"Knights of the Sky"

Today we visited an amazing museum, the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre which has permanently on display the "Knights of the Sky" exhibition, featuring Sir Peter Jackson's own collection of WW1 aircraft, artefacts & memorabilia. The story of aviation in the Great War (1914-1918) is brought to life in magnificent sets created by Wingnut Films & Weta Workshop. 

 

Etrich Taube (The Dove)

The life size and realistic looking mannequins show what exceptional talent Weta Workshops have & why they have won so many international awards.

DH-2, Pilots said it was like flying a witch's broom ( I thought it looked like a flying pram!) 

David got a fright when he caught sight of this guy lying in bed behind a glass window, he thought it was a real person for a moment.

 

The display of memorabilia was incredible, it all had very informative labels and a lot came with their own stories of how they ended up in the collection. This is part of the Allied Display cases.

 

 

Wartime Posters

Curtis Flying Boat

Part of the Central Powers display cases, this one of particular interest to me, it was all about the Zeppelin Airships. We have been to the home of the Zeppelin; Friedrichshafen in Germany many times, visited the Zeppelin Museum & watched a lot of airships take off & land at the Friedrichshafen airport which was right beside the exhibition centre where we attended EuroBike for our bike shows.

 

 

 Grid's Great Escape- (click to enlarge)

The British weren't very charitable to their pilots; no parachutes were handed out in case they took the soft option & wasted a valuable plane!! 

Grid's Great Escape

Fokker Triplanes- including the most famous of all; The Red Baron

Crash in the Snow- Nieuport 27 & Siemens Schuckert

The Baron's last Flight



Nieuport 24

Not quite the poppies "In Flanders Fields", but quite appropriate all the same, these yellow poppies were on the verge & in the field beside the museum.

In Flanders Field

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.     

A Helicopter & the Red Checkers

This morning we were woken by a helicopter that seemed to be buzzing our campsite. In fact it was topdressing or spraying the farm & in particular the hills behind the beach. It’s turn around point was right over the campsite, back & forward it weaved its way up & down the hill paddocks. After about six runs it would disappear over the hills only to return 10 minutes later to pick up where it had left off. This farm must be doing very well; helped along by many $5 notes! J

Yesterday we were also buzzed by the Red Checkers. The Checkers are the aerobatic  flying Team of the Royal New Zealand Air Force. They fly Pacific Aerospace CT-4E Airtrainers & were doing some practice work over Whitianga for the Super V8 opening in Pukekohe. We were having our lunch on the beach & a young foreign tourist came to ask us what it was all about. He thought they were doing a show just for him; there was no one else about! J

I cheated, these are my Napier Art Deco Checker shots... :)

 As you can see from my last post we did a bit of tiki-touring around the beaches on the north-eastern side of the peninsula that forms the top of Mercury Bay. These are all beautiful  ocean beaches & it would be hard to pick a favourite, I think I liked Otama for its isolation but Opito would be my choice to holiday at & if I wanted to get totally away from the world for a bit I’d have a bach in Matapaua Bay. We’ve anchored in most of the bays of these beaches at various times over the years but this was the first time I had visited them by road. Black Jack Road is world famous in New Zealand, well, world famous if you visit the Coromandel regularly. It’s another winding narrow gravel road up & over a ridge, for us, after all the winding narrow gravel roads we’ve been over lately it wasn’t actually that bad. And the views were spectacular.

 

I wanted to take the very narrow winding road to Matapaua Bay, a bay that’s always fascinated me because it’s actually on the inside of the peninsula & part of Mercury Bay & facing Whitianga & Cooks Beach but to get to it you have to take the long drive over and around the top, right to Opito and then over the top again and down into the bay. As already mentioned, we have anchored & overnighted in this bay ready for our run home to Tauranga in the morning, it has deep water & is a beautiful sea green colour.

We had lunch (when a cock pheasant strutted past us) at Otama Beach which looks out over another one of our happy boating areas, Great Mercury Island.

I think we need a new sun umbrella, this one is a little short!

 

We then headed back past Kuaotunu to look at Gray & Rings Beaches which we hadn’t been aware of before. They were both smaller lovely white sand beaches which looked to have been the old traditional holiday spots of this part of the Coromandel going by the iconic kiwi baches lining the roadside.  The rocks & boulders piled in the corner at the end of Rings Beach made an interesting pattern, it looked like they’d been blown there in a big storm. No doubt they’ve been there for thousands of years.

 

The road continued around the point to Matarangi Beach, a very popular holiday “resort”. I never like calling them resorts in New Zealand because they are nothing like the beach resorts that we’ve visited overseas. These just happen to be more popular holiday spots & sometimes they come with a flash golf course. And no, we didn’t play Matarangi Dad.

Bluff Road probably shaved about 10 minutes off the trip had we taken the normal route to Matarangi, back along the main road. This wasn’t called Bluff Road for nothing, now this was a winding, narrow road. Used more by locals than anybody I would think. It had some great fishing spots in amongst the rocks.

On the way home we stopped to see if David could pick out his sister’s old house in amongst the bush on the main road at Kuaotunu, his memory wasn’t  that great so while he was thinking about it I did as all good photographers do, never miss an opportunity of taking a shot! J

 

Napier, Art Deco Capital of the World

One of the reasons for visiting Napier, other than catching up with family, was to attend the 25th annual Napier Art Deco Weekend. Napier celebrates its iconic Art Deco style with a weekend of festivities and fun which now attracts tens of thousands of people from around the world. Over 65% of visitors & locals dress in the Art Deco style of the 1930s. Boas, braces & boaters are de rigueur, in fact if you're not dressed up you feel very much out of place. There are over 200 different events that you can attend during the week leading up to and including the weekend, a lot of them are free; it's one big street party.

Strolling the Promenade

"Far from the world's great population centres and from the European and American cities where 20th Century design evolved lays a small city that is unique. Napier, was rebuilt in the early 1930s following a massive Richter 7.8 Earthquake. Subsequent fires destroyed most of its commercial heart. By the end of the decade, Napier was the newest city on the globe.

Nowhere else can you see such a variety of buildings in the styles of the 1930s - Stripped Classical, Spanish Mission, and above all Art Deco, the style of the 20th Century - in such a concentrated area. Napier's Art Deco is unique, with Maori motifs and the buildings of Louis Hay, admirer of the great Frank Lloyd Wright.

Enhanced by palms and the angular Norfolk Island pines which are its trademark, and surrounded by fertile fruit and grape growing plains, dramatic hills and the shores of the South Pacific, beautiful Napier is the centre of the Hawke's Bay region. In Napier, you can enjoy the legacy of its brave rebuilding and savour the spirit of the optimistic Art Deco era."

One of the main events to start the weekend is the Automobilia Vintage Car Parade, this year led by a stunning display of Bentleys from around the world. Over 300 fabulous vehicles all polished until they shined with most of the drivers & passengers in costume from the era wound their way up Napier's Emerson Street which was lined five deep with people.

After the cars came the motorbikes & cycles.

 

 

The parade finished on Marine Parade at the Soundshell where the vehicles were lined up for inspection, what an incredible sight it was.

If you'd like to view more of the vintage cars click on the link below to see my full Flickr set;

Art Deco Vintage Car Parade

David & I headed to town on Saturday evening to watch the street dancing and the catch the entertainment at the Sound Shell. We arrived at Memorial Square just in time to see the "guests' arrive for their Depression Dinner at "Tin Town", they had walked the length of the main street after visiting the "soup kitchen" set up on Marine Parade. Dressed in rags & hand-me-downs, rattling tin cans, some even begging, they played their parts really well.



Lined up for the Depression Dinner

Sunday morning I headed out early, there were two events I wanted to photograph; the Soap Box Derby & the Gatsby Picnic. Both are very popular events and it was great to see fathers helping their sons & daughters prepare their trolleys. This was serious business, they were all walking the course & talking tactics.



 

The Gatsby Picnic is one of the most popular events of the whole weekend. The long lawns, both top & bottom that stretch along Marine Parade from the Sound Shell to the Floral Clock are a sea of colourful canvas, parasols, sun umbrellas & gazebos. Families & friends, young & old dress up in 1930s style, elegant & stylish, they bring their best china, furniture & knick-knacks from the Art Deco era, set it all up and have a picnic lunch or high tea. There are many fabulous displays and some people go to a whole heap of trouble to have everything looking just right. It's a visual treat wandering amongst the parties going on.

Families, couples and teens walked the promenade along the beach front, slowing to have their photos taken, catching up with friends or checking out other gazebos.

It was another stunning summers day, children played on the pebble beach over looking Cape Kidnappers, a few sat in the shade of their parasols watching the boats & yachts race off shore.

In the shade of the Veronica Sun Bay, people watched the navy band play and couples dance.

And as the hot afternoon wore on eyes turned skyward to watch "Those Magnificent Men"; flying displays by  RNZAF Red Checkers, the Warbirds Display Team & others.

We love you too Napier!

It was another fantastic Art Deco Weekend & it just seems to get better & better with each year.  And even though I left my home town 20 plus years ago I'm still very proud to call Napier home.

If you would like to see more of the Art Deco Weekend click on the links below;

Art Deco; Out & About Saturday

Art Deco; Sunday- Gatsby Picnic & Soap Box Derby