New Shower Head

There hasn't been a lot to tell you all about of late. It has been a quite time here in Matamata.

Last week we have had lovely sunny days with frosty starts. The rain is back a bit now, so it is a very gloomy and drizzly day.

Eddie left for Christchurch yesterday with a digger on board the truck. He then goes down to Balcultha to pick something up to bring home. He will be away for 4 or 5 days. He had a smooth crossing across the strait. He said it was like a mill pond.

The old and the new.

We have upgraded our shower head. It is so much better, with such good pressure that the hot tap doesn't have to be on so much, so we use a little less hot. It isn't always easy to get out, it's so nice. You can see by the picture how much better it is.

A Quarter Acre Pot

We had a nice weekend with some sunshine. I got the washing dry on Saturday, so that was nice. Some evenings we have bits and pieces airing by the heater.

On Sunday 'we went and caught up with Eddie's sister for lunch. It was good to catch up as we haven't seen them for ages.

After that we went to Fernland Spa and had a lovely soak in the hot water.

My crock pot works really well, except that the lid is cracking. It's made of plastic so not as sturdy as the rest. Most annoying. I went to the op shops around town, but they were either too big or too small. Eddie read about a cooker called a quarter acre pot. The idea is to bring the food up to the boil and simmer for 8 minutes. Sometimes longer, such as for corned beef, which I cooked for 20 minutes. After it has been simmered for it's specified time, it goes into the insulated pot inside an insulated bag and zip it up. The corn beef “cooked” for 3 hours and was delicious. I made soup on Saturday which “cooked” for an hour. I think it will save quite a bit of gas as it isn't used very much and will be useful to get dinner on the way while we are traveling. Good too if we are somewhere with no electricity.

 Eddie put an ad on to a caravaning site and someone replied that he had a brand new one, which he had won in a raffle. They already had one which they love. It comes complete with a recipe book. I can use my crock pot recipes too. It comes with a large pot and a smaller one. So all in all a good purchase.

The insulated bag

The pots and insulated pot

Rainbow Mountain

We have just about bought all we need to mend our back wall. I think it is just some ply wood that is glued to the fibre glass outer wall for strength. It is only 6 mm thickness, and the local Mitre 10 didn't have that size when we went on Saturday.

 On Friday we went and got the internal wall. We got there just in time as they close at 3 on a Friday and we got there at 5 to. We wouldn't have been happy if they had been shut.

On Sunday I went for a walk up Rainbow Mountain near Rotorua. It's Maori name is Kakaramea. It's called Rainbow Mountain because the rocks are all coloured with reds and yellows. It's a nice walk and not too steep except near the top. There are a few steam vents on the side of the track which was interesting.

There is a creek nearby called Kerosene Creek (Don't ask as I don't know why kerosene). It is a warm stream with the water about 30 degrees. We were going to have a swim, but it was pretty busy and the cool breeze blowing put me off. It would have been cold when I got out. We went back into Rotorua for a coffee at the cafe on the lake front, only to find it was closed for redevelopment. We went to Lady Jane's Ice Cream Parlour instead. Really hard to choose as there was a heap of choices. I chose doris plum and it was yum.

Kerosene Creek

Kerosene Creek

Crater lake. Near the bottom weird but true

A view half way up