Thursday 18th December- Gumdiggers Park & the Gala Opening of the Swamp Palace Cinema

The sun was shining and so we went to Gumdiggers Park. It’s about 10 minutes from Awanui and quite close to the Kauri Museum which is handy as the Gum diggers worked the Kauri Trees for gum.

It was quite an interesting trip, you can walk around the old area where they used to dig the gum which was then mostly transported to USA and UK for the production of high quality varnish. It must have been a very tough life as the diggers lived in poor homemade tents made from jute sacking, then spent the day in water up to their thighs digging down 20 or so feet to get to the gum.

Once you found the gum under the tree you dug down and did not tell anybody else in case they came along and dug beside you. To stop their legs and feet getting too wet they had invented a long leather boot similar to a Wellington Boot, and eventually when rubber became available they had boots in rubber which were called of course, gum boots.

It was at this point that I found there was a problem with the card I was using in the camera and so for the moment there are not photographs available. I hope to resolve this soon.(NOW RESOLVED) Anyway for more information please see

http://www.gumdiggerspark.co.nz/

There was a quick diversion on the way back to the house to see a freshwater lake however it was not that attractive for photos but it is popular with the locals for swimming.

In the evening we went to the Gala opening night of the famous Swamp Palace Cinema in Oruru (near Taipa), it’s part badminton court, come village hall etc etc, you get the picture.

There was a huge crowd of about ten people who dutifully waited outside the building until the doors opened watched by the cows in the field across the road. With the occasional moo they realised that this film was not for them.

The owner made an interesting and funny introduction to the film and you could tell he did not think much of the film. The film employed Keanu Reeves and also starred John Cleese as a famous Nobel Prize winning doctor

The film being shown was the new “The Day the World Stood still”. It is a poor remake of the original film made in 1951. Jennifer thought it was the original 1951 film and said didn’t Keanu Reeves look quite old then? No comment.

Anyway almost two hours later we left the cinema which in itself is quite a place. It has about three rows of cinema type seats of 1960’s era and no doubt purchased in a second hand store and generally quite uncomfortable but still fun to be there.

We headed home and flicked through the TV channels to see what was on. No SKY here with full details and timing, its what you can find when it’s on. Anyway we spent an enjoyable forty five minutes on the National Geographic Channel watching a Lockheed Tristar crash in the Miami Everglades and the investigation afterwards to see why it happened. As usual it was pilot error or more likely crew error.