Am I getting old? Aren’t Sunday drives what ‘old’ people do?

So, yes, I went for a drive this sunny Sunday…for a number of reasons, none of them terribly good other than that I am numbered among the technically-challenged, I have needed to buy some new wiper blades for the trusty Ssangyong since I got back from Germany but have not got around to it…I have also been restructured the home entertainment system to better utilise the WiFi system at home; for this I needed a HDMI-microHDMI cable to connect my tablet to the TV to stream movies off the main PC. I duly ordered one from Mighty Ape but got my minis and micros confused (that getting old thing again?) and the WRONG cable was waiting in the mailbox when I got home on Friday night. Ordering the RIGHT cable from Noel Leeming which duly emailed me yesterday that I could pick one up from their Taupo store…

After our adventures in Germany and The Netherlands, I was quite keen to better use the GPS in my tablet when offline. I found NAVFREE in the Google Play Store and downloaded the New Zealand Geo database – Google Maps only allows limited geo snapshots to be downloaded i.e. 4-5 snaps just for the road from home to Bulls – for a trial. I was seeking an excuse for a drive to seek how it worked. The bottom line is that it works well and that I can recommend it. An additional insight from today’s little trial was the difference between my indicated speed on the speedometer and that indicated via GPS…about 10% consistently less on the GPS i.e. indicated 110kmh was only 100kmh on the GPS. As I would tend to flavour the GPS as the more accurate measurement, this is an interesting slant on the NZ Police campaign that started today to only accept a 4kmh tolerance for speeding offended over the summer months…

Along the way, I took a break along the shores of Lake Taupo…

…to pick up a couple of pieces of pumice for the bathroom…

…before heading towards Taupo again…

My visit to Leemings was frustrating as the staff could not find the cable that I had ordered and that the company had emailed me was ready for uplift…grrrrr…even though they have promised to courier it over as soon as they find it, I was really looking forward to watching some movies tonight. While that was a bit of a bust, the staff at Repco were really helpful to this non-techo driver and set me up with the right replacement blades. I popped into Taupo Hobbies but bravely resisted the temptation to buy anything even though one of those old Airfix Mk.VII Churchills was looking good for the ‘for old times sake’ Airfix Annual conversions I am contemplating for next year…

I did succumb to temptation in The Warehouse though and picked a couple of DVDs albeit from the $6 bin…and some more reinforcements for the vege garden: I am very keen to try the upside-down tomatoes that I saw on the Otaki Hydroponics Facebook page, and get some passion fruit underway for jams and stuff…also got some more herbs as I plan to squirrel away as much produce as possible for the winter…

I stopped off to visit family in Turangi and drove away heavier one homegrown mega-lettuce (their garden is well-advanced on my own!) and a couple of packs of venison… Mixed with some fresh potato salad that sounds like a meal for a summer day sometime soon…

And so that was my day and now we’re all fed and Kirk and I are watching JAG but Lulu is off having a bit of a sulk somewhere because I turned her away from more cuddles…