Some signs I've seen...

 Firstly a couple of signs that caught my interest in New Zealand last year...
The first one was truly amazing for someone who comes from a country where you are not supposed to take shopping trolleys out of the supermarket carpark. Of course people do and we see trolleys abandoned around the streets waiting to be collected. I guess you could say that this NZ supermarket takes a proactive stance and good on them!

 Since coming home I've seen that we have these here in good old Brisbane...but such a concept was new to me last May! lol

Talking of dogs...look at the signs at the front of the Albany Creek Library...

 And a 'little dog height' water bowl...

And talking of libraries...last year in the BCC Chermside Library car park these designated spaces were provided right next to the ramp and near the front steps...and apparently 'senior' in this case is defined as over 55!

Next is an old photo taken 2 years ago. This is the sign on the back of the door of a public loo in Warwick (Qld not UK). The local council is obviously concerned with a person's modesty and dignity...love it!

And now another 2 older photos; these signs annoy me .
Outside the local post office...I can accept that AP vehicles can park there because they are excepted or are an exception to the rule.

The next sign was in a local department store. Friends whom I showed the photo to were quick to point out that 'Blaq' is a brand name...but I wasn't concerned with that...so I then asked them about the word 'buisness'...they hadn't seen that. I wonder if every Myer store in Australia had the same sign?

The last sign photo is not one of my photos but is one that was circulated on Facebook a few years ago...

Over my almost 40 years in the classroom, I saw children making the same mistake as the sign maker did in this poster...cringe...hope this wasn't made by one of my former students. Your eyes are drawn to the 'you save' part so maybe many didn't notice the mistake in the subtraction. :-/ 

Day 1 in Dunedin...

We've been home a week now but I mentioned that I would occasionally do some more posts of our travels in NZ and this is one of those posts.
The last travelogue post was about our time visiting Invercargill and Bluff. We then travelled to Dunedin, a busy and bustling city with a lot of interesting history. It is also a  'University city' with the University of Otago there. One thing we noted on this visit was the difficulty in finding somewhere to park the car but maybe this just seemed to be a problem after those quieter places we had visited :-) such as Te Anau and Wanaka. Arriving in Dunedin in the early afternoon, we just had a look around that first day.

This is representative of the beautiful country that we drove though to get to Dunedin

One view of the Cadbury factory in Dunedin...

The next photos were taken at the front of the beautiful old railway station...

This photo below is taken at the street behind the station...

And the following photos are taken inside the station...

A closer view of the beautiful mosaic on the floor of the station...

Now these are some other photos taken on the outside of the station building...

I took a photo of these columns at the front of the station because the dark stone reminded me of Edinburgh 

This is the view looking across the road from the station...

If you look closely you can see a cylindrical building...that's another view of the Cadbury factory. We didn't bother to go on a factory tour this time but DsD1 did and she told us that unlike the Cadbury factory in Tasmania, in this one you can still walk around the factory on the tour.

And here is a photo taken of one of the busy streets...this one had lots of cafes, bars and restaurants which were all very busy on that Saturday afternoon. (But Knit World was closed by the time we got there)

 In the next post that I write about Dunedin I will tell you all about a lookout that we went to which had great views of the city.

My new pukeko...

In late January this year my part of Queensland experienced a weekend of wild weather. DH and I were extremely fortunate in having no real damage from the high winds...a branch or two down and my pukeko statue which sat in a pot plant, got blown away and smashed. A pukeko is a New Zealand bird and a few years ago now whilst on a holiday to the North Island of NZ, I had decided to buy the little statue because I really liked these birds.

Poor pukeko...now in pieces after the fall...

My SIL found out that I was looking for a new pukeko and she and my BIL bought me one for my recent birthday. Mary found this one at the Christchurch Museum store and I think it is particularly lovely. The label around my statue/ornament states that it is 'The Original Kevin Kilsby Pukeko'. My new bird has 2 orange aluminium sticks that are placed in holes underneath the statue and then these are pushed into the ground... voila! orange legs!!

Here's the new one standing in the potted aspidistra plant; doesn't he look happy to be there! 

A busy day in Queenstown...

There are lots of extreme sports'-like activities to do in Queenstown but I came here with the plan that I would do the 2 activities that I didn't do in 2004 because DH would be unable to do them with me unless he put himself through a lot of stress. So today I went on the jetboat ride on the Shotover River and had my ride on the gondola.
 I loved the jetboat ride! It was so much fun. Our driver was amazing...you would think we were going to hit the gorge walls but of course we didn't, and those 360 degree turns really got the blood pumping. I didn't feel the need to scream though unlike the group of women up the back of the boat! lol

the lookout at the Shotover River

The Shotover River lookout

We met Nikki at the Shotover River and I decided to have the ride with her; over my big coat, I had the mac and vest provided by the jetboat company....

Nik and I are in the second row from the front...Nik has the cream coloured beanie and I'm next to her

 I will post about the gondola ride in another post but below is the photo that the Skyline staff took....

I enjoyed the gondola trip and the view was magnificent...but my favourite activity today was the jetboat ride...hah hah! I'm definitely my dad's daughter...he rode a motorbike in his younger years and was a bit of a daredevil!

Queenstown....

Yes, we're now in Queenstown and haven't we noticed that it has grown since we were here in 2004! After the laidback Wanaka it was a bit of a 'shock' too! lol

As we get nearer to Queenstown we caught glimpses of the lake...

 Also the closer we got to Queenstown, the more snow we saw on the mountains...

First views over the lake...

As we drove into Queenstown we had to find Shotover St...which was easy! That's where we had to drop off Miss Nikki (aka DsD3) at her backpackers' accommodation...

Then we went to find ours...it was easy...just a drive along the shore of the lake...here it is, home for the next 2 nights...pretty swish eh? Clever DH got a special deal...half price rooms! And there was a valet who carried up all our luggage! We're not used to that!

After we got settled and had a bit of a rest, we went to check out the town...

Ha ha...clutching my cloth tote bag and leaning on the wall at the lake's edge.

The lovely old steamship the Earnslaw at the wharf...

Looking out over the lake, past the wharves

This lovely old building dating from the 1860s

One of the streets that we walked up was called Church St. It had a lot of modern buildings but I was determined to find its namesake...and I did. It's both Anglican and a Maori Community church...sort of like the airlines with their code sharing! 

Now I had better explain this photo. We noticed that many cafes/restaurants  had tables alfresco...but at each table there were some woollen throws over 2 or 3 chairs...for when patrons feel the cold! Great idea.

warm throws on some of the chairs

I have one thing that I particularly want to do while we are here...have a ride on the gondola. I plan to do this tomorrow. As the other 3 people I'm travelling with have problems with heights, I think I'm on my own in this venture. I reckon I will get some great photos though. 

Arrowtown...

 We passed through some lovely country on our way to Arrowtown, which is an old gold mining town. What a pretty town and very busy with tourists today. There are lots of lovely historical old buildings which nestle side by side with more modern buildings...

We spent a few hours there walking around. Today we were all rugged up and even I had thermal underwear on today J as it was very cold...well compared to Brisbane it was very cold! When we parked the car in a large parking area what should we see just over from the carpark...a sign for a quilt shop J...yep! I bought some more fat quarters.

The mountain side just near the carpark was just ablaze with autumn leaves

By now we were thinking of gifts to take home to various people so looking for them took up a lot of time. Both families still have more such gifts to find before Tuesday of next week. 

A lovely old water wheel...

Add caption

DsD3

See, I'm even wearing my gloves! lol

As DH and I strolled along I saw a yarn shop...heh heh, so that’s what I planned to visit after we had all had lunch. It also was a lovely shop...it's only been opened for 7 weeks, so very new.

And yes I bought some more yarn...some mohair/wool boucle and some lovely variegated 8 ply. 

 A little while later we were back on the road and heading for Queenstown...again we travelled through beautiful countryside...more about that next time :-)