Day 21 & 22

Twas another fine couple of days in Kiwiland. Encountered some heavy showers today but nice and sunny in-between.

NEVER buy Wire Crimpers from The Warehouse. Absolute crap! They only cost $3 but really are about as much use as an electrolysis hair-removal product for somebody with alopecia.

Tuned in the radio stations in the new car last night. Took a while. Interesting fact for the day:- Did you know that New Zealand has more radio stations per head than any other nation? The wireless in the car allows for 18 FM presets and 6 AM presets. They are all full now! 91FM (Hauraki Radio) seems to play a good selection of tunes. Not that Tania likes any of them...

There have been lots of yellow triangles appearing in the middle of the road everywhere recently. I thought that they were planning some roadworks of some sort. Turns out it is where they are putting in blue catseyes. What are the blue catseyes for I hear you scream. They are so the firemen can find the nearest fire hydrant. Simple but effective. Talking of which, Otomoetai Intermediate School was set on fire on Sunday (the other side of the park from us). This is the school that Aidan would go to for year 7. Not a lot of damage due to the bloody loud alarm notifying the whole neighbourhood to the fire.

Today we did a spot of job-hunting before setting off to Waihi for a run to try out the car and scope the place out to see if it is worth taking Aidan some day. Looks like he would enjoy himself. On the way up we stopped off at Waihi Beach where my camera bag nearly ended up underwater, bloody waves! (Pictured: Waihi Beach)

Waihi is one of the gold-mining towns in NZ. It isn't until you see an aerial photo of the place that you realise the scale of the mine (which is in the middle of the town). From the tourist office you can see nothing but the old mining shaft building but if you take a walk up a few steps you can look right down into the mine (which is huu-uuge). We thought we could take Aidan but not tell him about the mine until he sees it. I might tell him to run up the steps so I can get a photo of him and then wait for the reaction. Crappy photo I know and doesn't really do it justice. Look at the size of the buildings at the top and the size of the diggers half way down and you get an idea of the scale of the thing. (Pictured: Da mine.)

Edit --> Just found a better pic on the web

(Martha's Gold Mine in Waihi)

That's pretty much it on the updates front. Oh yeah, killed a White-Tail Speeder-Deeder da night. Perhaps I should start counting the kills... :)