FMD, University of Waikato
Issue No: 115 – March/April 2014
New Building arriving on site – early hours of 27 March 2014 The TARS (Traffic & Road Safety) building arrived on site, adjacent to HI block, in the early hours of Thursday 27th March. The building left Leisurecom's factory in Cambridge (where it had been pre‐fabricated) at precisely 10.30pm on Wednesday night; travelling via Hautapu Road, SH1, Galloway Street, Peachgrove Road, Ruakura Road, Knighton Road and Gate 1, it was eventually parked on site at HI around 2.30am. Everybody then went home to sleep and came back at 8am for another couple of hours of precise manoeuvring. The picture shows one of the more tricky stages of the transport ‐ navigating the bus 'tear‐drop' by the shops. To the untrained eyes of Trevor and Tony, it appeared that the
convoy had got stuck at this stage unless a light pole came down. In the event, only some light tree pruning proved
necessary along the route: no campus signs or light poles needed to be moved. ‐‐‐‐ Trevor Harris Introducing Lyle Sanders
I joined the Grounds team on Monday 31st March. I am married with two children, aged 2½ and 4½. I enjoy home projects in my spare time, such as building decks and repairing fences. Family time is important to me. Other interests are playing Xbox, going for bushwalks, watching sports. Kayaking Some quotes you might find relevant
On Sunday 6th April, Tony, I, my daughter Kathryn, and friend Vanessa kayaked from the Narrows to Hamilton. It was supposed to be from Cambridge, but I wimped out because I had a sore shoulder. It was a short trip of just an hour, but very peaceful, with many Hawks and Falcons observed cruising above the river, along with other birdlife. We also saw some rather interesting structures along the way, which in some cases might have been “houses”, although we weren’t really sure. We still intend to do the trip from Cambridge, but possibly that will wait for next summer. John Pictured above L‐R: John Cameron, Katherine Giles, Tony Dicks and Vanessa Erickson You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. – Mae West Everything you can imagine is real. – Pablo Picasso I’m not afraid of death; I just don’t want to be there when it happens. – Woody Allen The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. – Isaac Asimov Balloons Over Waikato at Innes Common
On Thursday 27th March I was invited to go on the early morning balloon flight from the Hamilton Lake. I went with Jim Bushelle (pictured top‐right) who owns and pilots the feature balloon Rocket Man (below). This balloon was shipped out to NZ for the week‐long festival from the USA. After a delayed start we took off from the Lake Domain – very late. I would say we were more or less the last balloon off the ground. The criteria which have been imposed for the balloonist is they have to be on the ground by or before 9am. We landed in the Aberdeen Primary School grounds to the delight of the hundreds of school children who were outside. I was impressed with the ground crew who immediately, to the delight of the children, involved them in packing up the balloon (pictured right). When the balloon was packed away, they also had a question and answer time; the kids all had a ball and were very excited. The balloon ride itself was very slow and ranged from 1mph (American equipment on board) per hour to 2.9 mph. The best part was the landing, clearly Jim is a pretty experienced pilot although he did say just before landing that he only looked through the manual the night before … yeh right! ‐‐‐ Ray Hayward Otago Rail Trail Over Easter, I, my daughter and her husband and children did the Otago Rail Trail in astoundingly good weather considering what was going on before and after, and around that area. The colours were stunning and the schist landscape was just beautiful to look at. The picture in the middle at the bottom is for Mark, to demonstrate we are not the only ones that get scum build up on lakes, but in this case it’s across the entire lake. The 160 km trip was great fun. We had no injuries or major tantrums, and it gave the perfect justification to a “cleansing ale” each night. We finished up with a trip down to Dunedin on the Taieri Gorge railway. The gorge is very scenic schist hillsides and more autumn colours. Dunedin was cold, and on one occasion driving horizontal rain that had so much wind behind it, the kids thought it was hail! I would thoroughly recommend the whole trip to others who might be interested. John Cameron Facilitation will be produced bi-monthly. This publication is available online (where the pictures are a lot clearer) at http://www.waikato.ac.nz/fmd/
For communications relating to the FMD newsletter please contact Judy Swetman, ext 4980, email [email protected].