De Havilland Dragonfly
Yesterday I went for a flight in this charming, precious, historic aircraft. There were something like 70 built but now there are only 2 left that are still flying. This one, built in 1936, lives at an airfield just out of Gore in Southland.
The engines are the same as used by Tiger Moths, and only about 130 horsepower. They use 91 octane petrol. Cruising speed is 120 mph.
4000 feet above Gore.
Nearby, here in Alexandra this log house has just been built. I often visit it, not because I particularly like the architecture, but because there is something about the scale of the building that intrigues me and alteration of scale is a theme that i return to again and again, although why, I have no idea.
A new year has started. I completely lost my blogging mojo towards the end of 2008, plain old fashioned weariness I think. Meanwhile now that my time here is coming to an end I’ve been looking at what images have come to me since I have been working in the South.
Here is one of a boar’s head, taken in late 2007, this one when I was a resident in Invercargill. For some reason I having been holding this one back.
Over the last few days there has been a lot of rain in this area, the lakes are full and the hydroelectric dams can’t cope with the quantity of water flowing down the Clutha river past the house where I am currently living. Consequently some of the water is having to be released, not via the turbines but through one of the three sluice gates, in this case number 1.
Recently I got a couple of my kites out of storage and brought them here to Alexandra. Here is a little one made by Peter Lynn from Ashburton, one of the foremost kite makers in New Zealand. (Thanks for the photo Hamish).
Here is a photo from Peter Lynn’s website.
The Heat is OnThe temperature in this region is beginning to climb so yesterday I sought refuge in the cool of this small forest on the edge of town. An added attraction is that the forest also contains a large collection of irises, many of which are beginning to flower.
Today I visited this waterfall.
The answer is that it is formed by water spilling over the Lower Manorburn dam, about 10 minutes drive from Alexandra. The dam is a part of the social history of this town because the lake that it forms during cold winters, not this one just past, freezes over sufficiently for ice skating to take place.
A week or so ago I saw a photo of this object in a local paper. I don’t yet know any details about it except that it was a primitive submarine that had something to do with goldmining and that it had been in storage in a farm shed for a long time. The reason that it was in the paper was that it had been moved to the Middlemarch museum.
Seeing it in the paper aroused my interest so yesterday I drove the hour or so there in order to photograph it.
MacRaes Flat
Today I was visiting the gold mine at MacRaes Flat. I had photographed there last year.
While there I explored the small, historic village near the mine.
In the village there is a newish school but what was of particular interest to me was this replica of the original building, built in the school grounds, in I think 1968.
This structure is no more that head height.
