A Short History of Wrinkly Tin

So, stage 2 of the journey and the first real taste of 'Kiwiana' and it came in the form of Wrinkly Tin (corrugated iron to you and me....). The kiwis have an amazing ability to create icons in their towns. Ones that we have seen so far include the Taihape Gumboot, and the Oakune Carrot. One thing they all seem to have in common, yep you guessed it, all made of wrinkly tin! Yet on the way to Auckland, the town of Tirau provided 2 more that must be added to the list; a giant sheep and a giant dog; magnificent examples of the diverse uses of wrinkly tin.


Bizarre huh?

Any way, moving on. We arrive at our most superb house in Howick, a suberb of Aukland, and it is like a little slice of England plonked in NZ.

Walking into the house and what do I spy on the coffee table? Again, you guessed it; a book on Wrinkly Tin; with a forward by Sir John Ingram, no less...! Amazing the fascination, but worry not it isn't catching!

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Location:Sturdee St,Auckland Central,New Zealand

The Yellow Boat of Taupo

So, here we are. Day 1 of the epic road trip. As usual we departed Palmy on Scott time, and after a 'quick' coffee and lunch stop with some indigenous folk at Mangaweka (Hot Coffee, Cool Plane - google it!) we made it to the leave centre mid afternoon. Clearly they knew someone important was arriving, as they got an ex Prime Minister to clean the gaff before we arrived. Rumour has it that he is in hiding in the colonies due to the crap job he did before hand; and that this is his way of making things up to the armed forces.






Any way, Jocelyn was most pleased to fond out that the leave centre came equipped with play park, so with some good swinging action (ooh err) and slides etc... she was happy. We then had a short walk to the lake where Jocelyn proved she was braver than her mum, by stripping off and going for a paddle. She then spied a yellow boat about 100m off shore and decided she wanted to pay a visit. How upset was she when I reminded her she couldn't swim? Very.






Auckland tomorrow, awesome. It has been a good start to the trip. More to follow!

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Location:Kiwi St,Taupo,New Zealand

Our Summer North Island Trip

Well, here it is...I am on leave and the car is packed (mostly with my fishing gear) and we set off tomorrow on the North Island adventure.

The weather is looking good, and the fishies are starting to bite.  I also think I have got someone to pick up at Auckland airport on Friday.....mmmmm.......yes, thats right, my folks arrive.  It had better not be on an incoming tide, or they might have to wait a while.

But anywho....our trip is as you see below, and it starts with a night in Taupo before we head to Auckland to meet the folks.  Then to the wilderness of the north, before returning south and eventually ending up, back in balmy Palmy for Christmas.

Watch this space for updates and the obligatory photos!


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Quality father/daughter time!

Who says crickets a boring game??



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A small rant.....

Dear World,

Why 'oh why are there people placed on your fine surface who, it would appear, are solely intent on buggering things up.  I refer namely to that global corporation of 'Toys R Us'.  Perhaps a name change is in order I suggest 'Shitheads R Us' or 'Fine & Helpful People R not Us'.  Either of these would be more than apt.

They let me know, and very kind of them it was, that their website was 'on the piss' (to coin a favourite Kiwi phrase of mine).  To my mind his leads to them being 1-0 up in the 'It's my fault' stakes.

I very politely let them know that these things happen, and subsequently re-order.  I ask them to deliver on the Saturday, at vast expense as I have now missed Rory's birthday.  They e-mail me saying '...thank you for my order, it will be delivered within 10 working days..."  (on the plus side, the have not charged me the vast expense).  I lose my sense of humour.  E-mail number 2 gets sent; I explain (again with no sarcasm or rude words) that their website has yet again 'gone on the piss', and please could they amend the order to be delivered on Saturday, and I took the opportunity to invite them to absorb the 'vast expense' as a small token of their "...sincere apologies..." that they previously extended.

I believe them to now be 2-0 up.

They e-mail me back.  Again I lose sense of humour.

"Dear Mr Scott..." they write, "...I apologise, but we have placed your request into the 'Too Hard Box', we couldn't possibly amend your order, because that would mean that I need to pick up the telephone and speak to Gary at the warehouse.  He would then have to cut short his tea break to find your parcel, and swap it from one postal queue to another, and like me Gary is a stellar Toys R Us employee, who takes the art of 'Can't be Arsed' to a whole new level..."


3-0 them.


I am now sitting here, quietly seething; wondering what my response shall be.....?


I am open to suggestions from the floor.


I urge all of you that read this to advise all of you friends and family to avoid Toys R Us like the plague.


Thank you world for listening, unlike those ****-knuckles at Toys R Us.


Yours sincerely,


Annoyed from Palmerston North.


P.S. If the editor of any newspaper reads this, please print.

From NZ to Aus and back again.

Another significant time of no update, yet as ever and awful lot has been going on.  Mainly, if not entirely (for me anyway) my epic trip to Australia.  Most would think that a over a month in the outback would be a truly amazing experience; however when you throw the military into the mix, the experience often changes....

I will most definitely remember the trip, and the quaint way in that everything in the country tries its very best to kill you with spider and snakes being at the top of the list, and then with a trip to the Manchips after the exercise, water in your ears has a pretty good go as well!

I would like to frist introduce you to one of the beasties that I might.  For those of you with a slightly nervous disposition, look away now:

Austracantha minax

This "'lil bewdy" whilst not too large scared the 'bejesus out of me, as you might well expect.  A particularly gnarly looking critter, with all the charm and elegance of a chemical toilet.  But with a name such as a the Australian Jewel Spider, or the Christmas Spider how could it be too bad.  Just to be on the safe side, it was dispatched with tremendous efficiency.

There were plenty of other eight legged beaties that crept up on me, including the Huntsman spider (sp. Sparassidae) which I only knew was there, because I heard the thing coming......again, for those of you with a strong constition, look here, for those of you that do not, look here instead.

And then there are the non-legged varieties....then best one being the one that I nearly stepped on in the wee dark hours of the morning.  He was a particularly nasty fellow, with forked tongue and all.  He was a King Brown (Pseudechis australis), which slithers into the top 10 most poisonous snakes in the world. In fact it is at number 2 (according to that dude who stepped on a Stingray).  So a good thing that I chose to ignore the light discipline rules and use my torch....I think we can stand another photo, so here it is in all its slithery glory:

Mr Brown Snake

But I must admit that not all of Australia was bad.  There were some glorious swimming holes that had to be taken advantage of, with the best of all being Star Creek.  After 26 days without a shower, the sheer wonderfulness of diving into a river is not to be underestimated!  And post exercise, Big Crystal Creek rock slides, and Little Crystal Creek swimming holes were also superb.

Little Crystal Creek

With such an oppressively hot & humid climate, little wonders like these creeks are most definitely the way ahead.  What made these ones in particular so good, was that they were free from crocodiles.  I was not fancied to come off as a victor in the battle with a croc.  

Still I managed to survive the exercise, survive the beasties, and enjoy some post exercise R&R where as mentioned I managed to catch up with the Microchips, who I served in Germany with and Jim now serves with the ADF.  I also had my 7th consecutive birthday with the Armed Forces, and now find myself on the wrong side of 30, but as ever the army has its own special way of giving you a happy birthday!

By popular demand!

Here is the wife's new barnet.  A small experimentation from myself in the photoshop department, but I assure you, the 'do' remains untouched!

Funky snip!

Please feel free to leave nice comments....something along the lines of "...she looks a million dollars..." would cheer me up; that would be far from the truth come to think of it.......grrrrrr!