1987 CHCH, and Dalmore, as they were

In the summer of 1987 Margo and I went on a motorbike trip around Christchurch highlights - most of which have now gone in the 2010-12 earthquakes - through Methven.  The result was a video tape (originally titled McKay to McKay) which I have now digitised.  Originally recorded on mini VHS, it it was  transferred to standard VHS, and now has been converted to a digital format (m4v) - so the quality of the original handheld version as gained a few idiosyncrasies along the way.

Not the bike on the tape  

Places  are:

• 111 Chapter St
• 'New' Girls High.
• Victoria Square and thereabouts 
• CHCH BHS
• University of Canterbury
• Design ideas for the yet to be built house on Longhurst Tce
• Rakaia Gorge and jetboats
• The Dalmore homestead 
• Lane St, Ashburton.  

People along the  way:

• Rod and Margo, Alistair, Catriona, Duncan
• Aunty Jessie (McKay) Shaw, (at Dalmore homestead)
• John Mackenzie and (cousin) Leslie (MacDonald) Mackenzie (at Dalmore)
• Alec Mackenzie (visiting Dalmore)
• Bill and Marjory Hart (at Lane Street)
• Don and Nancy Smith (visiting Lane Street) 

The bike in the image is not my bike at the time (a Honda Silverwing, v-twin w/cooled) but it gives an idea: it's Duncan about to take off on a road trip in March, 2014. 

The digital file of the Road Trip  can be downloaded from this post. The programme runs for about 54 minutes. 

WARNING: The following link is to a large file - about 1.2 gigabytes. It will take a few minutes on a fast (30 MB) internet connection and forever on a slow one. 

OOPS!! My Dropbox has been (temporally)  banned due to too much traffic. Since I am of Scots extraction I am using the free version. So attempts to down load will now fail until it resets itself.  So I have changed the way to access - CLICK HERE will let you send me an email to request the access,  allowing me to monitor access. 

CLICK HERE to request a download of file of McKay to McKay, in m4v digital format.  This should be playable on most computers.

Start somewhere.

Where to start?  I wouldn't be typing this if I hadn't been born, so lets begin there.
On the 22 July, 1939, my father Colin Ian McKay was out in the front paddock at Dalmore, the home farm, in Methven, feeding stooked oats from a haystack into a traction engine driven steel mill. This provided grain to feed the farms draft horses (and chaff from the straw).

 

img: folksong.org.nz - Ballad of the Coleridge Run

Unlike in the photo there was fresh snow on the ground.

At about 9 am my Aunt Jessie ran out to tell Ian that I had been born in the Methven Cottage Hospital.

That was the end of thrashing for the day for Father.

I appeared to be a bit on the undernourished side, so I spent the next three months in a Plunket run Karatane Hospital wrapped in cotton wool and eating through a nose dropper.  I have no recollection of this! (Karate Hospitals were through out NZ by mid-tewentieth century.  I don't know which one I was in - may have been Christchurch, or Timaru.)