Wellington - after the storm

A ferocious storm of wind and rain hit Wellington about 5pm on Thursday 20 June.  It meant that my flight to see new granddaughter Nina in Picton was cancelled.  The next morning Cecily and I took Jack for a walk around Kilbirnie to look at the local damage.  It was still very windy as you can see from the wind needle.

Debris washed up near Maranui cafe - Lyall Bay

Some broken trees in Te Whiti St

Broken light fitting and broken fence (behind Cecily) - Rongotai Road

Still very windy!

Pigeons gathered in the lee of a building

Street sign for dogs?

Before the school bell

21 June 2013 - A visit to Isla and Brielle's classrooms before school on a Friday morning

Isla standing in front of one of her paintings

Brielle has recently changed classrooms and is now in J7.  The computers are a big attraction before school starts.

Thursday tramp to Waitahinga dam

13 June - Our Thursday tramping group walked in to Waitahinga dam which is past Bushy Park near Whanganui.  It was a five hour round trip including stops along the way.  Nineteen in the group, it was great to have Ann and Randal Morgan join us for the day.  Basil (Bazza) Hooper from the Whanganui tramping club met us too - he was the driving force behind developing this track and he was a wonderful guide for the day.  We had some fun setting up a replica of a photo taken over 100 years earlier.  Our dress code was not so elegant though.

The gathering in this photo is on the site of the Okehu/Waitahinga dam built in 1904 for water supply to Wanganui. The dam was increased in height in 1926.

And over a hundred years later

The track signs were very well done

Ann, Owen, Royce and Randal all in one photo

Lyall Bay School playground

The school playground is a favourite place after school.  These photos were taken on Friday 7 June.

Little comes to the playground too

Brielle with her good friend Toby.  Note the missing front tooth!

Isla working on the bars at the senior playground 

... and the right way up

A day in the snow

30 May - Thursday tramp to Rangiwahia hut

Some of the group at the hut - altogether there were seventeen in the group today. 

Enjoying a "natural ice cream" - someone found a cone wrapper in the snow!

New toilets with bird murals!

How not to find a geocache

While staying at Palliser Bay I found quite a few geocaches while the photographers were busy with their cameras.  One unfortunate geocaching incident was captured by a camera club member.

Here is the story as described in my log on geocaching.com.

GC2DZDH Kupe's Sail

How not to find this cache: 1. Don't cross the fence - the GPS was quite unsettled approaching this one and I climbed the rickety fence with barbed wire on top and found myself in a sea of flax - hmm... most unlikely. Now the GPS was pointing back over the fence towards the road. OK now to climb back over the fence again. Unfortunately just as I was stepping over I lost my balance and fell over the fence on the road side, downhill into some long grass. Even more unfortunately my over trousers got caught and twisted in the top two wires, one of these being barbed wire. My body weight on the downhill side meant that I couldn't free my stuck (and ripped) over trousers and I was left with one leg stuck upwards in the air on the fence and not much I could do about it. 

Owen to the rescue - see my leg stuck in the fence

Exricated at last

 Luckily my husband,  who was sitting in the car did notice my predicament and came to my rescue, freeing my leg and over trousers with quite some difficulty. 2. Best not to do this on a camera club weekend outing to Palliser Bay. The other occupant of the car had a big lens and a journalistic sense "capturing the moment".  Her photos accompany this log. After all this drama it was an easy, typical drive-by find. This rock feature - Kupe's Sail - is truly amazing and very photogenic!

Kupe's sail

Amy and George

25 May - A short visit to see Amy, Paul and George, now 6 months old.