of the 'founding mothers' of the Taranaki area spent her life here and although she never married, was right up there with the upliftment of genteel society as a whole and this 'outpost' specifically. As a result, on her passing, a large part of her house and it's contents have been incorporated into this part of the museum and set up (behind glass of course) pretty much exactly as they were in her home. We just so enjoyed the sense of humour which is evident in most of the exhibits - in this case, the child is ruining the train mechanism once and for all!

It was mentioned on the plaque for this exhibit that she was particularly fond of the 'parlour singing' that folks engaged in at the time and it was felt that any exhibit without these fellows would be incomplete. We have our own reasons for being amused by these gentlemen!

We wandered around the museum for a couple of hours and then took shelter in the coffee shop while the weather raged outside - rain and wind and hail!

Definitely worth the visit!

Dis al!

Parikawa Beach north of Kaikoura South Island.

This seascape was finally finished over the weekend to make place on the easel for a painting that I would like to do for the fund-raising auction to take place in October at Eagle Encounters Garden Route.


Although we haven't actually been to this particular beach, I chose this picture because it's fairly representative of west coast beaches in New Zealand - volcanic 'sand' and very green hills alongside. The snow-capped mountains behind are just an added bonus!

Dis al!

Bikes, blossoms, boerewors and braaiers

The 'old' Honda motorcycle is considered to be vintage and Jo was invited to show the bike at a vintage bike event in Palmerston North last weekend. There was an amazing assortment of bikes from all eras and all makes - particularly British and Japanese. However, some folks take these sorts of events painfully seriously, whilst others tend to park their tongues firmly in their cheeks and 'show' a bike like the one pictured here which was standing amongst some quite dramatically impressive bikes of the motorised variety! The card on the front was obviously written by the owner of the bike and reads "Blaze's bike No 500"
I did notice that some show-goers were not amused - which just made me enjoy the situation even more!
(Note that the bike beside this one is parked over a mirror - very serious competitive showing wouldn't you say? A dab or blob of oil on that mirror could put the owner in line for a serious bout of depression or a brush with OCD at the very least!)






Those of you who know me well will know that this having come up unplanned, 'unplanted' and unannounced in an 'empty' bed in the garden was a brilliant surprise and made my day!








Our plum tree has burst into amazing blossoms and I took a couple of photographs with the view to setting up a still life picture for an acrylic painting sometime in the near enough future.

There are two butcheries within striking distance of Wanganui which sell decent enough boerewors - this one is in Stratford and as you can detect by the sign out front, is owned by ex South Africans. Whenever Jo is out and about on the roads in the vicinity of this little town, he calls in for boerewors and a big bag of sliced biltong, which may or may not arrive home intact - depending on how ravenous the purchaser was at the time!

We bought a Cadac portable braaier which folds up and packs away neatly into a bag just big (or is that small) enough to fit into one of the cases on the bike. This means that we can waft off anywhere we fancy and set up the barbeque beside a road somewhere, as we did in this photograph. The blue bag pictured here as well, is a little 'chilly bin' so meat and salads stay cool and fresh. Called in at a local supermarket en-route and bought a couple of fresh, crispy breadrolls and voila - dinner done!

PS - Cadac has only very recently been introduced in Wanganui - the locals are most impressed with the product range.

Dis al!

Going, going.....

Here is the kitchen at Papaiti road where we have spent loads of good times - all the boxes packed up and ready for the long journey back to South Africa.

Interesting that the Hookers removal van which is there to load up all the Thirtle's belongings en-route to a container ship bound for South Africa, is painted in those particular colours and is so reminiscent of the original flag.

I know that Junè will possibly sue me over this picture, but it's just such a fantastic action shot of her wielding that big blower and huffing and puffing all the dust and leaves and other nondescript rubbish out of the big garage at Papaiti road - the quad bikes are loaded and gone so all that remained to do was to give the place a good whip around with a mechanical feather duster.

So here are two pics - with and without me and Junè - no prizes for why. We did try one done by a tame cafe goer who was minding a child in a pram - the wife had no doubt not trusted him to get the order from the cafe right and had gone off to see to that and so we asked if he would take a picture of all of us - Martie (with the pretty pink scarf) reckoned the babe in the stroller could most likely have done a better job - I've given that shot a miss for the purposes of the blog.

A pretty good picture of Le Girls - everyone looks so happy although it's maybe the last time we will 'invade' the Springvale Garden Centre cafe all together.

A chapter in New Zealand closes with Marieta boarding a plane next week to return to her beloved Freestate (and hubby!) - we are going to miss you SO much Maliet! You have been such a good friend - so may the road rise up to meet you and the wind be ever at your back and the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again, may He hold you in the palm of His hand.

Dis al.