Men on the Roof

More workmen came calling yesterday, a couple of fit and active young men who were not afraid of heights.  They climbed ladders, clambered up on top of the roof, and attached our UHF aerial.  We already subscribe to Sky, and have a satellite dish installed.  Our new acquisition was so we could get Freeview TV, and enhanced radio signal. 

Dave arrived first, assembled the aerial and using his signal strength metre, worked out the best position.  Because of OSH (Occupational Safety and Health) regulations, a second man was required on site to hold the ladder for Dave while he climbed up on the roof.

Two men on the roof

Zip, zip went the drill, and the fittings were screwed into place.  There, all done.

The final bit on the roof

There was still a little work to do inside.  Climbing up in the attic, Dave was most impressed.  Generally he has to crawl around on his hands and knees in attics, but with our high roof line, he could stand up straight.  While up there he connected the appropriate cables, fitted a signal amplifier and the necessary signal splitters.  Then completed the installation by fixing the Sky feed and split the signal yet again behind the entertainment unit. This enabled the signal to be fed to both the TVs and the receiver amplifier. 

Now while I am busy watching my favourite “soap” in the evening, Robin can watch something more to his taste on a different channel on the bedroom TV.  That’s keeping everyone happy.

Free Range and Loving it

Happy chickens are free range chickens, don’t you think?.  It was time for a visit to the “Big Egg” again to get some more free range eggs and we met up with lots of the resident chooks out enjoying the sunshine.  Though to be quite truthful, I was more enamoured with all the free rangers than Robin.  He was despatched into the shop to do the business deal, while I went over to the fence to take a few chooky photos.

Free Range chooks at the Big Egg

Some of the girls came rushing over to see me – perhaps they thought I had some extra food for them? 

Cluck, cluck, any food?

The others were indulging in chooky activities, pecking at the grass, flapping about in the dust bowl, or just settled down enjoying the warmth outside.  With nice conditions like this that allows them to spend their days going about their business as every chook should, they must be happy indeed.  And we have got some more tasty fresh free range eggs – bacon and eggs for breakfast perhaps?  Or maybe I'll use some of those eggs doing some home baking? 

Recent trip to Taupo and Hastings

The following is a map of our recent trip to Taupo so that Jenny could get her quilt fix at the recent symposium and then over the Napier-Taupo road to Hastings to visit Jenny’s sister Kathleen and family.

We were accompanied on this trip by our friends Geoff and Eileen who by the time we reached Hastings were both ill with a very nasty stomach bug, and were not very happy campers.  I think they were happy to get home. Not a very enjoyable trip for them.

We stayed at a couple of delightful places, The National Equestrian Centre at Taupo and a private POP in Hastings. Both places were not at their best it being winter but come spring and summer they would be both very pretty places in their own way.

Homeward Bound

Jack Frost had visited the apple orchard last night and painted everything an icy shade of white.  No wonder the temperatures dropped dramatically overnight.  The electric blankets got turned on to “low” in the early hours of the morning to keep our tootsies warm.  Now that our cat Muffy is getting on in years she seems to feel the cold a lot more.  So she crawled under the blankets and cuddled up pretending to be a furry hot water bottle. 

Our time in sunny Hastings had come to an end – it was time to go home.  Driving southwards we saw glimpses of the snowy ranges in the distance which we had gazed out at from the top of Te Mata Peak the previous day. 

Grape vines in front of snow capped mountain range on the Takapau Plains

The skies clouded over the further south we drove.  From Woodville we drove through the Manawatu Gorge, not my favourite piece of road at all as it is prone to slips.  In 2011 the gorge was closed after several massive landslips and didn’t reopen until August 2012.  The Manawatu Gorge (Te Apiti, meaning 'The Narrow Passage') runs between the Ruahine and Tararua Ranges,  linking the Manawatu and Hawke's Bay regions.   The wind turbines were visible on the hill tops when we first entered the gorge road,  turning slowly as they changed the wind power into electricity for the national grid.

Wind turbines at the entrance to the Manawatu Gorge

Safely through that dastardly piece of road, I breathed a sigh of relief.  It doesn’t seem to bother Robin at all, but it has always been a bit of a worry to me.  Then it was an easy travelling the rest of the way  home to Levin.   We wondered what we would find at home, after some reasonably strong earthquakes.  We hadn’t got around to securing our tall timber display unit to the wall – was it still standing or had it crashed and fallen?  Luckily there was no damage at all, but it is always a worry living in an earthquake prone country.  New Zealand is not called The Shaky Isles for nothing!  We unpacked the caravan, washed out the fridge, cleaned the bathroom, and carried in a huge bag of laundry – I’ll deal with that in the morning.

Our elderly next door neighbour had been waiting all day for her furniture to arrive from storage.  She had several friends waiting there to help her with unloading,  and they waited, and waited.  The large truck finally arrived in the dark.  Tire blow-out, we overheard – no wonder it was hours late.  We could hear bumps and noises coming through from outside as the furniture was finally unloaded.  Oh dear, the driver will be glad to get home at the end of his long day.

View from the Top – Te Mata Peak

Up, up a narrow road we drove, climbing high up to Te Mata Peak.  Don’t look over the edge, I told myself, it’s a long way down.  And let’s hope that upcoming traffic is keeping to their side of the narrow road.  Te Mata Park of 242 acres was purchased from the Crown by John Chambers in 1854, and was gifted to the people of Hawkes Bay by his sons in 1927.  We were surprised at just how many cars, people, children and the odd dog  were already up there.   Mind you, it was the school holidays, and the weather was glorious and sunny, without a breath of wind.  Swarms of midges outnumbered the people a hundred to one and buzzed around our heads, but luckily they were not the biting kind.

That's us on the Trig Station on top at Te Mata Peak

The 360 degree views from the top were glorious.  Directly in front was Hastings City with the streets set out in grid formation.

Hastings City

Rolling hills with snow capped mountain ranges in the background

A view of Hawkes Bay, looking towards the Mahia Peninsula

The legend of Te Mata Peak goes like this:  the hill is the body of the chief Rongokako, the ancestor of all the iwi of Ngati Kuhungunu.  Although a fierce warrior, he decided against attacking the Heretaunga people when he saw the beauty of the chief’s daughter.  To prove his worthiness, Rongokako was given a series of difficult tasks to perform.  He completed them all except the last, which was to eat his way through the hill.  Looking towards the Peak from Hastings, the huge bite that choked Rongokako can be seen.  The outline of his body forms the skyline.

Robin was keen to supplement his honey supply so a visit to Arataki Honey was on the plan for today.  A little bit of a honey tasting trial ensured he chose his absolute favourite flavour to spread on his toast – rewarewa honey this time.  Plus a cheaper more ordinary clover honey to be used in cooking, I was told firmly, so that I don’t use up his favourite flavour when I cook honey roasted yams next time.  

Rewarewa and clover honey

A visit to Hastings is not complete without calling in to Rush Munro’s ice-cream parlour.  This Kiwi institution started in 1926 when Frederick Charles Rush Munro and his wife Catherine arrived in Hawkes Bay from England.  A confectioner by trade, he set up shop and began to make sweets.  Later the range included 100% real fruit ice creams, fruit drinks and chocolates, all made to his own recipes.  The business was sold in 1949, but the tradition remains.  We sat outside in the garden area enjoying our ice-cream cones, honey and ginger for her, and two scoops for him, rum and raisin  and passionfruit.  A delicious way to finish off our day in Hastings.

Finishing off our day with a Rush Munro’s ice-cream

Camping in the Orchard

We are presently camping in an orchard in Hastings, and very pleasant it is too.  Most of the apples are long gone from the trees, picked, packed, and sent away to the cool stores.  But there are a few left on the trees, and our hosts Dick and Ellie invited us to go over to the orchard pick some Pacific Rose apples.  So we did, some for us, and some for Geoff and Eileen.  There are plenty of windfalls underfoot, no doubt the birds and hedgehogs have been feasting on them.

Robin picking apples

The owners of the orchard have a great set-up for campers,  with power, water, an ablution block, plus a washing machine and clothes drier.  There is a comfy lounge available, and we were invited to join them there  there for 4zees.  They told us that the orchard was started in 1904, and was one of the earliest orchards planted in Hastings.  A cheeky little gnome lives in a hole in a large walnut tree and keeps an eye on the comings and goings of the guests.

Resident gnome in the walnut tree

  In camp, with apples trees behind us

Poor Geoff hasn’t been feeling very well the last day or two, so our travelling companions  took things easy today while we went out and visited the relies.  Eileen declared he was suffering from “Man Flu”.

Geoff is feeling poorly

He perked up considerably when Eileen produced a batch of cheese scones for morning tea.  They were delicious, thanks very much.

Cheese scones for morning tea

We have no complaints about the weather in Hastings, it has been a lovely warm sunny day.  However, we may well be in for a frost overnight though, with such calm conditions, but that doesn’t matter when a beautiful day follows.

Taupo to Hastings today

We woke to yet another foggy morning at our camp site at the Equestrian Centre at Taupo – that’s three in a row.  We packed up in the drizzly fog, and tracked down the camp manager so that we could pay our fees before we departed.  It was time to move on to Hawkes Bay for the next couple of days.  There is plenty of thermal activity in Taupo with the accompanying smell of sulphur and  we drove past steam rising from fissures in the ground. 

Steam coming up from holes in the ground

Our route today was along State Highway 5, the Napier to Taupo Road, through farmland with sheep and cattle grazing in road side paddocks.  The road continued on through pine forests and native bush as we drove through wet foggy conditions with the windscreen wipers going flat out, and the head lights on full.  Heavily laden trucks roared towards us out of the fog, and we hoped they would stay on their own side of the road. 

It’s hard to see in this weather

The fog cleared away by the time we pulled into a rest area for a lunch stop, about half way along the Napier-Taupo Road.  Geoff had stopped here before and knew there was something special to see.  And there it was, the Waipunga Falls, a  40m segmented waterfall featuring three parallel columns cascading down the rock face.  Such a pretty place to stop for lunch, just a pity other motorists had left such a lot of litter behind all over the ground in the car park.

Waipunga Falls on SH5

Lunch stop at the Waipunga Falls Lookout

Fed and watered, we continued on our journey.  We saw glimpses of snow covered mountains away in the distance.

Kaiweka Ranges

After a journey of about three hours we were almost at our destination, but our trusty Garmin got confused.  “Take the first exit off the round-about”, it told us, so we did.  No, that wasn’t right, as far as the GPS system was concerned that road didn’t exist,  and it thought we were in the middle of farmland.  Seems the the road was new and our system  had not been updated.  So we did a U-Turn, went back to the round-about, and found the correct road. 

We had booked a couple of sites in an orchard for the next few nights, and were warmly welcomed by the owner.  He had been busy topping a couple of very large walnut trees, he told us, to let more sunshine onto the camp sites.   After a reviving cuppa we set off to find a Laundromat.  Five days away and both caravans had large bags of laundry to do – just as easy for us each to put the whole lot through a commercial washer and dryer and get it out of the way.  I was surprised how busy the Laundromat was in the late afternoon, it was full of customers, their children, and various hangers-on.  Darkness had fallen by the time our laundry duties were over, and we trudged back to our caravans.  It will be an early night for us tonight, I think.

Homeward bound with the laundry