Crank Up- 2017

Catch-up

This one's been waiting in the wings for a long while- since Saturday, January 28th, 2017 to be exact, a Saturday that turned out to be the hottest day in the whole of Southland's poor excuse for a summer. 

Crank Up is one of the biggest vintage machinery events in New Zealand and is held in the shadow of the huge Edendale Dairy factory that dominates the landscape in the Southland country town of the same name. This year was the 30th anniversary.

Our Winton family have made it one of their 'must visits' each year and were keen to have us share the day with them this time round. We packed up a picnic lunch and folded ourselves into the people mover and headed off across country to Edendale. Ollie & Ruby were so excited, they spent the whole 55km road trip rattling off a long list of what they thought we should see and what they wanted to have a go at this year.

Once we found ourselves a car park. we hailed a 'taxi' and clambered aboard the quadbike-trailer combo, along with another couple, for an exhilarating ride weaving our way through and down the row upon row of vehicles already parked. I hope we can find our way home later...

Of course first up (and to curtail the excited chatter), were the mini jeeps. Last year Dad drove Ruby's jeep, this year she was determined to do it herself (see the tongue). 

I've never seen so many tractors in one place! I wonder where they all hide for the rest of the year. There were rows and rows of tractors lined up across a couple of large paddocks.

Southland certainly has more than its fair share of vintage tractors and trucks. It's great to see New Zealand's history and heritage is being so well looked after.

The tractor pull was happening near the dairy factory. Tractors in their respective classes pull a set weight on a sled. When a tractor gets to the end of the 100 metre track, it's known as a "full pull". When more than one tractor reaches the end, more weight is added to the sled and the competitors that moved past 100 metres compete in a pull-off; the winner is the one who can pull the sled the farthest. There seems to be a David & Goliath competition going on here. 

Various unusual contraptions trundled and shook their way along the walkways on their way to and from the parade ground. Before this traction engine made it into the alleyway, I had visions of excited kids (not our kids) falling underneath as they pushed each other out of the way and ran across in front of it.

Look at the face on this guy!

Either the guy is very tall (bottom right) or that's a truckie's version of a lowered car. Check the number plate out too. And we certainly knew when the tractor was making it's way through the crowd by its throaty roar, even if you couldn't see it.

Southern police need this secret weapon to chase crims across muddy fodder paddocks and maize fields. Ruby enjoyed climbing up into the cab and pretending to drive the tractor. And, it's a gimmick, the police don't really chase criminals in it, the tractor is used for PR at shows like this one.

These steampunkers wandering through the crowd certainly turned a few heads in conservative Southland.

And I have the feeling that this guy belongs with the others...or he's an extra in a Mad Max movie and has lost his way.

This guy (and his owner) certainly look like they belong with the others but they don't, this Macaw parrot is one of only two privately owned in New Zealand. His owner is a local magician who does shows and children's parties. Aren't those colours just stunning, nature sure is amazing.

Time for lunch....now where did we park the car and more importantly, how the hell do we tell our taxi driver where to go (shout at him loudly) .

After lunch we visited the stationary engines display...

Obviously there are plenty of people who enjoy owning and looking at these engines but personally I prefer something that moves. Fast.

Although I did try to convince David I'd be in seventh heaven towing this generator behind the rig! I don't think our neighbours would be though.

To add to their ever growing list of experiences at Crank Up, Ollie and Ruby were interviewed and videoed for a local newspaper. I'm not sure a ride in the mini jeeps was quite what the reporter was expecting from them when she asked what was the best bit of Crank Up. And 'Frankie' the teddy bear got a starring role.

Next came the parade, first a mock battle between....I'm not too sure, but they made a lot of noise. And don't ask, I have no idea what the Ninja Turtle was up to.

Someone won....but like the Turtle, I'm not so sure the Porta-loo quite fits the scene either.

Next came the steampunk people...

...some of whom didn't look too happy to be walking around the oval. I'm sorry, but I can't contain myself anymore. I wondered if they might have stolen a few subjects from the local rest home. Good on them for doing something outside the norm though.

Then came the Vauxhall parade and a few old memories- Dad's sister's husband was a Vauxhall fan and had many of these models. 

And I drove a few of the later models during my teen years.

It wasn't long before the kids got bored, the sun climbed higher and the queue for an icecream snaked across the yard. We decided to head for home, we missed the dancing tractors and another whole field of diggers and dozers and the kids were most upset that they didn't get to have a go at the 'digger dig' like last year. Cameron thanked his lucky stars we didn't find it, he had to queue with them and the queue was double the length of the ice cream line! 

And the reason why I hadn't done a blog before now? Once again I had to process the photos and as per usual I had far too many of them. I've uploaded them to a Flickr Album, click this link if you'd like to see more.

Westport- Beach Park & Tractor Trekkers

Just to let those that eagerly await my next blog post know, unfortunately cellphone & internet reception will be intermittant over the next few weeks as we travel the West Coast so there may be a few more days than usual between posts. 


The NZMCA (NZ Motorhome & Caravan Association) has over 50,000 members nationwide who are entitled to many benefits and perks including heavily discounted Cook Strait ferry crossings, discounts with a major appliance & electronics store and various other discounts elsewhere. The Association also has 27 NZMCA Parks located around the country in some stunning locations. For a very small fee ($3pp per night) members can stay in a safe & secure environment for anything from 3-7 nights per month depending on the park. Some parks have a dump station, laundry, most have rubbish recycling & fresh water. They are a Godsend for us and we always enjoy our stays.

I was a little worried as we followed the co-ordinates that I’d entered into TomTom for the Westport NZMCA Park. They led us through town and down towards the beach, onto a bumpy gravel road, past a swamp and rough scrub and out onto a sandy parking area that looked like an afterhours meeting place for the local hoons- in fact they used the wide expanse of beach at low tide to ‘hoon’ down. Freedom camping is allowed in this area and most nights there were half a dozen vehicles parked up. 

Down to the left of the sandy carpark a gravel road led to a large enclosed area with a firmly packed gravel surface and a locked gate; the NZMCA Park. What a great spot, right on the beach and only about 3kms from town.

The caretaker is obviously having a bit of trouble with visitors arriving at the park and not being able to get in even though they have the combination- I like his humour. I would have to admit though, that unless you read the sign board (and you don’t if you’re quite familiar with the routine) then you can get pretty frustrated trying to crack the code. And I would think you’d be especially peeved off if it was pouring with rain. Most combinations line up with the centre line on the padlock, not a top one (I didn’t even know they had a top line). While we were there (4 nights) at least 80% of arriving vans had trouble getting in.

But in the end it is worth the hassle, there’s not too many places where you can park up overnight so close to sea and watch the sun set below the horizon while you’re cooking dinner (or having a glass of wine).

I do think the caretaker should put up one of these signs though, 4 or 5 very friendly weka spend their day cruising around the park, resting under vans and fighting each other if someone throws out some food. Which is often.

As you can see the Park is a pretty popular place, most people using it as a base while they explore the top end of the West Coast. Those with caravans & fifth-wheelers were able to leave their vans in place while exploring each day; the motorhomes & buses had to take pot luck and find a new position when they returned each evening.

The beach was also popular with the Kiwi Experience tour bus. On our first night I heard a whole lot of chatter and laughter and when I looked out the side window a crowd of young people carrying supermarket bags of food plus wine & beer were walking along the fence line past us and over to the beach. They gathered up some driftwood and added it to a already charred fire pit, lit a bonfire and partied on for the next couple of hours. Now that’s a real “kiwi experience”. The same thing happened the next night but they were a little later and missed the sunset. The next night it was raining heavily.

It was a great surprise to find some friends from Tauranga parked up just along the fence from us. I was walking across the park and saw a couple of guys talking, as one walked off towards his motorhome I thought he looked familiar. I called out to him but he didn’t hear me and disappeared around the side of the motorhome. I was sure it was Ian so I followed him around the side calling his name. He still didn’t hear me and for a moment I thought I’d got it wrong but then he turned and saw me, and then Jess appeared at the door.

It was wonderful to see them. We had a couple of very happy ‘happy hours’ for the next two evenings and caught up on our travels, & gossip from ‘home’. It is rather strange that had I not seen Ian we could quite well have not known each of us were in the park. We often don’t see our neighbours as everyone comes and goes each night & morning.

The town of Westport is nothing to write home about, it’s your usual small provincial town (pop. 4000) with not much to offer. There’s a short main street with pretty hanging flower baskets on each side which add a bit of cheer, a number of restored historic buildings & plenty of empty shops and shops selling tacky imported junk. There are no decent clothing stores but a good number of cafes and a large i-Site that is always busy- tours leave for the coalmines & up the coast from here.

And then there is the most beautiful Municipal Chambers (former) building I have seen on our travels. It is absolutely stunning. It was built in 1946 and is coated in Motueka sand which gives it this beautiful colour- remember the sand from our time at Kaiteriteri? The Phoenix palms are the perfect accompaniment to the Art Deco style.

And what better place for a procession of tractors towing various forms of accommodation to be welcomed into the town. The convoy, 27 in all and called the Tractor Trekkers, are towing a range of pop-tops, caravans and wooden sheds around the South Island raising funds for the Westpac Chopper Appeal.

They were on their way to Karamea (at the end of the road) before returning to Southland (where they are from) via the east coast.

We passed them two days later as they were returning from Karamea, spread out like Brown’s cows along the highway. Which was just as well as some were moving along at a cow’s pace.

Sunset over Westport’s NZMCA Park.

Time Standing Still- Rockville Museum

After stopping at Langfords Store we decided to make it an afternoon of nostalgia and call into the Rockville Machinery & Settlers Museum which we had passed earlier on, on our way up the Aorere Valley.

The museum is located in an old dairy factory and was pretty rustic to say the least. A country museum lacking in funds but trying hard to keep the local community’s history alive.

There were numerous brands of tractors lined up in the first section and this fibreglass horse all kitted out with suitable tack for the job of pulling farm machinery. The horse was located just around the corner in the entrance foyer. He gave me a bit of a fright as I pushed open the fly-screen tassels and he loomed out of the darkness. Later when I looked in the visitors book, he had given others a fright too!

I want to say “Lights, cameras, action!” when I look at this photo. There is no one attending the museum just a donation box and automatic lights that switch on as you move through the building.

The settlers part of the museum was behind a wire partition, I guess machinery is a lot harder to walk away with. A lot of this gear wouldn’t look out of place back at Langfords Store.

The Collingwood Hospital wire-wove bassinet grabbed my attention, I’m glad they were for new-borns. I could see a little hand or finger getting caught once they started moving about.

There was a good range of appliances on display including the first electric stove in Golden Bay (the one on the left) and the first electric washing machine (below right) What a beautiful piece of machinery that one was, two cylinders; the bigger one the washer and the smaller one the spin dryer, I bet the ladies of the house were over the moon when that arrived on their door step. The Hoovermatic twin-tub I had when newly married was nowhere near as stylie as that.

But I wouldn't mind this little number for the van; compact, easy to store and with a fold away ringer! Perfect for RV living. Not too sure about the Kermit green colour though….

The walls in this section of the dairy factory were covered in a mural made up of hundreds of drawings of different modes of transport.

These manual telephone exchange boards reminded me of my childhood. It always fascinated me that a party line could link dozens of people together. Out there somewhere there was a lady sitting ready to “join the dots” pull that lead out and plug it in there to connect people to talk to each other. I remember adults commenting on the fact that “Mrs Brown” at the exchange knew everybody’s business because she could, if she wanted to, over-hear their phone conversations. I also remember the distinctive “click” as someone on the party line lifted their receiver when you were talking on it.

Not much has changed, people can still spy on your conversations if they want.

Outside and around the building were numerous vehicles and machinery in various states of dilapidation. If we had a dollar for every abandoned vehicle, caravan, piece of machinery and house we've seen on our journey so far we’d be very wealthy people. I can’t imagine what will eventually happen to these but I guess they’ll slowly rot away, fall apart & disappear into the undergrowth that is rapidly overtaking most of them. In the meantime they are a terrible eyesore and a blot on our "clean-green" landscape.

A HQ Holden just a hold-en together?

And in a paddock behind the backyard was this bull and a couple of female friends. He looked rather skinny for his size and came running as soon as I approached. There was a trailer of loose hay in the museum yard so I grabbed a few handfuls and threw it over to him, his friends then came running over too. I wish I could have thrown the whole trailer load to them.