The Rugged Coast of New Zealand Near Tangimoana

The Buildup to the Move

The incredibly heavy steel shelving units come together...now with MDF boards cut to length and sealed ( 2 months off gas time of course!) We somehow have to fit all of this into Pye Range..a Herculean task to be sure!

The Litter 'Soul Searchin'

A Group Called Smith Feat. Gayle Mccormick - I'll Hold Out My Hand..this is really good!

The Other Half - Bad Day

The Sons of Fred - Baby what do you want me to do

New Zealand: A look from State Highway 1

Part of our duties at the Museum is to travel to offsite locations to view items on loan to other institutions..here is a look at the countryside, including the area where they filmed Lord of the Rings..you may have noticed that the sun is quite harsh here, as seen in many of the pics..the light is quite intense and sunblock is mandatory.

Range Day

Ahead of the upcoming army shooting competition, Big T booked the range for a Sunday afternoon and we took out a Chinese AK-47 and an AR-15 with an original 4x Colt optic attached to it..the perks of working on an army base..

Me and Mog

Off to Auckland or Wellington Today?

Start off in 4th with these gear boxes..

Step Way Up..

Let me introduce you to the Mercedes built Unimog 1700..one of the true workhorses of the NZ army and an indispensable and important prime mover for the collection. Without it and its smaller brother the 1300, we would be unable to carry out many of the tasks we need to perform on a daily basis..

Me and the Mog..

So..Whaddaya do?

The job..ahh yes, the job..it has consumed much of my life since the moment I arrived here in NZ. I love the work: the hours are long and the tasks are varied and challenging. My tasks,as part of my learning contract with the college, are to help with the Technology Collection in any capacity I can, to garner more experience working with collections and to be part of a large collections move. One day I may be constructing shelving to house the artifacts, the next day I may be leading a tour group, or doing research, or numbering and photographing objects for inclusion on the electronic data base for the Museum..chief, cook and bottle washer!

M-548 Tracked Carrier

Sometimes I work on large armoured vehicles, such as this GM built M-548 tracked carrier, some times we travel to inspect those portions of the collection that are in remote locations ( we will see this later..) I suppose what I enjoy the most about this internship is that it allows me to gain experience working with items other people only dream of while living in a sub tropical country. I enjoy going to bed more tired than you can imagine, and waking up to start a new day where anything can and will be thrown at you, just to keep you on your toes...on top of this, Waiouru is a working military base, so I get to see and experience that side of life as well. If the day could have 30 hours, we would use them all.

WW 2  German FF33 Feldfernsprecher

  

The storage area that we are converting is a former sub calibre range for the Scorpion AFV. We have converted the four bays into a carpentry shop, a vehicle storage area ( mostly Land Rovers, motorcycles of all descriptions and light armoured vehicles) as well as a smaller technology storage area. Here, we will store the various communications equipment etc. that the NZ army has used over the years. The collection contains everything from Morse Code key devices to early computers and testing equipment

My Office Space..

Store Room 14: The Calm before the Storm

Interior

Yes, we put up this up too!