Going to see Gollum - An Unexpected Journey

What to do on a rainy Saturday?  It was too wet to cut the lawns, or do anything outside.  Why not take a ride on the big orange Airport Flyer bus to Wellington Airport?  The bus soon filled up with a mix of retirees like us out for a free ride with their pensioner Gold Cards.  Plus a fair number of travellers boarding the bus with huge back packs and large suitcases.  Luckily the bus has a special area for storing bags so that they are safely off the floor and not lying about waiting to trip up unwary passengers. 

 

We had heard about the large Gollum statue suspended from the ceiling at the airport.  And there he was, hung over the food court seating area as he reached out to catch a fish or two for his dinner.  The patrons didn’t seem too worried about Gollum hovering over them as they ate their lunch, played on their IPods, read the newspaper or just generally chatted happily amongst themselves.  A few people were taking photos, like us, no doubt to share the story of meeting up with Gollum at the airport, when they returned home from their journeys.

 

Gollum catching fish

The sculpture of Gollum was designed by Weta Workshop to mark the coming release of “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”.  The installation consists of nine separate components created by 18 sculptors, model makers, painters and other artists. The portion consisting of his head and outstretched arm measures about 42 feet and weighs over 2,500 pounds; each of the three fish he reaches for is about 12 feet long. 

There were other reminders of Peter Jackson and The Lord of the Rings films dotted around the airport, just waiting to be discovered.  A couple of very large trolls had taken up residence in one of the gift shops

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Lucky those trolls didn’t come after me

And we got a glimpse of Gandalf leading his bunch of merry men, they are probably still looking for that missing ring.

  Gandalf and assorted friends

We had joined the “Wellington Airport VIP Club” and got a good deal for our lunch, with 10% discount off our food charges - every little bit helps.  Our choices of lasagne and panini were delivered piping hot and were very tasty.  And for dessert we can thank our friend Geoff C who told us about the Donut King Gold Card special – buy a coffee and get two free donuts! Great tasting coffee and those hot donuts were delicious!

Freshly cooked donuts

The rain was still coming down but the planes kept arriving and departing.  We watched through the large windows as a Jet Star plane was refuelled.  One end of the hose went into an underground tank and the other went into the underside of the wing.  

Refuelling the aircraft

With our lunch eaten, and the last sip of coffee drunk, it was time to board the bus and return home.  The weatherman has promised a better day for tomorrow, so we’ll get back into the packing and lawn cutting mode then. 

We’ve been waiting all day

We were under a lot of stress yesterday – just waiting.  Wednesday was confirmation day for our house sale and we waited on tenterhooks all day to get a phone call from our lawyer.  We worried and wondered all day.  Will the sale go ahead? Or perhaps the buyer will withdraw his offer?  Or then again, perhaps he will submit a lower offer because of perceived faults in the house? 

Finally, the lawyer phoned through at 4.30pm.  “Your homeless”, he told us.  The confirmation had come through – our house has sold!

Sharlene, our Real Estate Agent, called around today.  She had the happy task of attaching the big orange SOLD sign across the existing sign.  No more “Open Homes” for us on Sundays.  But we have plenty of sorting, packing and clearing out to keep us busy for the next few weeks.

Happy house sellers

Anyone with a Shoe Fetish?

The Kapiti Coast Museum in Waikanae is usually open weekends only, but the volunteers kindly opened up for our group midweek.  Housed in the former Waikanae Post Office building, it has many items from the original Post Office and telephone exchange on display.

Also on display is an amazing collection of shoes.  These were donated to the museum by Jim McIntosh, Kapiti shoemaker and collector, and only a portion of the collection is displayed here.  The shoes date from the early 1880s to 1990.

Some of the shoes on display

To tread the grapes at harvest

Kiwis will remember former Prime Minister Rob Muldoon,  who was in the top job from December 1975 to July 1984.  You  either loved him or hated him.  To supporters he was the voice of ‘the ordinary bloke’; but to critics he was a dictatorial bully.  Sure enough, there is a pair of Rob Muldoon’s shoes on display, which he wore on the eve of his announcing the fateful snap election in 1984.  His party was soundly trounced at this election.  After being deposed as leader, Muldoon sat on the back benches, and he died a year after leaving Parliament.

Prime Minister Rob Muldoon’s black brogues

There was everything from boots, evening shoes, sandals made from car tyres and much more.  For some “Kiwi Kitch” how about these paua shell shoes?

Paua shell shoes

The tiny little pair of red shoes  for Chinese ladies with bound feet were quite sobering to see, and we discussed how terribly painful it must have been to have your feet manipulated in this way.  But it was considered both a sign of wealth and beauty and no doubt the ladies concerned, and their husbands,  were very proud of their tiny little feet.

Chinese shoes for bound feet

There were all sorts of other interesting old items on display, from the early Post Office days, household items, school desks, together with ink pots quills and slates.  And these lovely old musical instruments too.  We could just imagine family and friends getting together for an evening sing-along around the old gramophone player.

Making music in the old days

Mobile Internetness

As many of our readers know we travel around in our caravan a lot and it is important to us to be able to regularly connect to the internet if for nothing else to update this blog and Jenny’s Quilting blog.

Our foray was to purchase a Sierra Wireless 326 “T” Stick from Telecom. This device has worked very well for us. We chose Telecom network mainly as our friends are on the Vodafone network and as coverage is very similar this gave us a point of difference. This T stick worked well with our laptop and as we are contemplating buying a second laptop both may need to on the internet at the same time, so it was time to purchase some type of router.

Sierra Wireless 326 “T” Stick

Our friends have a battery 3G travel router they purchased in the UK but sadly this device is not available in NZ. Therefore I have been trolling the internet for a locally sold alternative. I dismissed the offerings from both Telecom and Vodafone as their units were locked to their systems and this limited a possible change of provider later on down the track.

To cut a long story short, I had my eye on one brand but that is not sold anymore, and looking around (Google is a great friend) I located “LevelOne WBR-6803 150Mbps Wireless 3G Travel Router”. This router supported both Vodafone and Telecom “T” Sticks. However it did not support the Sierra Wireless “T” Stick we have. (According to the Supplier) but did support Telecom’s MF190 “T” Stick

LevelOne WBR-6803 150Mbps Wireless 3G Travel Router

I have since purchased an MF190 “T” Stick, configured the router, plugged it all up and Hey Presto it works.

Telecom MF190 “T” Stick

Now both Sierra and LevelOne informed me that the 326 would not work with the router so the devil in me just had to try. Low and Behold it worked without a hiccup. We have not tried all this in anger yet as no money has been loaded onto either “T” Stick so the proof will be when we next are away in the caravan for an extended period. Will report back later.

A glimpse of classic cars

We attended a day time concert at Southwards Theatre recently, adjacent to the world famous Southwards Car Museum. With more than 400 classic, vintage and rare cars, Southwards is the largest car museum in the southern hemisphere.  A visit to the museum was not on the agenda, but several interesting cars from the collection were dotted around the entrance for us to admire.

The racy red supercharged 1930 Alfa Romeo has a top speed of 150 and took just 14 seconds to go from 0-60 MPH.

1930 Alpha Romeo

The lovely old 1904 Wolseley Tourer, with black leather seats and plenty of brass fittings has a bit of a history.  It was the first car to travel from New Zealand to participate in the famous London to Brighton run.  This trip didn’t happen till 1962 when the car was 58 years old!

1904 Wolseley Tourer

Listed as “New Zealand’s Oldest Surviving Car” was the 1895 Benz.  It has been restored to its original specifications as supplied by the Daimler Benz museum in Stuttgart, and is one of the two remaining models of this year in the world.  Originally purchased in Paris by Mr Oates of Christchurch, he then shipped it to England and toured the country, driving over 1000 miles on the trip.  The car was then shipped over to his home town in New Zealand, arriving shortly before the turn of the century.

1895 Benz

The rest of the 400 cars on display were temptingly out of reach through the glass doors of the museum.  For car buffs, this is well worth a visit if you are in this part of the country, there is plenty here to keep you interested for hours.

“Razzle Dazzle” day-time Concert by Operatunity

Ever heard of Operatunity?  We certainly hadn’t, although the company has been around for ten years.  Their objective to “present an incredible concert, brimming with joy, delivered with profession and warmth and bucket loads of fun” was well and truly met.  John, one of our SLG friends, organised for our group to attend the Razzle Dazzle concert at Southwards Theatre, Paraparaumu.  We filed into the auditorium, found some seats amongst the hundreds of other mainly grey haired concert lovers, and settled down expectantly.

Waiting for the show to start

The five artists accompanied by the pianist kept our toes tapping as they delivered song and dance routines from well known shows.  Bouncy routines from Chicago and Cabaret got the concert off to a rollicking start.  Audience participation was required in the “Oom-pah-pah” song and we certainly did our very best.  The tempo slowed and I was in heaven as the handsome young man on stage crooned the beautiful lyrics of “On the night of a thousand stars” from Evita.  I just can’t help it, romantic love songs are my kind of music!

“Master of the House”, from Les Miserables was performed by a couple of real rogues, and a pair of frustrated American sailors lamented the lack of female company in “There’s nothing like a dame”, from South Pacific.  Yet another lovely song which brought tears to my eyes was Leonard Cohen’s classic "Hallelujah", beautifully harmonised by the four younger members of the cast.  (After the show had ended several of our group commented that this particular song gave them goosebumps).

Can you imagine what the elderly audience looked like when we were up on our feet and doing the moves to the song “Time Warp” from the Rocky Horror Show?  We jumped to the left, and stepped to the right, that wasn’t so bad.  But the words kept coming and we were exhorted to do the pelvic thrusts, which drive you insane!  The mind boggles what those on stage were thinking as the audience dutifully did as they were instructed before collapsing back on their seats.

The final song

It was a wonderful show, but it didn’t end there.  A light lunch was provided back stage as part of the ticket price, and the singers mixed and mingled as they took plates of food around.   Would I go to another of their shows?  Absolutely, I just loved it.  Sadly, Robin had to miss out on the day’s outing as he was busy providing transport to take his Mum to her hospital appointment.  But you can be sure that I told him all about it, and how much I had enjoyed the day.  He was sad to have missed out, he said.

Gypsy Rover’s owners are on the move

Our friends Dot and Derek from Gypsy Rover fame moved house, and we offered to help.  (We must be gluttons for punishment, as we did all this for Robin’s brother several months ago).  Come about 9.00am we were told.  The carriers were already there, the two fit young men made short work of packing the heavy furniture into the truck.  My task was to run the vacuum cleaner around to pick up any bits of dirt or fluff which had been left behind.

Cleaning lady 

Robin folded the back seats of our 4WD down and the area was packed up with bags and crates of food items and such like. 

   

4WD packed up

Then we hooked up the (previously packed) trailer and checked the lights to make sure they were connected properly.  Dot and Derek’s little car was also packed to the gunnels. Then it was “goodbye old house”, and on we drove to the new accommodation. 

Time to move on

The hard working truckers had other loads to deliver along the way so we arrived an hour or so ahead of them.  That gave us time to unload the cars and trailer, and pop down to the shops to buy Subways all round for lunch.  Plus a chewy chocolate chip cookie for extra energy, after lugging all those heavy boxes inside. 

The truck finally arrived

Those afore-mentioned young fit men then carried in the heavy furniture, carefully checking with Dot and Derek which room each piece was to go.  However, carrying some of the furniture upstairs proved to be a bit of a challenge.

 

Will it fit?

It will if we lift it over the banister

Whew…. that’s the last piece in.  Time for a cuppa, and then we headed back home, leaving Dot and Derek the unenviable job of unpacking all those boxes.