Monday, February 25: Cooler, sunny with variable cloud
Dave’s/Brennagh’s
A morning for a bit of a sleep-in, if only the Indian gentleman from last night hadn’t been so loud. Anyway, breakfast was a smorgasbord of cereals & toast, coffee and orange juice.
With that out of the way it was time to try to solve the technical problems. First was to make aim for Technoman at 65 Moana Street in the Wanganui East shopping center and a bit of a stroll through town. A couple of shops out there, but nothing too inviting for a meal. The guy on duty couldn’t say much about using a machine with admin rights, but he could plug in the GPS device, just not read any data. I said I would come back tomorrow and later wrote them something on their facebook page, but there doesn’t appear to be much hope.
Once back here I took off into town to find some polarizing sunglasses which were eventually bought for $20 at one of the dollar stores. Still have to find a case for them. Then had lunch at the bakery/roast shop at 173 Victoria Ave (mince pie & drink for $5), went and had a look at the Durie Hill Elevator and considered taking pictures from the top, went to the i-site and got info on the return trip for Trains/Matemateaonga, then went shopping at the downtown countdown complete with a new one card. Had one of the mandarins back here.
In the meantime all of the pictures from the very full disk had been transferred to the external hard disk and a backup folder. There was a little time for playing around with a couple of pictures and I isolated the timelapse sequences from the Round the Mountain Track folders and turned them into films, as well as enfusing a couple of the brackets.
The house here is inhabited by a couple of ghosts, both ancient. The woman speaks Russian and very little English. I had parked my sleeping bag on the clothes line to dry and air, and was in conversation with Brennagh about the use of the washing machine after which she called someone (who later turned out to be Marina) and told her that she thought her mum wanted to speak to her. The other ghost is the previous owner of the villa and surprised me by appearing as I was trying to inspect the upper floor, and was told that I ought to get Brennagh’s permission if I wanted to go upstairs again.
Batteries were also being recharged and the time had come to inspect what was wrong with the pack. Looks like the straps are separating from the body, and that does not bode very well. Since I was unable to find a shoe repair place here, and there are only two outdoor stores in town and their range of packs (at least what is available online) does not offer much consolation in terms of price, size or weight.
It was also time to make a decision about dinner. Had an extensive look around Trip Adviser and rather belatedly joined. I say belatedly because most of the negative comments are just plain belly aching and I think therefore the model that they are using is past its best by date. I eventually settled on the Red Lion, 45 Anzac Parade, Durie Hill, because they were having a burger night with $4.5 off. I had a “steak” and mushroom one with chips and a handle of Tui for $19.5. Was a bit gristly, but there you go. Looked by at Warehouse, but they had no useful packs, then took a back street back here to explore a little more.
The ipod was charged and listened to, and tomorrow there has to be a decision about the pack problem. There is more on offer in New Plymouth if I wanted to buy new pack, but that would mean a major upheaval. In the meantime the male ghost gave me the tip of Sue’s Fixit in Spooner’s Dry Cleaners in a Japanese Arcade off Victoria Ave to attempt a repair on the backpack.
