Grandad's photos

We headed into town yesterday to see what we could see of the visiting Queen Mary cruise ship. We could only see the rear-end from Devonport. We drove through the traffic jam on Quay St up Gladstone Rd, and all we could see were containers stacked 6 high. The ship was too big to dock at the passenger terminal at Princes Wharf. The best view was from the Devonport ferry that we didn't go on....




Anyway, for a completely different story, related to the current fuss over legislation to force an ISP to bump people off their Internet account, we were visited by someone who stole nearly all of our monthly data allowance, as you can see. They either cracked our wireless modem, with WEP 64-bit encrypted password (I don't think so) or some b****** at World Exchange (who can read our password) passed on the login and password to one of their hairy mates who uploaded and downloaded stuff during the night hours on 13 and 14 February. They uploaded 1.5G and downloaded 2.5G and we are now on restricted download of 64K because we have exceeeded our monthly data cap. World Exchange said it's not possible for the broadband to be logged into by two people at the same time. I think facts show otherwise.

I received two emails about data useage, one at 02:08 am on 14 Feb that 75% of the data had been used, the next at 04:12 am on 14 Feb that 92% had been used.

With the proposed new legislation about illegal filesharing, World Exchange could cancel our account and our phone line. Currently the new legislation has been put on hold.

Here's a few more shots from our day in Christchurch. The sight-seeing DC3, the penguin juggler, and a couple more of the very talented Russian Pole Trio.



The girl could do a triple backflip and land right back on the bar.

Blenheim - Picton-Ferry-Wellington-Otaki Beach-Motuoapa-Auckland.






Here are some more pictures from the aviation museum near Blenheim. The planes are generally displayed with very lifelike wax figures and situations. Many of them are originals where only 1 or 2 exist.

We stayed in the Blenheim motorcamp on the North edge of town, set by a river below a road and a rail bridge. At 3am a train makes a big noise!



Some cousins of Julie's duck appeared for some bread scraps.



We explored Picton and caught the 2pm Bluebridge ferry to Wellington, heading out into the first traffic we had seen for a while. There is not a single road sign showing directions when you leave the ferry.





A night at Otaki Beach and then North for a night with Dave & Ruth at Motuoapa, then home.



Caught this train with 3 electric engines crossing the Mangaweka viaduct.

For the 5 day trip:
The campervan cost $50.88 when we booked (5 days at $5 a day plus something I forget), then $60.33 of road user charges for the 1260km we did. We used 121.74 litres of diesel for 1260 km, so 10.35 km/l, or 9.66 l per 100km, or 29 mpg. The diesel cost $124.27 and lpg $9.00. Camping grounds totalled $94. The rest was supermarket bills that we would have paid anyway. And the flight down was on air miles.

Some very clever features were fitted to this van. Shower/toilet cubicle, gas fired hot water. The table was used to fill the gap between seats and make a double bed. 2 burner lpg cooker & rangehood. 12V fridge. You could plug into mains power at the camp site and that would give you use of a microwave, toaster and heater, two power points, and also charge the lighting battery.

We have arrived in Blenheim, having had a quick look at Hanmer Springs (bridge above), crossed the Lewis pass and stayed last night in Reefton, travelling here today via Murchison and the Buller Gorge.


Very scenic trip with little traffic on good roads.


Looked in on Lake Rotoiti in Nelson Lakes National Park. A Model T 100 year convention is in Blenheim, this is a 1926 Ford T Misc.

We visited the Aircraft Heritage Museum near Blenheim, a stunning collection of planes from WW1 era.


Oh no! Fokker triplane crash! Charlotte will like this one!

We only have slow Net connection here, so there are only a couple of pictures.

Bluebridge ferry to Wellington tomorrow at 2:30pm.

We flew to Christchurch, not by Airbus (yay!). Boeings are good.


Picked up a backpackers rental car, a Honda Fit, so called because the engine has a fit if you try and pass anything. Then off to Akaroa, nice old French village. Temperature was over 30 degrees which made it a bit difficult.

We won't talk about being lost in Westfield shopping centre in ChCh!


Sunday we walked from our hotel through Hagley park to the city centre. This bellbird was in the gardens.


Julie checked out an Anglican church service in the cathedral.


We watched a trio of buskers, the 'Russian Pole Trio', doing some amazing stuff. They are from Canada.


Then out to Waikuku Beach to visit a distant relly of Julies. Look at these people swimming with 40 knots of onshore breeze!