Leaving town, I saw this pine tree, illuminated against the grey sky.
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| Pine, sky, photographer, road. |
Sunday, August 21, 2016
Drove to Nightcaps, made kites.
When I was a boy, I made kites from thin strips of wood tied with string, and newspaper glued with a paste of flour and water. Today, I showed Nightcaps' children how we did it back in the day and here's the result. It was the first time they'd flown a kite, they told me.
Leaving town, I saw this pine tree, illuminated against the grey sky.
Leaving town, I saw this pine tree, illuminated against the grey sky.
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12 comments:
Great kite! Bet the kids had a fun time, the skies of southland will soon be filled with kites i'm sure!
Its a great pastime for young people and the not so old. Had to take over the flying of one a couple of weeks ago and the challenge to see how high it could go meant spending half and hour retrieving it from a tree. Havent seen one with the tail like you had for a while. Would love to build a Chinese box kite and fly it at night with a wee flashing light on it. Should be easy with an LED light.
We used to hollow out swedes and carve eyes and mouth in them and sit them on the ground at the local cemetery with a candle burning inside and they looked dammed scary in the dark. Kids need to have interesting things going on to keep their minds occupied. Reckon a wee raft with some candles would look good going down with the tide under the Riverton bridge. Perhaps the swede would add to the interest
Candle-lit swedes in the dead of night - that's a good one. Re under the bridge at Riverton, it was funny to see, on the day the dignitaries cut the ribbon on the ridiculous "viewing platform", a polystyrene raft supporting a white elephant go floating under the bridge and past those celebrating the enormous waste of public money. I made a box kite when I first came to Riverton and was too, too keen to use it, despite the ferocious wind that blew up as I was finishing the construction, resulting in a 1 minute flight, beautiful to watch, then a explosion of string, paper and wood as the box kite became kindling.
How could a viewing platform be ridiculous? Surely a bridge has more function than just being a way of getting from a to b, and stopping to look at the view (safely) is one of those other functions. This would apply whether the view was or was not worth stopping to look at, in anyone's opinion.
How could a viewing platform be ridiculous? Let me count the ways...For one, ours is ridiculously expensive, coming in way over budget and needing several expensive "up-grades" following the ribbon cutting. Secondly, it blocks what used to be the view, enjoyed by people walking in the area, The platform is needlessly elevated and solid in it's design. A flatter, lighter structure would have done the trick, but the engineers got carried away, as did the town burghers who commissioned and rubber stamped the thing. Still,it's unlikely to fall down as a result of natural causes. It'd take a meteor strike to reduce it to kindling, which, btw, no one could burn, it being H5 treated and all. Not a favourite edifice.
The viewing platform was a sop for the pulling down of the historic railway bridge which was a real shame. Would have to agree that its a waste of money and the white elephant would have been very apt
The local political shenanigans that resulted in the destruction of the railway bridge was my introduction to and motivation for involvement in local body politics. I saw the dark side of my community :-)
The contractor who pulled the bridge down shipped all the materials north to Auckland because he knew if he sold it locally it would have caused an uproar. Even the stonework along the abutments went north and were sold for landscaping. Was an extremely lucrative contract but another example of selling our heritage which was there for 100 years for a few dollars of short term gain
We were robbed!
While you make a reasonably compelling case, I'd need to see photos to decide whether it was better than no viewing platform at all.
Coming up!
Rather than the viewing platform they should have made a nice picnic area by flattening out part of the old line on the west side of the bridge and put some tables there. Would have been a lovely wee area with nice views to the north and sheltered from the prevailing winds. Obviously you already know what a nice area the north of the hill is.
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