Out and about

 


The mighty Suzuki M109 with a beautiful Cloudy Bay behind - Not a bad part of the world all said!

Well hello folks and welcome to some more random mutterings here from the top of New Zealand's fabulous South Island. What a few weeks we've had with settled weather, warm temperatures and a fair few activities to keep things interesting - More on that in a minute.

Firstly I'm soon to start my Leave Without Pay (LWOP) after having to ensure yet another rollercoaster of emotions at work this past week. In short I was asked to put myself forward for an upcoming promotion position which, it was thought, I had a really good chance of being chosen for. I have the qualifications, seniority and recent HQ/Staff Course experience which I thought was what they were looking for. It turns out that wasn't the case and so it feels like I'm back to square one in terms of getting ahead. On a positive note it has now solidified my plans to proceed on LWOP and so I'm going to take a break from the world of work for a little while. After this last few weeks I can't wait quite frankly! 

Moving onto things more pleasant a local car detailing firm held an open day this last weekend and I went along to take a look. We've taken the motorhome there a few times in the past and they do a grand job. It sounds like the ideal second career for me - Polishing and caring for nice machinery would be a satisfying way to make a living that's for sure!

Below are some photos I took whilst there.
 


Nice Mustang



My personal favorite - An Aston Martin Vantage though it needed a good clean - How ironic


A mid-1970s MGB which was probably the best presented machine there

In other news the motorhome has now been sold. It didn't take long to be honest and I think that we could have perhaps asked a little more money for it however we still made back what we paid for it in the UK back in 2014 so we can't complain. The couple who bought it seemed to be really chuffed and I suspect that it is going to see a fair bit of use over the next couple of years. It's always good to see a machine like that being used for its intended purpose and they live in Dunedin so it'll be in a nice part of the world too.

My Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) social rides continue and this last weekend saw us head West to a spot on the Buller River - At the Lower Buller River Gorge to be more precise to a cafe called Berlins. A round trip of some 460Kms made for a good day's ride and the roads and weather were great too. In terms of looking after one's mental health this does a fine job and riding with others who ride to a good standard (They've all passed their Advanced motorcycle test) keeps things satisfying too. The Moto Guzzi V85 did a grand job yet again. Incidentally its Moto Guzzi's 100th anniversary this year and the NZ Moto Guzzi club had a gathering at nearby Hanmer Springs. We saw quite a few of Guzzis of various styles and ages out and about during our ride which was good to see. They're a classy conveyance you know! 

More to follow as and when I proceed on LWOP. I'm hoping to do some more riding as well as some more tramping/Walking in the local area where I'll try and take some more photos for future blogs.

In the meantime take care and I look forward to hearing from you all soon. Feel free to comment with your thoughts - They are much appreciated.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Life in Singapore

Image
  One of the floating dry docks here in the yard - That's not us in there in case you're wondering Greetings from Singapore where we are now firmly embedded within the Tuas Dockyard undergoing a maintenance package as part of HMNZS CANTERBURY's 15-year docking programme. It took us some 2 weeks to sail here from Auckland where we had a delayed start owing to one of the ship's company (That'll be me then...) testing positive for Covid... Thankfully the second test proved to be negative (As did the retest of the first sample they took) so we managed to set sail and 'Go West!' (With quite a lot of North thrown in too for good measure). It made for an emotional rollercoaster 24 hours though! As some of you will remember I was taking some Leave Without Pay a little while back but the sitting Engineer Officer on CANTERBURY has gone off to take some well earned parental leave and as such I was asked to step in and take the reins for a few months. This I was quite h
Read more

Making some changes

Image
  Well hello there - Welcome to my next blog this week coming to you from our beautiful home here in Tuamarina after having been out and about in some of the more picturesque parts of our region. Above you can see a picture of Elaine Bay, some 17Km further on from Okiwi Bay which I showed you in previous posts. I went there today with the Institute of Advanced Motorists Top of the South group (TOTS for short) on one of our fairly regular social rides. We had a few more come along today too which was nice to see. Plus the weather really played ball all day. It was just right being in the mid-20s with a slight breeze to prevent things becoming too warm. Perfect. These rides are good for a whole bunch of reasons. They help improve my mental health, somewhat vital for me at the moment as work has been getting me down for some time, they get me out and about seeing even more of the area we live in, they help keep my riding sharp and they sometimes allow others to join the cause. Riding bett
Read more

Out and about with Oscar

Image
  Oscar at the top of Mount Vernon Hello to you all and welcome to my latest blog. I know it's been a little delayed in getting to you but I've been both out and about and I suffered a couple of technical hitches which held things back a bit. Firstly let me introduce Oscar, my soft toy mascot/travelling companion. Oscar has been with us for a while now and is named after the Great Dane we owned back in 2003/2004. Sadly we were forced to give the real life Oscar up for adoption when we were both posted away from home so this little guy is the soft toy memory of that lovable big doofus and I try to take him along on my rides to share what we see. View from the pathway inside Wither Hills Park As part of my desire to explore Blenheim a little more I recently went to Wither Hills Park and did one of the day walks on offer. t took me to the summit of Mount Vernon which offered a fabulous view across both Blenheim (The Wither Hills are located to the South of the Town) as well as Clo
Read more