Steamin Along

What a delightful town! I want to live there, she had Never said before 😂 There was a mini festival for people with disabilities, so this steampunk went to investigate on foot. Meandering through the town on market day, there were very many delightful & wondrous things to discover! What a joy to find a town of friendly people!  This guy! Guardian of the Town Hall I suspect in his Kiwi beefeaters uniform😉 So many original buildings still in wonderful condition Just look at the details they used to put on buildings purely for asthetic purposes  ~sigh…I  do love a good piece of art Ooh a sample shop…chocolates? Coffee?  And no town would be complete without its sentinel. The Town Hall Clock I think the doctor may be nearby… Even the footpaths are decorative A fabulous little cafe full to the brim with teapot. I Dont recommend the coffee tho😉 It seems they have a famous horse or two

So yesterday I decided to make the tricky transition from semi knowledgeable woman to electrically charged woman. I went to a day workshop to learn about electrical systems. By morning tea my poor brain was veritably sparking with amps & volts. Memo to self…must buy one of these It’s a solar controller 😉 Jostling with a couple of hundred other women who were like wolves at a meat sale I tried to absorb the information & fill out my knowledge based on Electrical systems for Motorhomes. Why you ask, when Steamin Along is going up for sale? Because I’m looking at doing my own build😉 I forgot to take pics of the setup on display, such was my need to get out of there mid afternoon 😂 It was crazy! With women fawning over the speaker like he was the best thing since sliced bread, I couldn’t get near the equipment to look at it. We talked about solar panel setup, bus bars, volts, amps, amp hours, energy storage, diesel heaters, batteries with blue tooth & monitoring systems etc....

One very well loved house truck/motorhome/camper is about to go up for sale. She’s been at the doctors recently for some overhauling of her bits & pieces. There has been a bit of this after catching a virus during the last weekend away Talk about whinge! She’s been squealing at me almost constantly ! So back to the docs & the diagnosis was for a touch of surgery on some of her parts. A bit of a facelift if you will, of her nether regions.  After the trial run to Rotorua & back there was some reflecting of events & one has to admit that the level of pain was a bit higher than we would have quite liked going forward, especially as the drive was only an hour or so long. Most time periods for a level of comfortable driving have been around the two hour mark. There has been bread making in the new oven There has also been some pain management going on in the background, & we must admit that an increase in medication doesn’t always take care of business completely....

This week Steamin Along is at the doctors. The poor girl hasn’t been well lately & has needed the alternator refurbished, a battery status monitor (my choice) & now she’s at a new doctor because she failed her six monthly medical 😬 aka the Certificate Of Fitness  @ $190 I must say she’s high maintenance! 😂 The brakes are heading for a mental breakdown, as are the shocks & some spring 🌼 bushes are needed, as well as a new mirror & a middle seat bolt that fell out & mysteriously disappeared. All I’m hearing is kaching 💰 and the song 🎶 Money 💰 money 💴 money 💵. An extremely friendly piwakawaka (Fantail) at Acacia Bay in Taupo   I think she may have to go to a new home after this makeover as she’s suddenly been put out of my budget long term. So the answer I’ve been waiting for has come, & the painting is done. It’s time for the fox 🦊 and hounds 🐕 to go out hunting a new travel accessory.  Comparisons for the record is about the differences of...

I stopped in Tirau for a break from driving. Driving a truck or Motorhome requires a lot of brain gym & that’s tiring. I’ve decided that I’m going to show things that are off the beaten track, because we often miss those things in life in general. For me it’s like getting off the mouse wheel we so often run on, doing the same things, going to the same supermarkets & other places, & seeing the same people. I get utterly frustrated with that lifestyle, as I need challenge & variety to thrive. So without further ado, here are some things I saw on my last trip through Tirau. An old garage opposite the cafe I like, Lola & Co Some art on the footpath  I’ve begun walking the streets of towns so I can see what’s there. So often I stop for a wee break 😂 & don’t really look around. I want to experience the places, so I’m going to stay in each town for some days one day. Well there’s a nice dunny/loo/ toilet You’ve gotta love the sense of humour some people have done ...

  Did I mention how quirky this place is? It’s arty & an eclectic mix of styles, with abject poverty & wealth standing together in unison. A most amazing & very obvious comparison. A house in a field just waiting for visitors Fabulous art in some places, including the buildings themselves A beautifully restored cottage The old & new together I just love the original dwellings of yesteryear The ordinary is necessary for the significant to stand out Fabulous Rock formations And caves 🤩 A common sight in rural New Zealand, the lone farmhouse or shed There was a Lot of water on the land from a storm A heck of a lot actually Layered rock used to make stone walls. A funny story goes with this. My cousin showed me a stone wall & I told him I wasn’t into the modern stone walls with cut rock… It’s a natural formation it turns out 🤣  Darling verandah style porches That’s a swollen stream for you! Some pics were taken on the way to the quarry & others on the way...

The truck ride to the lime quarry was really cool. It was great to be out in nature again, from a high vantage point where I could see more & this post & the next will have unedited pics to show the true perspective of what I see.  A slip that covered half of the road with a mature tree & soil  Thankfully truck drivers have a special RT channel that they can tell each other about these sorts of things, when in range of each other. There were also sheep on the road at one point. We went out to the Benneydale area to get the truck loaded with the lime, & then to the Link Road area to a farm to drop the lime off, so I took some pics of some new things, that I haven’t covered in the blog. Yay new things & most importantly…places 😃 A trucks eye view on the road to the lime quarry, doing 20km an hour, so as not to disturb the lime dust too much Lime quarry where the stone is mined &  crushed The bins where the trucks get loaded from. They hold more than...