Advertisement
Published: September 17th 2005
Edit Blog Post
The as yet to be named car....
Jo-Ann finally achieves her ambition of being a car show model Hello all from a wet and miserable Sunday in New Zealand - today is Wellington at its worst so a good day to spend some time doing another blog.
Our best news is that we've finally bought a car so we have a fair bit more mobility and freedom than we've had relying on our feet and public transport for so many months. We got a '96 VW Golf, which has only done 105,000 kms (65,000 mils), which is pretty low for 9 years. It was a private purchase and we spotted the problem with the exhaust when we test drove it (it basically needed a new one as there was a huge rusty hole in the muffler) but our inexperience with cars showed when we failed to spot the automatic transmission problem that meant it couldn't get into 5th gear even on the motorway! The fuel was disappearing like nobody's business - not a good time to have poor fuel efficiency....
We were always going to get it serviced after we'd bought it and we got $500 off the price for the exhaust problem, but we could have done without the $980 we've also had to spend getting
Picnic-nominal
Getting stuck into the cheese and grapes the transmission fixed and the spark plug, pollen filter and something else replaced. Oh, well - you live and learn. I still think we got a good deal and we'll look after it a bit better than the previous owner whose solution to hearing strange noises coming from her car was to turn the radio up - yes, she was a blonde.
We got it last Saturday morning and we got a picnic together and headed up the Hutt Valley to Kaitoke National Park, as it was a beautiful sunny day. After tucking in we went for a walk around the park through the forest and it was great as it was the furthest I'd walked since I'd been ill so it was good to know I still have a tiny bit of fitness to build on. On the way home we popped in on our old landlords, Simon & Liann, and checked out their new landscaped garden, which looks fantastic especially on such a great day. We stayed long enough to see the end of the rugby on Sky (Wellington scraping home against Bay of Plenty), have a cup of tea and catch cold from Dominic.
The
Wobbly Bridge
The dry weather (until today!) illustrated by the low river level next day was also gorgeous although the breeze was cooling and we went for a drive around the bays of Wellington stopping at various places and eventually finding somewhere to eat that didn't have people queuing for tables. It had good views and we were able to see the snow covered tops of the Kaikoura Ranges on the South Island.
Yesterday we had a great pub lunch and then went to an afternoon concert. There's band called Fly My Pretties which is a collaboration of people from a number of Wellington bands and when they get together to play live they record and video all their shows and then release a compilation CD and DVD - the never record in the studio so all their recorded stuff is live. There's 13 of them although the most they had on stage at any one time was 7 - they made Belle And Sebastian look small! They arranged 3 shows in Wellington and they all sold out real fast so they put on a special matinee show that we manage to get to. It was fantastic - so much variety of music and amazing musicianship and I can't wait for the
album to come out. I wonder if you'll be able to hear me telling the noisy folk a few rows from us to keep quiet in my own inimitable way? Probably not.
Then we headed off to the stadium to watch the Wellington Lions trash the Southland Stags 53-12 in the National Provincial Championship. The Lions are now 3rd hot on the heels of Auckland and Canterbury - roll on the play-offs!
Our other purchase is a barbie!! Not the doll that Simon still plays with but a 3 burner gas barbeque which will fit nicely on our balcony!! We bought it on trademe.co.nz which is the kiwi equivalent of ebay - we probably overpaid a bit at $199 but still much cheaper than buying a new one. We pick it up some evening this week - let's hope for some bbq weather!
We're both so glad that the general election is over...or is it? I've always found politics pretty dull but I've tried to take more of an interest so I can decide which way to vote. However, it's even worse when you can't vote and its so hard to get interested. It was so close
Cityscape
Wellington city taken from the northern most point of the Miramar Peninsula (think I just made that name up!?) with the ruling Labour party winning by by 1 seat from National but they have proportional representation here which means there's now weeks of complicated negotiations with the various mickey mouse parties to form a coalition. The UK's first past the post system has its critics but its nice and simple - you get more seats than anyone else, you win, job done! Anyway, Helen Clark will stay as our neighbour for another 3 years.....
We've also managed to sort our flights for our trip home. We arrive in Edinburgh on Friday 30th Sept and I'll head straight over to Uddingston to stay with my Mum & Dad and Jo-Ann will probably join me a couple of days later after spending the weekend with her Mum. Then we head over to Edinburgh on the Wednesday or Thursday to stay until the next Wednesday when we'll head down to Woking so stay with my sister and Jo-Ann will hopefully catch up with her pal Marshall. Then we fly back on Friday the 14th. It'll be a great 2 weeks!!
Its still chucking it down outside so we'll get on with some much needed sorting of paperwork into our filing
Didn't your Mother tell you it's rude to point?
Enjoying the views at Breaker Bay (can't actually remember its name but it's worth a guess) box and perhaps make some soup! Hmmm....playstation sounds a much better idea.
Later.....Angus & Jo-Ann.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.224s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 13; qc: 72; dbt: 0.1852s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Ally
non-member comment
Blondes.....?
Hey I dont remember owning a VW Golf ???? And I thought it was just me that drowned out exhaust noise with music...must be a blonde thing right enough. Looking forward to catching when you guys get back!