Paraparaumu and Southwards Museum

Back to the future would perhaps be a good name for this post. But first, a quick how we got to where we are today!

Bruce had worked in Wellington from 1970 through until 1976, employed by what was then the Post Office, as a Telephone Technician. One of his mates was Brendon, who ended up sharing a flat during Bruce’s time in Wellington. Brendon moved on from the telephone exchange where Bruce was stationed, but then Helen was employed in the exchange as a technician. Brendon was too busy restoring and repairing all sorts of amazing old cars to sustain a serious relationships, but one night in the flat, Bruce mentioned Helen was awesome and could keep up with the best of the guys in the mechanical / electrical world that we kept in service day in day out. Brendon asked to be set up on a date with Helen.  They immediately clicked, and married a few years later. In September of this year, these two will celebrate 40 years of marriage – wooohoo.

So, we stayed with Helen and Brendon in Paraparaumu for two nights, after the short trip down from Foxton. They have a very motorhome friendly driveway, and were amazing hosts to us. (we had to watch the dogs carefully because we were sure Brendon and Helen would steal them from us given half a chance!).

We had an entertaining  evening with much talking, and testing of some of of the Mike’s Brewery products that Judy and I had  procured earlier (see the Urenui post). Brendon and Helen made sure we knew we were all welcome to stay in the house should the scheduled rain, wind, hail and thunderstorms get too much for us in our aluminium enclosure on the driveway. We experienced all of the scheduled weather, but had a reasonable night, and woke to a less wind and rain sort of a day.

After a mandatory couple of coffees, we noticed a break in the rain, so took ourselves and the dogs out for a walk around Helen and Brendon’s neighbourhood. Judy came back with a pocket of ripe olives, from street trees in one of the new subdivisions. It seems that the residents must prefer the preprepared olives! Our ones are now in brine in antcipation of being used on pizzas on our return to home base.

After a leisurely lunch, Bruce was whisked away by Helen and Brendon to have a look through the Southwards Car Museum.  This had been on Bruce’s must do list for many years.

So now the ‘back to the future’ bit. One hundred years ago, this electric vehicle was introduced. Mrs Ford, and Mrs Edison had electric vehicles that they used instead of the noisy, complicated petrol cars of the time.

And to continue the theme, this one had to be included as well.

Southwards have an amazing collection of veteran, vintage, classic, and even bizarre vehicles. Like this brand new car that was then reclad in copper and brass. the Auckland owner must have been a plumber

Or the Jeepneys that are found in the Phillippines, which are pimped Jeeps that the Americans left behind when they departed.

The question has to be… why would you!

Helen and Brendon served up another beautiful dinner for us, and we chatted on till late. The second night was very windy, but also had a few heavy showers.

We sadly said our farewells in the morning, and headed off to explore Paraparaumu Beach and Raumati Beach, just as the rain and wind started again ….. gggrrrr. Bruce thought he knew the beach area well from when he was there in the 1970’s …. ha, some memory fade and added streets foiled that one. We were lost for a while there. We saw some places 4 times, got dead ended several times, and then decided to pull the plug and head to the Paraparaumu shopping centre for a couple of things before heading north again.