Hometown haunts and habitats: rustic miscellanea
My dicky toe had scuttled plans of getting out and about on foot properly. In any case, the weather wasn’t exactly conducive to lengthy walks with a camera. To satisfy the itch to get out and get snapping it was clear I’d need to rely on my car a lot more.
If anything, these circumstances made me think outside my normal box of stuff-I-usually-go-see. Though I did revisit some favourite places, like the river as you saw last time.
The result is below, a collection of sights from these driving-hobbling excursions in and around Helensville and Parakai.
These horses weren’t impressed. Yes it was Christmas morning, but it was raining and like me, Santa had overlooked them
The main street of Helensville around 7am on Christmas Day. About as lively as you’d expect
Every morning like clockwork these cows wait for the gate to be opened, so that they can cross the road and mosey (moosey?) along to the milking shed
The old dairy company is still a beautiful derelict town icon
Most of the site got demolished last year but the art deco buildings have been left, for now
The site remains securely fenced off – clearly though there are ways of getting in for the truly committed
Update Feb ’14: I’ve since learned that the blue and pink tags in this photo (‘Tye’ and ‘Ash’) are being saved as memorials. They were created by friends Tye Gibbs and Ashley Walsh who died in a car accident last August.
The railway has historical ties to Helensville though today it’s really only used for freight
I always check to see if this house is still standing, set back off the road next to the old movie theatre, and, for now, it is
A dinky painted transformer box
I took a back road out of town in search of a view and found this
I also found this!
Not far away was maize, lots of maize
In the middle of Parakai Domain is this avenue of palm trees, legacy of a time when the town’s geothermal tourism was really taking off
Photos several decades old show that a building was situated in front of the palm avenue – I would love to find out what it was
I went with Dad to one of the sites he works at to look for a mechanical thingy
I jumped out and had a quick wander
…taking care not to trip into the odd bit of vicious machinery
This is a wood yard, in case it wasn’t obvious. (The thingy was nowhere to be found.)
Give me a bit of rustic oldness and character and I’m as happy as Larry.
tall tales 
All intriguing shots, but I especially like the fence and boots photo! I’d love to know the story behind that. 🙂
It’s neat eh. They pop up from time to time around the countryside – there’s a famous bra fence down in the Cardrona Valley!
Like Cindi said, love the boots and shame you didn’t find the thingy. Maybe it was next to the thing a ma jig??
And that’s exactly where it turned out to be, next to the ma jig at one of their other work sites. Silly boys and their big toys.
NIce photo essay Hayley. I love the boot-fence and painted transformer photos. And I must admit that a bra-fence sounds intriguing. ~James
Thanks James. It’s fun stumbling across quirky things, especially when your brain makes a split-second decision that it’s worth doubling back for a photo!
What an interesting set of photos. It was a great joy to see sceneries from the opposite of our world.
Thanks so much Matti!
Love this, Hayley! Cows, rusted saws, art deco dairies and Wellies (right?)
Hi Steph, thank you! We call them gumboots, like the Aussies 🙂
There was a wooden kiosk beside the avenue of palms and from memory a paved road used to be between them. Originally the road led up to the old bathing pavilion which was to the left of the current pools. It was all changed by the council, but I remember as a small child. They would have removed the kiosk & road around 1970, I remember getting an ice cream from the kiosk.
Hi Greg, thank you very much for commenting. I studied several photos on the National Library website – a couple of those are linked below – and had read about the kiosk but wasn’t sure if it was the building immediately in front of the palm avenue, on Parkhurst Rd, or the other building, set back a bit further from the road. I think you’re saying it’s the first one. So, thank you!
http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22847562
http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22711938