Wednesday 29 May 2013

In this case, it was the journey and not just the destination...

Five and a half hours driving took me through a lot of New Zealand countryside.   The Autumn is a beautiful time to travel and I enjoyed a perfectly splendid golden day!
The small village of Tirau is well known for the corrugated iron 'decorations'.    Even their information centre is in the same vein.  
Next was the even smaller village of Lichfield and these "old couples" were sitting invitingly outside a shop selling sheepskin and opossum fur products.  Made of ceramics and dressed in authentic oldies clothes I thought they were really cute.  

Once I left the sheep and dairy country behind there were only huge tracts of pine forest.   Kaingaroa Forest is a plantation forest of 2900 square kilometres right in the centre of our North Island.   In an effort to vary the scenery a little the roadside edges of the forest are planted in a variety of exotic deciduous trees and many different eucalyptus.   Despite the good intentions of forestry officials, plantation forestry is not the most exciting landscape.  
I was therefore, happy to be hailed by a friendly Maori man with a large STOP sign and instructed to wait while these trees were felled.   Sure looks like a dangerous job for the man in the digger but probably worse still for the other man on the ground.  He operates the chainsaw and makes the incision thereby directing the fall.  
Oh yes I went through Hobbiton too!   The small rural village of Matamata is the site of one of the movie locations and there are 'shrines' to the movie dotted about the town.   Even their information centre has got in the groove!

Well that's all for tonight.   I need to rescue the Date Loaf from the oven and then there will just be time for a stitch or two.   Perhaps I might get the Scottie Dog finished if I hurry.





7 comments:

Jan Gartlan said...

Wow. What an incredible place to be. NZ is definitely on my list of places to go in the next 5 years. It's relatively close to Tasmania so no excuse really. Enjoy your time

cucki said...

Wow so beautiful..
Have fun x

Karoline said...

Great photos :)

Ann at Beadlework. said...

I do like the corrugated iron sheep building, it made me smile. Lovely blue skies on your trip.

Pamela said...

Thanks for sharing your journey. There are so many interesting places along the way! I'm looking forward to seeing the Scottie Dog.

Karen said...

Beautiful pics. It looks like a great place to visit. I love the sheep building... very creative! :)

Fiona said...

Thank for the trip. I would love to visit sometime you make it sound so interesting.