Our house
Our city
My work (up till January 2003)
Glenbrook Vintage Railway (January 2003)
Ardmore Airshow (26 January 2004)
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| View from upstairs | Looking towards the city | A closer view of the city with the Sky Tower | Tessa in the bedroom window | Let's take a tour—starting on the driveway | Here's the entrance with my car in the carport |
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| Go through the gate to the right and here's Marcus Didius Falco, my Roman, his sundial and his Egyptian cat | View of the house from the Roman / Egyptian corner | Go round the corner on the deck in the previous picture and look down to the lower one | The barbecue area and dining room windows | Up the steps in the previous picture. There's a gate to the left which takes you out again | The lounge as seen from my writing corner |
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| View of the Harbour Bridge | and the Sky Tower | Mission Bay from our favourite cinema (The Berkeley) | Mission Bay again, a favourite place to eat | Rangitoto (a volcanic island) between pohutukawa trees on Tamaki Drive | Pohutukawa in bloom on Tamaki Drive (which I drive on to go to work) |
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| St Heliers, another seaside suburb where we love to go | 'Stars and Stripes', a US entry in the Americas' Cup, is lifted out of the water | The Viaduct Basin at sunset | Performance artists at the Viaduct Basin, pale, cobwebby, and moving very slowly | ||
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My desk in the cube farm (that's my friend Mahendra at his) And yes, that's Buzz LIghtyear, Tigger, and a signed photo of Michael Keating as Vila |
A ship being loaded at Fergusson Wharf, one of the three freight wharves at the Ports of Auckland | Straddles moving containers | View of Tamaki Drive on my way home (yay!) | And another | |
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| First trip Diana (JA1250) at the Glenbrook platform |
Greg's nephew Anthony | Diana moving to the front of the train at the end of the trip | WW480 in the workshops, which you visit on the way back | Diana back at Glenbrook | A 'real' train passing by |
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| Diana ready to leave on another trip | Closeup of Diana | and another | Second trip | This time it was WW480, seen here with the crew | She arrived pushing the train |
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| A jigger; all the volunteer staff were in period costume | The station is also vintage, moved here and restored complete with period luggage | and posters from the times when rail travel was the norm | I like the style | WW480 about to leave | The open carriage we travelled in (Greg likes the smell of coal smoke) |
This was an excellent day with a terrific selection of aircraft, and the bonus of wine from Karaka Vineyards, and food provided by one of our favourite restaurants, Palazzo Roma.
For those nerds who love planes as I do, aircraft seen were:
Openers: A Falco, a Katana formation of three, a Cirrus and a Lancair, a Bird Dog.
Aerobatics from: a Pitt Special, a Ryan pair, a DC3 and a Catalina, a Tigermoth, the Yak 52 Yakrobats, a Giles 202, an Edsge 540, and the Roaring Forties Harvards!
RNZAF: Kiwi Blue Paratroopers, a C130 Hercules, a P3 Orion, a Boeing 757 (used for troop and VIP transport), an Iroquois helicopter, and the Red Checkers Aerobatics team.
The Warbirds, NZ's historical planes:
From WW2, a P40 Kittyhawk and a P51D Mustang (next best thing to a Spitfire; they're down south in Wanaka)
Post-war jets: a DH Vampire and a Fouga Magister
Vietnam: a T28 Trojan and an A37 Dragonfly
A Hawker Hunter
Grand Finale: The Airfield Attack: This was spectacular and I'd run out of camera memory; I should have taken the old analogue. Most of the planes attacked the airfield, coming in for mock bombing and strafing runs, while the announcer in the control tower called, "Scramble, scramble!" and the few left on the ground took off to join the melee. They even set off some sort of petrol-based explosions on the tarmac, huge roiling black clouds lit with flame. Several planes used smoke-trails to imitate being hit, going down behind nearby hills as if crashing. It was wonderful.
On the way out I bought a 1:48 model of a Spitfire, my all-time favourite plane.
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| P40 Kittyhawk | DC3 taking off | The Yak 52 Yakrobats | ...fly-by | ...making a heart for their friends Tess and Pete | ...and putting an arrow through it |
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| and looping | The Roaring Forties Harvard team | ...in V formation | ...bomb-burst | Boeing 757 | |
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| P3 Orion | C130 Hercules | The Red Checkers | The Red Checkers' tribute to Concorde |