West Coast of South Island 2008

Scenery Shots of our travels

Recent Family photo's of Kids

As requested here are some photos of the kids

and one of Brendon taken at Lake Brunner (which is the west

coast of South Island).

Robyns NZ Wedding 8/11/08

Robyns NZ Wedding 8/11/08

Robyn had a large wedding in May 08 in England. About 300 people attended.

This is Robyns new man! His name is David.

Officially Robyns new name is Mrs Hollingsworth. That is such a great English name! I think that the spelling of the last name is right.

I would have to say that Robyn looks Great!! on her wedding day! She must have worked really hard and lost a lot of weight! David is a rather dashing young fellow dont you think? David has an identical twin brother! Robyn was one of a twin and Janet and Brenda are also twins. Dave said he thinks triplets would be even better than twins.

Representing the old school friends present at the wedding was myself and Debbie Bunyan and Tania Sickling (nee Scott) and Jessica Ansio (not sure of her married name. from Morrinsville Intermediate school days). Trudy Spencer was invited but now lives in Australia. She did not come!

Welcome to Nathan David Gray 9th November 2007!!

The Arrival of Nathan David Gray

Nathan was due on the 29th October!! he was 41 weeks, plus 3 days overdue. His birth weight was 9 pound 5 ounces. He was born in Queen Mary hospital in Dunedin. Labour was about 4 hours long with no pain relief and straight gas. Nathan decided to grace us with his presence on the 9 November. He was 2 days away from being an induced baby.Came just on time! He is doing really well and is already sleeping through the night! I have been really lucky with the baby stage, of sleeping with all three of our children.

While in the maternity unit in Balclutha the nurses were all saying how they could not believe

how the baby of Dianne does not cry!! In all there years they have never seen such a dosile baby! I was in Balclutha Maternity Unit for 5 nights and he only cried once when he was getting the pin prick test on his heel. Dad is very proud to be a father again and the kids have taken to him well. They cuddle him and give him heaps of kisses.

Caleb & Hayley's Teddy bears Picnic

Those Loverly Summer Days....

We decided to go to the local park in Balclutha to have a teddy bears picnic. Was a really nice way to enjoy a very mild day for Balclutha.
It was such a great way to relate to the Children and create conversation at there level. Great to see there individual personalities shinning through!

Caleb &

Those Lazy Summer Days...

Balclutha Landscape

This is a typical picture of most of the landscape (actually taken on way to Gore a little way out of Balclutha) around Balclutha. Absoutely beautiful! Reminds me of the days when I was a kid being brought up on a hobby sheep farm. Rolling green hills and Aoteroa land of the 'Long White Cloud'. South Otago really does have its share of really COLD temperatures, but it can be beautiful from about September onwards and througout the summer.

Our Trip to Auckland Zoo/Kelly Tarltons June 07

June Visit To North Island 2007

We visited the Zoo with Brendons parents and his sister Vanessa and daughter Hannah. We had a very action packed day. Caleb and Hayley had a lot to take in! For them it was like the picture books that we quizz them on becomming a reality. Yes that is a real Elephant...Giraffe...Monkey....Flamingo. Hayley will be 3 in March 2008 and she is at the perfect age to take to the zoo. Caleb nearly told me just about every single animal! He was very proud of himself. I would advise any of you intending taking kids to the zoo under the age of 4 to take a stroller. There is a lot of walking involved and the kids were able to last a lot longer by having a stroller.

There is something about the Zoo and children that is really special! It is not the same with out taking your children. Last time I went as an adult I found it a bit boring. This time it seemed much more fun!

We also went to Kelly Tarltons Underwater World. Yes we did decide to do the rip off theme park thing in Auckland! However I have to say that the zoo prices were not too bad! However I found the food was a RIP OFF at the cafe there!

Kelly Tarltons was a real eye opener for the kids and has got a lot bigger that what it used to be in the 1990's which was the last time I had been there! More fish than the kids had seen in there life time. They had a really interesting public display of a man feeding a tank full of Stingray's! And of course he had to be standing right in the middle of the tank with these GIGANTIC big stingray's brushing past him on all sides and eating food out of his hands! After the Crocdille Hunter got killed by one I thought it was a bit freaky! Aparently the barb that went through the Crocidlle hunter's heart would have killed him Instantly. There would have been no suffering or delay in his death. Which is good from a humane point of view.

The Penguins in the photo above were at Kelly Tarltons.

Our Trip To Ranfurly

A

Closing Down Farm Gear Sale

We decided to go to a clearing sale just out of Ranfurly (we ended up buying a Stallion 50 Teat calf feeder). The Scenery was an artists dream! We went way inland to Central Otago. We went through the famous Middlemarch (where all the handsome batchelors go to that famous singles dance where they are looking for a wife).

The History of the Taieri Gorge Railway:

The Taieri Gorge Railway comprises 60 km of the Otago Central Railway of the New Zealand Railways, started in 1879 and closed in 1990.

It's history is both the history of the Otago Central Railway and of the Otago Excursion Train Trust, which ran it's first excursion train on the railway in 1979 and became so succesful that they bought 60 kms of the railway when it closed in 1990, forming todays company and its operations.

The Otago Central Railway branched from the South Island Main Trunk at Wingatui, 12 kilometres south of Dunedin, and ran through Middlemarch, Ranfurly, Omakau and Alexandra to Cromwell in the heart of Central Otago, 235 kilometres from the Junction .

More recently on the Taieri Gorge Railway:

The Minister of Railways announced that the Central Otago railway line would be closed on 30 April 1990.
Simultaneously the Mayor of Dunedin announced that the City Council would buy the line through the Taieri Gorge and as far as Middlemarch provided the community raised $1 million to finance the project. This would enable the Otago Excursion Train Trust to continue to operate excursions and The Taieri Gorge Limited, which had become one of Dunedin's leading tourist attractions.
By July 1990 $1.2 million had been raised and thus the 60 km Taieri Gorge Railway became New Zealand's longest private railway. In 1995 the close relationship between the City of Dunedin and the Otago Excursion Train Trust was cemented with the formation of the Taieri Gorge Railway Limited, a Local Authority Trading Enterprise jointly owned by the City and the Trust, which now operates the Taieri Gorge Railway with assistance of the Trust's volunteer members. These days Central Otago is really famous for the cycling tracks where the train tracks used to be in the Taieri Train tracks. The scenery is breath taking. I have included a few photo's of what we encountered on the way to Ranfurly.