CAMPER VANS ARE COOL

We were gobsmacked we when saw this on Kiwiblog. And Otago Conservation Board member Andrew Penniket is advocating banning camper vans. Reckons they add nothing to the economy and they foul up the country side and clog up the roads. What a supercilious dickhead.


It would mean that Ma and Pa in the beloved Bugsys Burrow would be confined to barracks. No more travelling the countryside, no more mental stimulation, no more freedom, no more making friends.

We have travelled heaps with them over the years - in fact the tent in the pic was my bedroom for ten days a couple of years back.

Now Ma and Pa dont even leave a footprint anywhere - they are the quinessential tidy kiwis.
However one of the biggest problems they often face is the lack of facilities to dump rubbish. Now if Penniket was smart he would be getting DOCto ensure that there were plenty of rubbish tins and recycling places around the country. That would solve some of the problem. The only thing we agree with is that it is important for Campervan companies to to ensure visitors know the rules.


Andrew Penniket is good with pictures and he has been on the Otago Conservation Board for a while maybe its time for some one who has some vision.

A DAMN FINE DAY

The parents have arrived for the Xmas break and today the son and heir passed his Helicopter B Cat instructors test . He is the only one so we are very, very proud.

THE FAR CANALS

Thanks to all the wonderful comments about ma and pa's 50th wedding anniversary.They are making their way up the South Island to cross over on the 17th. Today they are parked up around Benmore somewhere - hoping to catch a salmon. Dad has caugth a two and a half pound trout - he let it go.. Mum says after the party last night - she is full , dad is full, and as the Xmas baking is in the freezer it is full. So the trout went back...
Dont blame them , sashimi-ed trout is crap.

Its a great spot.

50 YEARS OF LOVE.

Fifty years ago on December 8 our parents got married. Joy - was the eldest daughter of six and she fell in love with a skinny bloke with piercing blue eyes and a wicked grin.
Robin, was the farm hand. Mum was the farmers daughter. Dad came from a family of six whom, from a very young age, were brought up by a widowed mother.

He was born on Stewart Island and a piece of his heart is still there. I reckon down a muttonbird burrow on Ernest Island.
He came from fishing stock on both sides of his family and his Maori blood came from Pura, a Kaipoi woman sent south to get away from marauding Ngati Toa chief Te Rauparaha . She married a Portuguese whaler. Dad is a Campbell, and comes from the Goomes and Hanning Clans as well.
Mum has fine Scottish stock in her history, Stewarts and McLauchlans. Her family too are fifth generation Southlanders .They have left their proud mark on many aspects of Southland history.

Mum's dad was none to happy about the union. I was talking to mum about the fact I can never remember the wedding anniversary date and I apologised for not remembering.

She texted me and said that she couldn't forget it as she was suffering from morning sickness on the day of her wedding and it was my fault but she didn't mind.

Getting pregnant was one way of getting round the family displeasure of the relationship with the blue eyed farm hand with the touch of the tar brush, I suppose.

Funny thing is - Dad turned out to be my grandfathers favourite son in law. In fact he was probably closer to my grandfather than his own sons.

He kept my grandparents in fish , helped on the farm and in their old age he was the one who sorted stuff.

Dad is a character. A good bastard. A curmudgeon and a staunch and loyal friend to many, many people. His adventures have enriched the lives of scores of people who would have had dull existances if it wasn't for the fact he and mum welcomed others into their wonderful world.

Mum is the best of mums and dads best mate. Well dad is mums best mate as well I suppose.
They have had an extraordinary love that has spanned five decades. There has only been one love for the both of them - each other. I have watched as friends parents and indeed my own marriage withered from the acid of betrayal - Never mum and dad. It is to my everlasting sorrow that I could not repeat their steadfast union.

They have had their share of battles but they fought them together and always came out stronger on the other side.

Mum has an enormous sense of justice and fairplay. She is and always will be my best mate and as she lives in the South and as we live in the north, a day doesn't go past when I dont feel a dull ache of separation. We have always been a clannish family. Big family gatherings were the norm and I miss them as does my son.

In a way Mum and dad dont really need anyone else. For years now they have toured around the country in their beloved motorhome Bugsy's Burrow, meeting new people , making new friends, catching up with old ones.

So tomorrow night in Alexandra ma and pa will be having a bit of a knees up with some of their mates. Crayfish and muttonbird and moonshine will be the order of the evening. Then at the end of this week , they will get in their motorhome and head north to spend the Christmas season with me, my sister and our families and friends.
Dad will bring with him his new spuds. He will kill and dress a sheep for Xmas, smoke a few eels, cook a few barbeques and mum will make us all groan under the weight of her great baking.

And sometime over Xmas, probably on the old mans birthday, we will invite some mates to share in the joy of our parents long and happy marriage.

Ma and Pa - happy Fiftieth. And here's to many many more happy years. We love you. All of us.

WANAKA DREAMING

Today Ma, Pa and BB went for a tiki tour over to Wanaka. The growth, in the three years since we were last there is astonishing. As is the quality of new housing around the skirt of the lake.

As mum put it, after driving past a vast loop of stunning homes, it was like going into a lolly shop, not being able to buy any and knowing you were going home to a jam sandwich.

However, in an effort by the councils to get things to "blend" the limited palate of colours people can use to create their homes means that there is a blandness about some streets. Sort of high end ticky tacky big boxes without the colour. After a while you yearn for something that breaks through the beige. But the architechture is breathtaking.

Wanaka is and will remain one of the most beautiful spots in the South Island and all credit to those who have worked hard enough to afford the lakeside lifestyle.

We rounded out the day with a lovely lunch at a place calle the Trout.

We initially went looking for a Irish pub called Slainte. But it has gone. About 5 years ago we spend a great night revelling in tales of daring do with Peter Bush, Tim Donoghue the Wanaka Fishermen and our son. They are men who have lived huge lives and love talking about it. So it was sad not to be able to visit the location of the Night of True Tall Tales as we called it.

So on the advice of a bottlestore owner we wandered to to the waterfront bar and restaurant the Trout, which we discovered was a Monteiths establishment.

Ma and I had blue cod in beer batter, served with salad and chips. It was as good a meal of that type I have ever had. The juice oozed out of the big flake of the cod, the chips crisp and the salad fresh. Dad had the steak sammy and declared it equally superb.

There are huge numbers of for sale signs up around the Lakes districts and they include a large smattering of vineyards. Today, the land was lush after a good spring.

We meandered our way back to Alexandra on the " backroad, via Luggate and across the bridge to the east side of the mighty Clutha.

It is always hard to leave the south, especially the family, but this trip has been a chance to recharge the batteries of the soul.

And we will need all that recharging when we will go back to toiling in the backroom of a large government department, far enough down the food chain to know you cant really make much of a difference.

So on the dark days when we drown in reports and are deafened by the drone of bureacracy , we will quietly dream of icing sugar mountain tops, pompom pink blossom trees, damn fine food, the good times with family, and a land rich with promise.

FISHY

Ma and Pa have the near perfect life. They live in Alexandra and when the want takes them, they head for the highway in Bugsy's Burrow, their beloved motorhome.

They meet all sorts of people and some of them have become life long friends. A couple of weeks back they met up with some Aussies in a Hire Motorhome at the canals near Omarama, who were heading to dads place of birth, Stewart Island. As people do, they soon worked out they shared a common ancestor Rob Roy McGregor. Bonds were cemented.
As they prepared to fish together, the Aussie brought out his pride and joy. It was a travelling set of fishing rods reels and stuff that fitted in a plastic container the size of a cake tin. Dad was envious. Everyone was deeply impressed. Dad helped the Aussie set up his lines and they caught fish, lots of fish.

Soon the Aussies departed and headed their motorhome south, bound for Stewart Island. That night as dad packed up Bugsy's Burrow he spied the plastic container full of his distant relatives fishing gear.

They called up the " nephew" Vaughn Fisher star of the TV3 series Million dollar catch who lives in Bluff.

They didn't have much to go on - Dad told Vaughn to leave a message with the Stewart Island Ferry for "An Aussie called Dave who was a descendant of Rob Roy McGregor who had lost his fishing gear." 24 hours later mum and dad got a call.

Dave the Aussie, was stunned and ecstatic to get his very expensive fishing gear back.

Anyway, mum told Dave everyone was curious, as in amongst the mini rods and reels was a small bright purple thing about 4 inches long that hummed. The consensus was that it was some sort of fish attractant.

Er, no the Aussie said, it was his wife's vibrator. Seems that on their worldly travels he and his missus had copped a bit of flack from Customs over the vibrator. So he hid it in the fishing gear.

Mum reckons that the look on the old mans face when he heard what it was, has her wondering if he didn't try it out on the trout. He aint talking.