Sting and Paul Simon

Laura and I went to New Plymouth at the end of January for an evening without kiddos.  We had dinner with our fellow Hawera ex-pats, James and Elise, and after dinner we walked to the TSB Bowl of Brooklands for a concert.

We went to see Sting and Paul Simon in concert together.  It was a great show and the first time we'd seen either performer live.  They had a huge cast on stage with at least sixteen musicians in the combined bands.  The weather was a little iffy, but it only sprinkled on us for a few minutes, not nearly enough to dampen the pleasant evening.

Tongariro Crossing

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Today we tackled the Tongariro Crossing, billed as the best one day tramp (Kiwi
for hike) in New Zealand.  The standard way to make the crossing is to park near
the northern terminus of the track and catch a shuttle to the southern trail
head where you begin the tramp.

On a beautiful day, you can see for miles as you summit Red Crater along the
trail.  You can also climb to the 7500 ft summit of Mt Ngauruhoe, the stand-in
volcano for Mt Doom in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Today was not one of those days.  Early in the week, the 5 day weather guess
(forecast) called for clear skies and calm winds.  I hastily made kid-sitting
arrangements, got a motel for the night and booked a ride with a mountain
shuttle service.  As the week wore on, the weather guessers were still calling
"Cloudy in the morning with fine spells", but my instinct was to cancel the trip
as I saw the tail end of Tropical Cyclone Marcia tickling the west coast of New
Zealand.  I should've gone with my instinct.

Our crossing was a fight against the weather for two of the seven hours it took
to complete the hike.  The summit of Red Crater is only about 6400 ft above sea
level, but there was a steady 40+ knot wind from the west with driving mist that
soaked us.  We were solidly in the weather and experienced none of the vistas we
had hoped to see.

Oh well.  At least we packed layers to ward off the cold and we didn't wear a
stitch of cotton.  Many of our fellow hikers were in shorts with light jackets
(some with jeans).  We were miserable, but they were pushing their luck.  It was
challenging.  We never intended to take the kids as the are-we-there-yets would
have been overwhelming.  Some kiddos did make the hike, but not many.

If anyone is interested in hiking on the track, I would suggest leaving your car
at Mangatepopo car park (the southern trail head) if there is the slightest hint
of bad weather.  Plan and execute a hike to Red Crater and return to
Mangatepopo.  Doing this, I think you'll see 90% of what there is to see and
you'll be in a better position to make a no-go decision if the weather turns
nasty.

We did take time to snap some photos but we didn't get many near the Red Crater
summit because we really wanted to keep moving.

Starting out

On the way to Soda Spring

Some boardwalks

Soda Springs

In the clouds

Windy, rainy and cold

Selfie at the summit

Some folks didn't dress for the weather

Note the poor chap behind me

Quick lunch by the Emerald Lakes

Blue Lake

Last stop on the way down

Thermal vents

Finally dried out

Done!

Beach Photos

You might be getting tired of our beach photos, but I couldn't resist a few more we took one evening during a particularly low tide.  There'll be things about New Zealand we won't miss (the Taranaki wind, for one).  But we will miss our beach.

Tawhiti Museum

The local museum in Hawera is called the  Tawhiti Museum.  We got a chance to go one Saturday afternoon and it was really interesting.  They've got a large collection of farm implements housed at the museum and several rooms representing Maori and early pioneer life.  The museum is largely the vision of one man, Nigel Ogle and we met and talked with him for a few minutes in the gift shop.

Nigel

I found the Maori displays very compelling.  The initial contact with Europeans took place in the mid-1600s and remained the only contact for about a century.  In the early 1800s, Europeans began trading and introduced firearms to the Maori.  Inter-tribal warfare was well established prior to European arrival and firearms became the primary trade good delivered to the Maori.  The introduction of firearms touched off the Musket Wars in the early 1800s.

Wings Over Wairarapa

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A few months ago, I watched a Nova about an outfit in Masterton building (re-manufacturing) flying copies of World War I aircraft from original blueprints.  It was really interesting and later I learned that Peter Jackson (director of Lord of the Rings) owned the company and was funding the operation.  I saw a flyer for an airshow at Masterton one day when I was flying at the Hawera airfield and I jumped at the opportunity to go.  The airshow was called Wings over Wairarapa and it was held at Hood Aerodrome.  I've been to a lot of airshows over the years and they've gotten to be old hat, but we really had fun seeing the unique airplanes and watching them fly.

Number 5 is waaay out

Newest addition to the RNZAF fleet

The business end

Avenger

de Havilland Vampire

de Havillland Venom

BAC Strikemaster

F4U Corsair, a favorite of mine

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Curtis P-40

Two-seat Spitfire

These are some shots of Peter Jackson's outfit.  It was a different kind of airshow when these guys were flying.  They put up five or six different aircraft at the same time and had a mock dogfight.  I don't think they every got outside the airfield boundary during the fight!  It really scaled these aircraft for me in terms of how slow they flew and how maneuverable they were.

I chatted with a RNZAF pilot about their new T-6s and we ran into a couple of Beech company pilots who are here from Wichita for a few months doing initial checkouts.

The new RNZAF primary trainer

Another fun aspect of the show was the vintage military vehicles and the WWI re-enactors in period uniforms.  The boys liked watching the re-enactors fire their old guns.

It was a fun day and we stopped in Palmerston North for dinner on the way home.  After a day in the sun, it was good to get home and have a shower.