Day 5 Having a Feilding Day

By the numbers

2 bus’

2 archive centres

14.51 kms

17,886 steps

I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect from the weather as I was going to spend all day in Feilding. It could just start raining 20 mins up the road for all I would know. The sky looked clear, but there was strong wind. I was wearing a long sleeve shirt and my new hat with a flap to protect my neck from the sun. I might look dorky, but I should have been wearing it yesterday as I got sunburnt then. I had the rest of my dinner from the night before as I had gotten a large meal and couldn’t finish it off, and weak coffee from the motel supplied stash. The motel is basically where I only spend the night and stash my bags.

 

The bus that I was meant to be catching had its start from Palmerston North as it headed for Auckland. I arrived early and gave the driver my name and I was able to board whenever I wanted to. So many people asked where the bus was going as it had the destination on the front. I was off to Feilding as I wanted to do some research and had emailed a family history archive centre, who never got back to me. I knew they were all volunteers though so that could be why. It didn’t take long for the bus to arrive and drop me off in the town. I could have taken a local bus, but I didn’t know at the time of booking, I could have done that. I made my way to the local museum via the sale yards, but I had learnt I could do a tour of them too even though I was a day early.

 

The Coach house museum was all about the early settlers and their way of life in the early days and how the area become known as Feilding. It was named after someone and was all part of an emigration plan to settle people from England who wanted a new life out of poverty. I was after information on some of the settlers who had been assisted to New Zealand. The ticket seller had come into the museum to grab me when the archivist was available. Turns out once the archivist was available that the information had been compiled into a book that was published this year by a researcher who I had last had contact with a number of years ago. The archivist did give me some lessons on how to search for people through newspapers and even another local archive centre. I had actually thought that place was where I happened to be. No there was actually an actual Archive Centre that had material from many old councils with records being available online too. I said I would be there after I finished at the museum. I was blessed with good fortune. Once I finished with the archivist, I went for a wander through the museum to complete my local history journey by looking at old vehicles like John Deere tractors and a horse drawn hearse. I did see several names I recognised and did use notes on my phone to type them out.

 

Having half a day left before I could catch a bus back to Palmerston North, meant the local archives was a blessing in disguise as I wanted to look through some rate books for the locality of Pohangina near Palmerston North. I had used my phone to search for the records I wanted to look at and since they were two rates books, I was looking for my 3x great grandfather who was in that town and it seemed before he died, someone else had paid his rates and was his neighbour. I followed the neighbour for a number of years and seemed to be well off. I have no idea who he is, but seems to be interesting to me. The archives closed at 430pm and it wasn’t long after 4pm that I had finished looking through and taking pictures of the records. I checked what I was taking pictures of to make sure they could be read as that would have been awkward getting home and everything was blurry. On my first visit to Feilding I had come across this archives centre and I had wanted to visit it again, but I never knew it had become some sort of hub.

 

All day I could hear the noise of something racing around a track, so on a whim and because I had the time, I decided to go looking for the source of this noise. I walked down the road from the Coach House museum towards a park on my map called Kowhai, but a sign next to it had Mansfeild Park that after Googling came up as a race circuit. I was hoping the racing noises wouldn’t stop as I got closer and I didn’t know if I could watch anything on the race track. The wind had picked up and it tried to take my hat off me at the same time, but luckily it attaches itself to me. My bladder wanted to say hello, and I went to use the loo and there was dead silence when I got out as it was like the racing finished at 5pm. I walked to the entrance of the circuit and people were driving out so I would pretty much guess I missed out on watching some sort of race demonstration, even though I wasn’t sure if I could actually get inside to watch. There is only so far you can push being innocent and acting dumb, though I would just push anyway.. I did get to see something I wasn’t expecting and that was the old Tote building that was once part of the horse race track. It was New Zealand’s first electric totaliser that could place bets on the horses for you, much like the TAB offices.

 

I ended up walking back to the train station through the middle of Feilding as it was getting closer to the time I had to catch the bus. I knew if I was late the bus would be on time, but if I was early, the bus would be late. It was coming from Auckland and I had no idea if there was plenty of road works along the way. I did get to see the bus going to Wanganui going in the other direction. I was the only one to be picked up in Feilding just like I was the only one to get off. Palmerston North was actually pretty quiet when I got back just after 7pm. I think today the graduates from university were being congratulated as they were setting up a tent in the central park.

New Zealand 2023: Day 4: Wandering Palmerston North

 

By the numbers

20.44kms

26,080 steps

 

I was expecting it to rain and I had been warm during the night, so was expecting the rain. I did wakeup to daylight around the curtains, but I thought the weather would be like the forecast and be cold and wet. Turns out there was light cloud and no rain so I was happy for that part. I was pleasantly surprised that where I was staying near the CBD the place I was at happened to be pretty much quiet without much noise at all.

 

My plan for the day was to visit the archives to look at the council minute book and then head out to Kelvin Grove cemetery. I did note that there were a few bus services in the morning and I could have gone out there in the morning instead of the afternoon. I decided to get the library out of the way and then head out by bus once I had finished. After reading 4 years of council minutes skimming the correspondence in to see if I was after the person mentioned, I was more than ready to move on after my brain was fried. I found what I was after and then some so I was happy with what I came across.

 

I walked to the bus stop on the other side of the town square from the library to see when the next bus would come and just as I walked in the bus out to Kelvin Grove was leaving. That was how good my luck was. The next service would be around 40 mins later and I decided I would walk in the direction of the cemetery and walk back. That would be something like an hour long trek one way. Along the way I came across Terrace End cemetery, where I had family and thought now was a good time to update the photos I had of the headstones. The cemetery is one of the earlier cemeteries in the town, which replaced one that was closer as it was too wet. I had the dogs at the Animal rescue barking at me as I was trying to remember where the people were. I found all I was looking for, though I wasn’t going to stay too long as I didn’t want to run out of time. Off I went along the footpath that headed out towards the cemetery I wanted to be at until I came to a halt. The path ran out and finished inside a retirement village, and I wasn’t exactly comfortable walking along the side of the road being a state highway.

 

While I wanted to visit the cemetery, I decided this was something that would be better for another trip and to head out by bus instead. I should have done my research a bit better as I didn’t realise that Palmerston North had its own bus service running around. It has been a while since I was last in the town so I could be forgiven for that one. The alternative plan was actually across the road and that was part of the river walk back to town. It was something like 6kms from the walking / bridle trail. It wasn’t a bush track or anything as it was a concrete path that followed the river and I was planning on walking into the far side of the town and just walk to my accommodation. Looking at my map and the map that I walked past, I started to think that it would be better to exit the trail earlier and head in a direct route. Every now and again I would cross a sign that tells you to keep an eye out for walkers. I thought there would be more information along the way. Getting off the path at Albert street turned out to be a great ideas as I decided there were two local areas I could walk past to update my photos on and that was Milverton Park and Milverton Avenue. It was beginning to become a longer walk than I realised as I was feeling exhausted and I looked at how far I had walked and at that point it had been 17kms. Milverton Park did have an information panel about the history of the area and the man who donated the land to the town. Pretty sure all this was new and hadn’t been there last time I was in the town.

 

There was a plan to return early enough so that I could get some washing done as there was a need for that to be done, and where I was staying had one washing machine and dryer. My luck worked for me as there was no one using either. I decided the rest of the afternoon meant that I would have a rest and sort myself out for my trip to Feilding the next day. Hopefully for more research that is if they got my email, but they are volunteers so I cant be too hard on them. It was a good late afternoon checking on washing and watching shows on my computer that I hadn’t done much of.

New Zealand 2023 Day 3: Off to Palmerston North

By the numbers

6,348 steps

4.89kms

1 bus

 

The weather report had said it was going to be nice weather today since I was leaving Wellington. I just happened to look outside and there wasn’t blue sky at all, and it was raining. I walked outside and it was still raining, though I had to get some breakfast while watching all the commuters pile into the city from the train station. Somehow my pocket made a 3 minute pocket video with my phone and I still don’t know how it did that. There was just an ever growing parade of people that did not seem to end. Today the plan was to get the bus to Palmerston North where I would be spending a few days before leaving on the Friday. I knew where I had to catch the bus at the train station and I was still there within half hour of it leaving even though I had thought it might have arrived early. The driver didn’t even need to leave the bus to grab the bags as it was like a food van, but you were handing over your bag with a destination instead. Then we had to give out names once he arrived at the door.

 

It was only a 2 hour bus ride to Palmerston North and I was also in the firing line to order some tickets to an event in March that came online at 1pm local time. To say I had plans was an understatement. My phone wouldn’t be able to use the bus wifi for that purpose due to the fact it restricted many websites by calling them unsafe including local websites that involved tourist traps like museums. Even if I tried, I would likely be restricted from buying tickets. I was happy just to be looking at the country side and not reading a book. I usually read a book. The weather did change as it went from wet to just cloudy, and then again its supposed to be raining tomorrow. We shall see what happens.

 

Once I got off the bus, I had to orientate myself as to where I should be walking as my phone map nearly had me lost as I gathered my bearings. Soon I was wandering the streets heading in the right direction for the place I was staying. I had no problems until my card decided that it would be declined even when tapped. I had to resort to my other card that worked exactly the same way with a pin too. The strange thing is that the card works everywhere else, and even worked 5 mins later when I bought a music festival ticket. The room I will be in for the next couple of days is really good and I will be comfortable. Good staying in a motel and it seems to be quiet and we shall see if that is actually true or not. My next location was the archives.

 

Having to grab lunch and a coffee on the way, I headed to Palmerston North Library, where I planned to spend the afternoon, although due to the bus wifi telling me the website was unsafe, I wasn’t sure when it would close. I walked in and had to ask the guy at the information desk as last time I went down stairs to the archives, but now the reading room was on level 2. I went up and they were expecting me and we had a chat. The archive room had been taken over by all the archive records. They were running out of room too. I was showing a contoured map of where a property was and I was happy to see an old map for a couple of minutes. Though looking through the council minute books for certain dates that I came across in newspapers did eventually bear fruit and I was happy even though I started looking in the minute books for 1901, when the announcement for closing at 6pm came over. The archivist was really helpful as he looked at the council rate books to see what was there as I was looking for several people and they didn’t appear apart from another family member care of the Palmerston North Fire brigade, but that was the brother of the person I was looking at. Turns out the archivist has a day off tomorrow, so I was lucky to come in when I did. I had even thought about a soft cushion for a fragile book that they had not even thought about. The last thing I wanted to do was to damage a fragile book from threw 1900s. Still I have most of the day tomorrow to head back and keep looking at several other dates in the council minute book. Did I mention how much I love trying to read cursive that progressively gets bad closer to the end of the book?

 

I got lost trying to find the exit to the library and realised I had to go down to the next floor instead of wandering around looking like I was lost or trapped. I decided that after the afternoon of reading, I would head back to my room for a shower and an easy night as there happened to be some better food joints than Wellington here. I got myself a pork roast as that comes with veggies.

New Zealand 2023: Day 2 Exploring Wellington

By the numbers

19,039 steps

14.64 kms

The morning according to the weather was meant to be pretty clear and suynny without any rain. Plus 3 layers of clothing. Once I did leave my room. Wellington was doing its best to be windy. I found some breakfast and I was going to be in the archives, but wanted to fill in some time before I headed to the nearby centre. While at the train station, I accessed my Snapper travel card for Wellington and found I had been refunded for my trip the day before. I found I should have tapped off, although I was unsure since as every place is different. I went walking through Parliament grounds and up Hill street past the British Embassy. I crossed the motorway and went back down towards the National Archives. By that time the place was nearly open. The weather was cold, but I was hot wearing a jumper, but I would be cold without it on, so it was a cross between weird weather and good clothing.

 

I would get some records as I had ordered them and found the new system wasn’t that great. Before I could order the files online, but now to get a rapid response, I had to talk to the archivists. I found this out after a couple of hours as I was wondering what happened to one set. Turns out one lot of records were missing and unfamiliar to the archive people. I thought it was funny and one of the archivists mentioned having a look at newspapers online specifically Truth as they reported divorces and the occurrences. The time the Archives opened and closed was not long enough to get that many records and I soon found one lot of records was going to be late. The reading room closed at 3pm and I had 20 mins before closing when some records arrived. I was trying to look at everything before leaving, but being rushed I decided with 5 mins to closing that I should leave finishing looking at the records. Throughout the day I was using a feature on my phone that I thought was pretty cool. The scan text feature worked a treat even though there were times where I had to adjust the borders, but I was impressed. It probably slowed me down a little bit, but I did find what I was looking for even though I was rushed at the end with several records I will need once I return to Wellington. The Archive centre I found was going to have a whole new building next to the National library, where you can walk between them and the research area will be different. The whole building will be purpose built even though its partially built across the road.

 

Once I left, I decided I needed a walk and I was going to head towards Trelissick Park in an area known as Kaiwharawhara. A mouthful and around 10 mins bus ride from Wellington towards Johnsonville. I collected my bag with a bottle of water and other things as I didn’t want things in my pocket. I kept an eye on my map as I wanted to make sure I got off at the correct place. I had to walk to the park, but I was happy to do that. On the track was something that I wanted to see and that was the Kaiwharawhara Powder magazine. Nothing to do with keeping peace with the Maori, but more to do with the Russian scare in the late 1800s. They thought the Russians were going to invade, but that never happened, and was used during World War 1 as well. The building even housed a van that was involved in a bank robbery before it was burnt taking the magazine building with it. For some reason my international roaming had dropped out and would no longer work. I wasn’t that worried as it wasn’t that big a deal as I had wifi in certain locations when I needed it. The track had a fish ladder and while I thought about going it was already around 5pm, it was the dark I was worried about, but the track itself, so I decided to head towards the Northern track that takes me into Wellington.

 

The Northern track took me to Wadestown and I was going to follow the track up over the area called Ahumairangi as it was part of the town green belt. After walking uphill into Wadestown, I decided to scrap that idea and just walk down the hill instead of walking up more of the steep Wellington hills area. I felt I didn’t have enough daylight time if Iu did this as there were plenty of things I would get to see especially the views that would be impressive and history things. I wasn’t exactly sure where I should be walking and if the direction I was heading in had a footpath. Another thing I had seen on Google maps was a Letterbox village that I had happened to be close to. That turned out to be a good idea as nearby was a road that would take me into the city along the route that I had used earlier that day. The Letterbox village wasn’t what I expected as I thought it was a group of mail boxes, but this was a long line of them with themes like Paddington bear, superheroes and even Snoopy. I basically walked around the base of Ahumairangi thanking my lucky stars that I hadn’t gone up there. On a whim I headed towards the Botanic gardens.

 

I was going a bit too far heading to the Botanic gardens, but I did stop for dinner on the way in Tinakori where Government house is located, although I couldn’t see what was in there due to the fence and trees. I needed food and then headed to the gardens. It was the route to the hostel voa the Beehive aka New Zealand parliament. I wanted a look at the rose garden and even got asked to take a picture of a lady with the roses. It was starting to get dark as I walked through the Bolton Street cemetery as I had a quick look around. The cemetery that had been divided by the motorway just like Auckland’s main cemetery of the time. Along the way I stopped at the Reserve Bank for New Zealand and looked in the windows. I found they have a museum in there that I didn’t know about before. For some reason I had been thinking of this building as the National mint and couldn’t find it online. Now I know, though looking through the windows and taking photos might get me into trouble. At this time of night the city itself was pretty quiet with everyone not being around the Parliaments area unless you were aimless wandering tourists. By this time I was ready to settle down for the night.

New Zealand 2023: Day 1 Wellington

By the numbers:

Bag 14 kg

1 plane

17,491 steps

13.71kms

Movie: Back to the Future 3

The day started very early as I had to be up at 4am to catch the earliest flight I have had to be at the airport for a flight. I was leaving at just after 6am and I had to be there for when the airport opened. I did get there not long after the place opened and all I needed to do was to print my bag tag off as I had done the online thing and went on my way. The Gold Coast wasn’t very busy at that time of morning.  To go through the International we still had to go through two loss of security. Once I got to International, I had to wait for it to open, but I was the third person through.

 

Nothing was really open, but I wasn’t too worried as I didn’t need another coffee even though it was pretty early and got to see the sky lighten from the airport. The time came pretty quickly to board and once I got onto the place the flight attendants spoke about the declaration card. You could now do this online as there wasn’t enough to go around in the physical form. While waiting for everyone to take their seats I downloaded the app and it even scanned my passport, which I thought was interesting. Once this happens the declaration card is linked with my passport when that is scanned. I let the guy in who was beside me, but I had missed his son who was looking at me. The poor kid wasn’t well throughout the flight.

 

The weather in Wellington as we landed was a slight drizzle, but I was hoping it wouldn’t be too bad as I had energy to burn. Everyone was pretty orderly getting off the plane as it was usually every man for themselves, but row by row everyone got off with the people behind waiting patiently. I was looking forward to finding some of the Lord Of The Rings stuff at the aireport that I had not seen before. Just before immigration, I accidentally found a Weta Studios conveyor belt hidden to the side with stuff from the movies they had made. I was happy to see this and the one reason I had wanted to fly into International as I knew they might have some props. I had nothing to declare and I was allowed out pretty easily and took a wander through the airport before leaving to find the bus. The shuttle bus would take me to the train station, near where I was staying. Though first I had to walk in the right direction. By the time we reached the last stop the driver asked if we were still on board. Three of us didn’t realise that it was the last stop as I was looking for a location a little further on, but we had reached the train station.

 

From the train station it was a short walk to the place I was staying and I wasn’t sure if I was going for the walk I had thought about doing as it wasn’t looking nice in the hills. I laughed at the lady who put the price of my accommodation as she added too many zeros. She didn’t realise I had noticed as she was a little embarrassed. Once I dropped off my bags, I decided to take a wander to one of the museums until I realised while I was wandering the very busy Te Papa that I should really be heading back to my room for an afternoon nap as I was feeling really tired. I had seen people lining up early outside a music stadium as I knew there was a band playing tonight, I would have loved to staty in the museum longer, but I was becoming zombified and that wasn’t a good thing. I ended up sleeping for an hour or so in the afternoon.

 

I wanted to find some food and instead went looking at the Embassy buildings for the different countries that were in Wellington like the US one, Thai, India and both the Cook and Fiji islands. The only one that had heaps of security was the US one. Across from the National Archives was a new building being built for that purpose to holding the archives. It will be interesting to see what happens when that is built in 2025. By this time in the late afternoon early evening the clouds had rolled in over the hills and it had gotten cold. I knew I should make my way back as I wanted to eat my food and get out from this rain that had the look that it was going to open pretty soon.