This morning in Gisborne there was a distinct frost on the ground and car - our previously mild winter is turning a lot colder now, but luckily we still have blue skies and sunshine to keep our spirits high (and of course Barry's other spirits help too!).
Last week we had five days in Wellington, enjoying wandering around the capital city, as well as catching up with Barry's son Tom and staying a night with a couple of friends, Fiona & Hayden. The bonus being there for Barry's niece Emma, and her fiancé Matt's, hen and stag do's. Part of the girls night out involved a pole dancing lesson - if you're friends with me on facebook you'll have seen some of the intricacies of that, but the images won't be appearing anytime soon on this blog! Barry and the boys chose bowling (and I'm obliged to tell you that Barry won!), and a spot of beer tasting.
We stayed with Tom in his rented house on the side of a hill in the outskirts of Wellington - many of the homes perch precariously on hillsides (or so it feels!) ...
Sandra examining the giant squid on display, at 4.5 metres (14.6 feet) long it was caught by fishermen in the Antarctic waters and has been preserved for posterity - it's a female, there's never been a male captured to date, so no-one knows what they look like
Having just been to the 'Murder House' (dentist!), Sandra was paying particular attention to this display from the years of the school dentist in NZ
Awesome Maori carving which would be seen at the entrance to a meeting house (Marae)
The 'Britten' V1000 motorcycle which set numerous speed records throughout the world was hand built by Kiwi designer John Britten who went on to form The Britten Motorcycle Company
Thursday 21 October
We'd set the alarm this morning for 0800hrs, so we could get through Blisworth Tunnel and find a suitable mooring ready to be collected by some kind person from Enterprise Car Hire in Blisworth. We were leaving Northern Pride for the weekend, taking a car load of our belongings and travelling to my parents' house and then to The New Forest for a weekend with my family.
Greeting us outside was another beautiful, blue sky day. Jack Frost had paid us an overnight visit and left a layer of sparkling white on the ground and scattered on the moored boats, so Barry was in his element photographing it all. He'd love to be in England when it snows bless him, so this was probably the next best thing. One day he'll experience it, and it'll be interesting to see how long his keenness lasts!
As the sun rises, it warms the frozen boats and looks like they're steaming!
Everything is covered with a layer of frost, including our barge pole
Such perfect whiteness contrasted against the black and orange - beautiful
The Boat Inn and The Canal Shop were both still very quiet
A layer of frost covered these water jugs
Soon we were heading for the third longest tunnel on the system, meeting another boat coming the other way which looked like it'd met a number of wet patches - so we made sue we were covered appropriately for the dark and cold passage.
Off we set for the tunnel - the 'Leggers' hut beside the entrance
We weren't sure what the concrete ring was from ...
Past the boat that was coming through the lock and towards Blisworth
We got through uneventfully and soon found a good mooring that had somewhere to park a car close by so we could pack up some of our accumulated 'stuff' easily.
Built in 1879 by Joseph Westley but now converted into attractive apartments
No shortage of boats passing today
No comments:
Post a Comment