Thames Weekend – part 2

Saturday 28 February & Sunday 1 March

Sunday: BUTTERFLIES, BUGGER AND BARNS

The second day of the club trip to Thames was the first day of autumn and the day dawned fine and clear over the Firth of Thames. The programme for the day involved three “B’s” – Butterflies, Bugger and Barns.

Our first visit after a leisurely breakfast at our various motels was a visit to the Butterfly and Orchid Garden located 3 km north of Thames and inside the Dickson Holiday Park at Tararu.

Once all the members’ cars were parked up on the extensive grounds of the holiday park and several photographs were taken, we proceeded to the large hot house.

Inside we were greeted by a myriad of colourful butterflies flitting amongst a tropical backdrop of orchids and flowers towering up to the ceiling. The hot house is kept at a temperature of 28 C and a humidity level of 80%. We learnt that butterflies generally have a short life span of about 2 weeks once they hatch from the chrysalis, so to sustain the butterfly population the garden has to breed and import up to 1000 eggs every month.

There were some quite large wing-span butterflies of the ‘owl’ variety which caused a bit of a stir as they flapped around at low levels weaving through the gathered crowd of club members. The combination of tropical plants, flowers and the butterflies provided a contemplative start to the rest of our day with a lot of challenging photo opportunities presented when the butterflies settled on a plant or in some cases on the shoulder of one lucky member. After a posed club photograph and video session took place of all the members standing beside their cars, we set off to our next venue.

Our next ‘B’ was the ‘Bugger Café’ for lunch. The café was located over the new Kopu bridge on State Highway 25 to Auckland about 5 km from Thames. Some members found that by entering ‘bugger’ into their GPS system was not a guarantee of locating the café! However eventually all members arrived and a set lunch was served in a prompt and efficient manner by the café staff.

The ‘bugger’ theme was evident throughout the premises with quotes from former All Blacks and other celebrities. A visual slide-show illustrated many humorous ‘bugger’ situations and this provided lots of chuckles from members enjoying their lunch.

After lunch we all ‘buggered off’ to our third ‘B’ venue which consisted of two large red barn buildings – the Vintage Barn and the Model Barn, located off State Highway 25 in Orongo Road. The Vintage Barn housed a massive display of about 4000 models of farm tractors and associated machinery. There were also full sized tractors and a truck on display in the barn surrounded by cabinets full of models.

Jeremy Welch, the proprietor, has collected the models over a period of 27 years. The barn housing the models was built about 4 years ago and in addition to the outstanding model collection there were a number of outstanding and rare exhibits.

The rarest item on display was the Victor truck, built around the 1920’s in the USA. Jeremy told us that these trucks were only made for a few years and he thought that this one was the only one left, at least in the Southern Hemisphere.

Another rare item was the Swedish built ‘Munktells’ tractor. This was manufactured around 1934 and only 20 were imported into NZ.

Another highlight was a model of the first internal combustion engine farm tractor operated in NZ, circa early 1900’s, complete with a complement of dignitaries and farm workers and built to a high level of detail. Richard Robinson, a model maker from Rotorua, built this model.

Jeremy then opened up the second barn on site which was aptly named the Model Barn – a retail shop where many of the models displayed in the Vintage Barn could be purchased. A number of members took this opportunity.

By about 2.00pm our visits were all over and the club members took to their cars for the road home.

All in all, a very sociable and relaxing weekend of activities complemented by warm and sunny weather.

Thanks Sheryl for the organization.

 

Footnote from Sheryl

Many thanks to Max & Carole Killingback and Tas & Shirley Scott for writing such an excellent summary of our weekend away in Thames. Much appreciated!

Also, a huge “thank you” to Bruce MacDiarmid and Mark Thompson once again for cooking all our meat for us on the BBQ. You did a superb job!!

Above all, our grateful thanks to our wonderful hosts Marshall & Lesley Hutt and their 2 boys for having us at their place on the Saturday. Under the circumstances it was a gallant effort for them to still have us considering Marshall had been in hospital and only got home 2 days before our visit! That is what you call “true kiwi hospitality.”

Altogether, there were 64 of us on this trip and we all had a very interesting and sociable weekend together and it was great to meet so many new members as well. My sincere appreciation to everyone for mixing so well and for making the weekend such a success.

By Tas & Shirley Scott