Whilst travelling down through Geraldine, Tekapo, Twizel, Cronwell, Frankton, Kingston, Mossburn to Nightcaps, I had forgotten how beautiful New Zealand was. Lupins, wild roses, dramatic scenery, snow capped mountains, dry tussock, lush green pastures. It must've been a good 10 years or more since I last travelled alont this route.
When we arrived, we were shown around the garden and the traction engine (above) and the implement shed. There's is definitely alot of projects in that shed to keep someone going for 50 years. Lots of stuff. I was certainly impressed by the lawn too. A much nicer lawn than mine. After that it was tea and bed.
The next day at around breakfast time we heard the coal train come past. It arrives with empty containers, gets filled up with coal and then goes away again. The kids rushed their breakfast and we all went out to see what the fuss was about.
They were taking the containers off the train with a huge forklift, then putting 2 of them onto a truck. That truck went to get the containers filled with coal whilst another truck got 2 more empty containers. The filled container truck came back and the full containers were put back onto the train. The train moved forward a little and empty containers were put onto the truck for the second round. as that truck sped off, the other arrived to have the full containers tranferred to the train and empty ones loaded onto the truck. And so on until the whole train was loaded with coal. Then off it went.
Whilst the truck drivers were partway doing this, one asked if Jamie and Bees would like a lift in the truck to see the other end and enjoy the ride. They jumped at the chance and so off they went. Meanwhile the other truck driver gave me a lift on his truck and I too saw the other end. I was expecting a huge hopper that poured coal into the truck from above. It was a front end loader that did it.
In the afternoon we went out for a drive around the area, driving through Tinkertown, Ohai, Tuatapre, Clifden, where we saw the Clifden suspension bridge and Monkey Island where we wanted to walk over to it where a seal was but the tide was in so couldn't. The kids had fun at the beach though. There was a very interesting house there too with it's turrets.
On Tuesday, John Esther's brother, got the steam engine warmed up and by the time we were out it was sharting to build up pressure. It took a few ours to get there but eventually it was ready to transfer that steam into useful movement to get a log chopped up into planks.The kids, being kids, got bored with the setting up and went away, then came back for the sawing, then went away again. One thing you can't appreciate in the pictures was the smell of the steam engine and the smell of the freshly sawn wood. It was fun but as a job, taking 2 hours to start the machine and 2 hours to tidy up, and however much sawmilling you had to do, whether it would be worth it now. Good to watch though. A few people came to watch the spectacle. The steam enging is on some herratige trail so if you're ever out and about and in that area you can go have a look. It might even be running.
On the last day there we went to John and Lallie's daughter and son-in-law's (Alison and Mark) place. They are managers on a farm and get to live there too. Being a farm, they were always working so after some lunch we went out to watch what they did. It's the largest sheep milking plant in the world supposedly and it's not long in being created so alot of ideas and processes are still being tweaked. It was interesting to watch the sheep being herded up and fed through the plant. Many of it being mechanised and comuterised so they can calculate how many litres of milk each sheep produces...etc. On the property were also a few barns with lambs which are born throughout the year and specific times to help feed the milking process. All the male lambs at only a few weeks old are sent off to be the meat under the mint sauce. We tried some cheese they made and it tasted OK. Like cheese really. Nothing too out of the ordinary. They also make powdered milk for the asian market where it's sold as an expensive luxury. Unfortunately, I did not take my camera with me but I have a feeling it was probably not the done thing to be taking photos of their plant when they're the pioneers of sheep milking and processing so all good anyway. It would have been nice to have taken a couple of pictures of Bees helping out and Jamie being thoroughly miserable because he wasn't allowed to watch TV and had to come watch the sheep being milked. The joys of parenting.
Thursday was the long drive back, taking 10 hours to get home but stopping along the way for food, grocery shopping and pictures.
A nice little holiday and here are the pictures to see if you're interested.
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