Random from the Wairarapa and King Country

Strangely, for me at least, I didn't take many photos while I was in the Wairarapa recently.  My camera stopped charging on the second day.  The battery is quite expensive so I didn't have a spare and even if I had owned one, I probably wouldn't have thought to have it with me.  I take crap photos with my phone so don't have many to share.  The first thing I did when I got home was order a new battery which is now in the camera and life is back to normal.

I wish I had taken more shots when we stopped for a closer look at a fresh farm milk supply cabin up a side road not far from Carterton.  The milk comes from a local farm, and is supplied to customers, untreated, through a vending machine.  It is dispensed into glass bottles for $3 a litre.  Customers can supply their own bottles if they wish.  

Suppliers say nothing is added, nothing is taken away. There are as many arguments for raw fresh milk as there are against it. 

Regulations for raw drinking milk were passed late last year and farmers who sell raw milk to consumers must be registered with the Ministry for Primary Industries.  

There doesn't always have to be a reason for a photo, does there?  Some just take themselves, especially on a phone.  And then sometimes I like the result.  It took me a while to remember this wall and chairs were in the visitors centre at Stonehenge Aotearoa.

This one took itself at Cobblestone Museum.

On the way back home we went cross country to Te Kuiti to see the recently unveiled statue of Sir Colin Meads. 

 A little admirer touching the shoelaces of the great man.  Sir Colin himself was impressed with the detail that the sculptor had got right as even his laces were done up as he used to lace them.  

Sir Colin is now 81 and very ill with pancreatic cancer.  You can't live in New Zealand and not know he is regarded by many as New Zealand’s greatest ever rugby player.  He has the reputation of being a good, honest, hardworking bloke.

His statue is truly impressive.  2.9 metres bronze, the man appears to be in full flight, the rugby ball dwarfed by his legendary huge hands. The likeness to the man is remarkable.

Another visitor agreed to stand in front of the statue, to give an idea of the scale.  We agreed that it was about 1.5 times real life size.

  

My one criticism is about where it is located.  It has pride of place, right on the middle of town but the railway building behind just doesn't look like the right backdrop.   

In a cafe on the other side of the road the female staff were sporting new tshirts celebrating the life of Sir Colin and the new statue.  They really like them and one of the girls took off her apron to appear in my photo.  Thanks, girls.

 

Wairarapa

There's some rather clever marketing going on in the Wairarapa.  I don't know why I always call the area the Wairarapa.  I've seen it referred to as both with and without the 'the'.  The area is only about an hour's drive north of Wellington and each of the little towns makes itself a destination for something in an effort to attract the Wellingtonian's weekend dollar.  Carterton, where we stayed has its central location as an advantage and claims to be the arts hub of the Wairarapa, although we didn't discover any of the authors, illustrators and painters it is home to.  

We did, however, visit Paua World where paua shell is incorporated into the jewellery and homeware which is admired by many tourists.  Not my cup of tea but there was an interesting video about the life cycle of the paua and how they harvest and polish the shells.

Stonehenge Aotearoa, on the other hand, was fascinating.  Yes, New Zealand's very own Stonehenge!  On a rural hillside, overlooking the Tararua Ranges.   A full scale working adaptation of the original, built right here in Aotearoa (New Zealand) to help us understand the wonder of stone circles.

I'd never remember everything they told us so have cheated to gather this information.

 

Stonehenge Aotearoa is a giant astronomical clock constructed from circles of stone, as is its 4000-year-old ancestor in England. Both are 30 metres in diameter, and they  have the same task, but that is where their similarities end. Our Stonehenge is designed for its specific location’s latitude and longitude. Its role is to accurately track the seasons and help New Zealanders understand the beauty, complexity and scientific truths of our southern skies.

Though there are other astronomical clocks, this one is unique as it links with Maori astronomy and the navigational points of the Maori star-compass that Kupe and his fellow sailors used to navigate their way to and from New Zealand and around the Pacific.

Richard Hall is one of New Zealand’s foremost astronomers. It was his idea to build a Stonehenge here. But this vast structure is not a one-man creation. The Phoenix Astronomical Society, which has 250 members, provided voluntary labour over a period of two years to construct it. Robert Adam spent over a thousand hours completing the required surveying and astronomical calculations and the Royal Society of New Zealand helped in the funding.

 

Near Stonehenge Aotearoa is the most frequently photographed building in the Wairarapa, known as the Haunted House at Ahiaruhe.  It sits on top of a ridge and can be seen from miles around.  It was built in Palmerston North in 1925 and moved by a farmer to this location in four pieces in the mid 1980s. The farmer intended to renovate it and make it his family home but the couple separated soon after and he was left with four children to raise at a time when it was hard to make money on a farm.  There was no money to spend on the house so he so he has left it to Nature’s devices and it has continued to deteriorate. It didn't look what I imagined a haunted house would look like.

There are fences in all my shots of Stonehenge Aotearoa, so am linking to Gosia's Fences from around the World.