Clearing skies and drying eyes now I see your smile, darkness goes and softness shows a changing style (The Beach Boys)

Mum and Ross explore the Grmman Avenger

Wie geht's?

Recently, I sorted through our photo albums to find some pictures for my brother of a long-ago family trip to Rotorua. I thought I'd include them here as well.

We stayed in Rotorua a couple of times growing up in the sixties, and we always went to the local attractions as were then - hot pools, trout hatcheries and the playground at Kuirau Park, which included the Toot N Whistle miniature steam train, were a few.

In the playground they had also positioned a tank and a WW2 plane for kids to play on - Ross tells me that the tank was most likely a US M26 Pershing and the plane a Grumman Avenger.   

Ross and Wozza hang out in Kuirau Park - mid sixties -
before traumatic run in with some angry swans.

Looking back, I guess it would strike people (like my children) as a bit odd to have left over WW2 relics as a playground, but we used to love crawling around inside these things and it didn't strike us as unusual at the time.

Admittedly, entertainment for children has got a lot more sophisticated over the years. I get it - taste and attention spans have changed, but it's a bit sad we can't take Asher to the model train experience that his mum enjoyed when and if we visit Taupo - because, like the tank and the plane, it's not there anymore! 

During one of these Rotorua holidays mum and dad took us to feed some ducks at Sulphur Point - it was a dark and broody night - windy with a palpable threat of storm in the air. Lo and behold as we went to the water's edge a bevy of ravenous and aggro black swans came rushing towards us out of the water flapping their wings with their necks craning forward to attack us and grab the bread. Clearly their swan leader had instructed them to unleash hell. We scrambled back to the safety of the car throwing the duck's bread over our heads as we went.

I don't remember us indulging in any high-pitched screeching and wailing like banshees. But we might have.

It was all extremely exciting. And scary!  

Love and peace - Wozza