Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Wild Pig hunt

Wild Pigs
During the last week Wild Pigs have featured in my life, twice!

On Saturday night while driving my taxi shift, 4pm - 4am I picked up a young man and took him home, he told me about his big wild pig hunt earlier in the week, when he had caught a huge wild pig with the help of his dogs, up in the mountains. I suggested to him that I would be pleased to accept some wild pork instead of money for his fare, he was amazed at this and very pleased to run inside and come back to me clutching 2 big parcels of frozen wild pork. These turned out to be a shoulder of pork and a big pack of pork chops, I was way paid more than I had originally asked for.

We have already eaten some of the pork chops and they were lovely and tender, the rest will be cooked later in the week.

Then on Sunday we drove to Picton, just to sit in the sun and enjoy a coffee on the foreshore, and to stroll along the beach looking at the scenery, which we enjoyed, then started to drive home. We came apon a group of people clustered around something that looked kind of interesting, so in we drove to the carpark of the local hotel. In the back of the carpark there was a weigh-in of Wild Pigs for a pig hunting competition, as the young men were proudly displaying the pigs they had hunted. I took a photo of these brutes - the pigs not the young men.Haha.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

The New Zealand Army comes to Blenheim

Today while I was out shopping I was surprised to come out of the Supermarket and find four New Zealand Army Tanks all covered in camerflage nets, sitting outside, while the Army personel were also in shopping and across the road buying McDonalds Burgers for their lunch.

Went up and spoke with some of the Army guys and asked if I could have a look inside one of the tamks, the men were pleased to show me inside the underneath part, and offered to allow me to climb up on top and have a peep in the turrent as well. I am not quite athletic enough to be able to clamber up to the top so I had to pass on that one. Apparently seven men travel in the underneath part two in the turrent, with the guns, and four in the driving compartment, also with guns, so these beasts are quite big. These tanks were not the kind that have 'tracks' these ones are the modern kind, that have lots of huge wheels along each side, so they can drive over any terrian.


Not every day the Army is in our town, they were just passing through from Burnham Military Camp across teh Cook Strait to Ohakea Army Base in the North Island.

Unfortunately I did not have my camera with me, so no photos; sorry.