Category Archives: vehicles

NZ Ploughing Championships

More curious than particularly interested, one Sunday afternoon I found myself with Dad visiting the New Zealand Ploughing Championships – after all, it was only fifteen minutes’ drive from home.

It turned out to be a very warm autumn afternoon and good fun wandering around with Dad as he tried to explain some of the complexities of ploughing. With my slight interest in old tractors, previously documented, the best part of the afternoon was looking at many fine examples of old machinery as Dad regaled me of tales along the lines of: “so-and-so used to have one of those” or “I drove one of those in [insert far-flung place I never knew Dad worked in]” or “the only time I ploughed was driving one of those”.

Other highlights were the steamed-up traction engines powering a thresher while some guys bagged whatever it was processing, and (for the comedy value) a group of war equipment enthusiasts tearing around a field/paddock in an APC and old military Jeeps and Land Rovers while their colleagues fired very loud blanks from a field gun and various machine guns.

We didn’t actually watch a lot of tractor ploughing (it’s not much of a spectator sport), but the horse ploughing was fascinating. The control that the drivers had over their teams of horses (numbering from one horse to six horses) while following twenty metres behind was quite impressive – as was the ability of a large team of horses to turn on a dime to head back in the opposite direction.

A worthwhile Sunday afternoon out which we quite enjoyed.

Kentish long-weekend

After a big weekend of riding the previous week, where I managed to pull a muscle in my knee on the Saturday making Sunday’s large singlespeed ride rather painful, it seemed to a good idea to leave the bike(s) at home for the last long weekend of the summer. The physio sorted out my knee quickly, but recommended I do some form of exercise other than biking – a thought that hadn’t crossed my mind recently. So I went for a run & pulled a muscle in my foot – I promptly gave up running.

Not taking bikes, meant that the four of us could all fit in the same car as we travelled to a quaint 15th century cottage we had rented for the weekend – our base for a friends’ wedding. It’s quite fun staying in a house that is more than twice as old as the country you’re from. Happily, I also had a long weekend for my birthday for the first time in my life – a rather dismal day weather wise, we pretty much spent the day eating well too much. We also managed to fit a visit to Canterbury Cathedral in (I’d been before with Trish a few years ago, so as the weather was pants I didn’t really take many photos).  Eventually we settled on a huge roast dinner and if that didn’t fill me up – the two birthday cakes certainly helped.

Plenty of exposed beams

Kings Head Cottage – plenty of room for us all

Across the village green

One of the older houses in Chartham

Thankfully, the wedding day had considerably better weather than my birthday.  Laura & Luis got engaged before I started working here in the UK, so it was good to see all the plans that we’ve heard so much of come to fruition.  The service was all very traditional (dearly beloved, have & to hold etc.) and quite good fun, I still can’t sing very well though.  On seeing the wedding car, below, I immediately had to get a few snaps for Uncle Geoff back in Australia – I’m pretty sure Bentleys of such age are his favourite.

With a bit too much time to spare between ceremony & evening wedding party, we went down to the white cliffs at Dover in our gladrags – where we picniced on the beach, mucked around, went to the pub and then wandered a bit on top of the cliffs.

After the speeches was the dancing for the night – a céilidh.  Basically a gaelic folk dance, it reminded me of the (awful) folk-dancing endured at primary school – but it was miles better due to there being a good band, a caller to tell me what to do and no longer being scared of girl-germs.  But I still had little idea what I was doing – but it really didn’t matter as plenty others didn’t either.  A huge pig-on-a-spit topped the night off nicely; amusingly the happy couple drove off in a tuk-tuk.

Pyramids!

With the overnight flight and the immediately-after day trip to Alexandria to recover from, most of Christmas Eve was spent doing so with a lot of sleeping, eating and reading.  The evening trip to the Pyramids was another add-on, but with the logic of “I’m not likely to be here again in a hurry” it was a bit of a no-brainer to hand over a few more Egyptian pounds.

Six of us went along and I got my first taste of Cairo traffic – more on that later. The result was that we missed the first, English, sound & light show that night and after a short tea stop we went to the Italian version of the show – luckily we had the English version on small radios.  This was the closest I had been yet to the Pyramids & Sphinx and the various lighting made them a spectacular sight – not that they aren’t usually, but there’s something different about it being dark all around.  The audio of the show went some way to describe the story behind these huge structures and some of their features which was good, but not nearly as wonderful as sitting marvelling at the age and immensity of the achievement.  Decent photos were difficult with a phone and a point & shoot – mostly because by the time one realised that the particular lights and colours were good for a shot, they had changed.

It wasn’t too early a start to Christmas Day – especially compared to those no doubt sharing houses with excitable early-rising children.  Meeting after breakfast, it was our first time together as the whole tour group.  With this being my first multi-day tour, I prefer to travel independently but wasn’t really keen on that for Egypt in its current situation (hindsight supports that decision), I was well pleased to see that there were only ten of us on the tour – a nice small group.  Hesham, our guide for the week, took us through some of the points about being tourists in Egypt and what would be happening on the tour before we loaded on the bus (one of the many small ones we would use for the week).  Riding along with and shadowing us for the day was our guest from the Ministry of Tourism – an unobtrusive guard keeping a sub-machine gun well hidden beneath his jacket.

With the traffic markedly better than the previous night it wasn’t long before we were in the parking lot and feeling pleased with our fortune at travelling to Egypt at this particular time.  With all the upheaval in the last two years, tourism is well down in the country (Cairo hotels are only running at six percent occupancy!) and the industry is hurting.  But this was our gain as there were very few people, comparatively, at all the sights we went to; no where was this more noticeable than at the Pyramids which were going on for deserted.  The downside of this is that the vendors selling tat (souvenirs) really have to work hard to make a sale – some found this a little overwhelming, but dark glasses with eyes front, hands in pockets, not uttering a word or giving an opening worked well for me.

I digress, I was thrilled to see the only remaining wonder of the ancient world (they really don’t look like they are going anywhere in a hurry) and get up to close to the many large limestone blocks that had been hauled and positioned four and a half millennia ago.  We had plenty of time to wander around and take photos and avoid the vendors in the sunshine.  Although a lot warmer and drier than the UK, it wasn’t ever too hot – as you can see by the icebreaker sleeves in the photos below.

Beside the Great Pyramid/Pyramid of Cheops, mandatory wearing of Christmas presents. Thanks Adele – & yes, that is a sheep driving a Massey Ferguson tractor.

Looking towards the second pyramid, Pyramid of Khafre, which still has some of the smooth outer layer at the peak

Most of us went down a very steep staircase and then up another to get to the centre of the Pyramid of Khafre. Despite the mildness outside, all that limestone really holds the heat – it was really hot in there

Panoramic photostop

Much time spent holding, pushing, lifting pyramids. Guide Hesham & Radley; unfortunately none of the efforts on my camera really worked out

Camel riding – that was a bit of fun for three quid. All the handlers/herders/whatever were good fun & took plenty of photos

A brief visit to the Sphinx and funerary temple beside it

We headed south to see some pyramids earlier in the evolutionary chain, this one a step pyramid and another bent pyramid

Back at the hotel in Giza after a most excellent day looking at many pyramids, big and small, there was enough time for a shower each before heading to the Giza train station for the overnight sleeper train five hundred odd kilometres south to Luxor.  I was initially due to go on the, separate, seater train overnight but decided a bit of extra money was worth it for something resembling sleep and extra security.  It was just as well we left in plenty of time for the station as the twenty kilometre (12 mile) trip took us close to an hour and a half in what has to be some of the worst traffic everywhere.  Strangely, fuel is heavily subsidised bringing the cost down to about twelve US cents per litre (!) – this just adds to the traffic woes as an over-abundance of vehicles compete for position on worn out, unmarked and unsigned roads.  This chaos does lead to some great sights though – best of the trip being the passenger standing on the front bumper/fender of a large lorry/truck cleaning the windscreen as the vehicle drove on; absolutely nuts.  After an hour or so the traffic thinned, about the time we drove past the massive crack running down the length of part of the elevated highway.

We all managed to make it to our cabins and settled in for some food and a bit of sleep.

Train food is not all that different to plane food

The only part of the train that made me feel like I might be in an Agatha Christie novel

Corfe Castle & Swanage Railway

Somewhere reasonably local that I meant to go all summer was Corfe Castle, Swanage & the Purbecks.  Not being around for a single summer weekend kind of killed that plan, so with the sun shining brightly Saturday last I finally made the relatively short drive west past Poole.

A short leisurely walk from the Swanage Railway (more later) Park & Ride had me circling the base of the hill that the castle stands on.  Having been built by William the Conqueror, its a thousand or so years old, but was ruined during the Civil War when, as one of the last southern Royalist strongholds, it finally fell to the Parliamentarians.   As one would expect from a defensive position, the castle affords really good views of the picturesque Purbeck countryside.

With the castle such a ruin, although some of the walls still stand quite tall, there was plenty of space to wander around & explore – & avoid people, it’s quite a popular place to visit.  Apparently this is Famous Five country & the castle inspired the one on Kirrin Island – I was disappointed that I didn’t discover any dungeons, tunnels or bearded smugglers.

The other attraction around the village is the Swanage Railway that runs various steam locos down to the seaside at Swanage.  A much bigger operation than the Watercress Railway, I was surprised at just how popular it was – difficult to find a seat on one of the six carriages.  The Pullman Observation car looked pretty impressive too – alas, I didn’t have the pound coin needed to upgrade.

Down at Swanage it was time to finally visit the bikeshop I order quite a bit of stuff from – bit of a 29er, singlespeed, cargo bike haven.  I was quite surprised that they had Avanti bikes as their rentals – all the way from NZ.  Wandering down to the shore it was time for a late & large lunch – not much dinner needed that night.

Workmate Henry thought that eight o’clock on Sunday morning was a good time to meet on the other side of the Forest for a ride – he managed to choose the coldest morning of the season so far.  At least that meant it was clear again.  Driving out towards Burley in the mist from Brockenhurst I found all sorts of deer and longhorn cattle.  If it had have been a bit colder the ground may not have been so wet – however, we had a nice little pootle around before the others had to leave.