Saturday, October 31, 2009

Steam and crafts

mmmm crafts. With crafts in the title - I had to go... plus it was a long weekend so was a good excuse to do something. So last Monday we all piled in the car and drove down to pleasant point to go on the steam train. "me go on train" Jack said the whole way. Which kinda wore a bit thin after about half an hour. The train was the old Fairlie Flyer and it has been so well looked after. It steamed into the station with a big puff of Steam that billowed up and sat just under the ceiling of the station. We got on and Jack was soooo excited. The carriages were lovely inside with beautiful big leather seats. There was a bit of a queue getting on so we missed out on getting one of the private carriages so we sat in a public one - but managed to get our own wee private one on the way back.
Jack was very impressed when the train let off a big puff and a toot toot.
We got to the other end and looked around the crafts stalls and bought some devine chocolate brownie Fudge. mmmm Fudge. Jack played with the Alpacas and went on the jigger and the wee play train and we looked through another train. we also had a wee look at the railcar which we were going to try and go for a ride on - but always seemed to be full.
So Jack spent the rest of the day shouting "All aboard, toot toot".

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Waitaki power station 75th Anniversary

Last weekend was Labour Weekend so we packed up the car and a picnic and headed to Kurow to go through the Waitaki power station. They had a free open day because it was their 75th anniversary. It was a really cool experience. It 's hard to believe the stuff that the construction workers that built it went through. Although as Steve points out it was during the great depression and they were probably the lucky ones, because at least they had jobs. Some of the conditions that they worked in were horrendous. You wouldn't even dream of building a dam with a pick and shovel these days.
Here are some pics from our day ( it was a lovely day although a tad windy)




Well we made it...

to Twizel. The day we arrived it was snowing ( not very heavily - but still snowing) which reminded me of how extreme the weather can be here. We have been so busy since we arrived - unpacking, sorting, exploring, enrolling and more. Jack has just started preschool on Tuesday. We couldn't get him into Kindy as there is a rather large waiting list. So hopefully he will start Kindy next year, but in the mean time he is doing 3 afternoons in preschool ( afternoons was all that was available) He seems to really be enjoying it. It's always a mission trying to get him to leave. We moved into a house which was on the market and has now been sold. Although the new people sound like they might be keen to keep us on as tenants, but we have also put an offer on a house - so a bit unsure as to what is happening with the living arrangements at the moment but hopefully things will be sorted soon and we can start to settle down. I have started a sewing class at the school to meet some people and have just started sewing some stuff to sell at the local christmas market they have here. Looking forward to the summer and lazing around at the lake.