« October 2010 | Main | December 2010 »

November 25, 2010

Kea trip to the Airport Fire Station

The boys and girls (big and small) of Ruairi's Kea group had a great trip to the Christchurch Airport Fire Station where they got to appreciate up close one of the airport's Rosenbauer Panther fire-fighting vehicles and have a go with a fire hose.  705 horsepower can get 35 tonnes of 6-wheel drive truck laden with around 13,000 litres of water up to 80km/h in a shade under 30 seconds, and be at the other end of the airport in under 3.5 minutes from the alarm sounding. When it gets there, it can offload all that water in just over a minute.  Impressive stuff, and a nice colour too.  I assume you can have whatever colour you like when these things cost upwards of a million bucks each.

Posted by conor at 9:55 PM

November 23, 2010

Kea sailing trip on Fox II

Ruairi has recently joined the Keas, the most junior group in the NZ Scouting movement. The group were lucky enough to have some great weather for a sailing trip aboard Fox II, a 54 foot gaff-rigged ketch, launched in 1922 and operated by the CanSail Charitable Trust.

Posted by conor at 12:07 PM

November 15, 2010

Spring evening walk after a long weekend’s work fixing gib-board

Amazing progress this weekend with the help of our friend Richard and his two children, who had a ball with our two, enabling us to finish most of the gibbing upstairs, the downstairs bathroom, and most of the downstairs bedroom. Great weather (the waterslide seemed to be in use most of the weekend), found time for a walk one evening, and a bike ride for Richard & I another evening.

Posted by conor at 10:26 AM

November 1, 2010

Stairs starting to look good

Got a first coat of oil on the pine bottom treads of the stairs, and a few shots of the gibbing we've achieved over the past few weeks.

Posted by conor at 11:11 AM