I Finally Painted Something!

 So, for the first time in a while, I actually have some genuine wargaming content on this blog. Don't get too excited, its not an ACTUAL wargame, just painted figures - but that's a step in the right direction at least!

Still got a couple of days worth of S Island holiday pics to get through too, so don't think you have dodged THAT bullet!

The two FT 17 tanks and one of four field guns. I left the tanks without markings at this stage as they can be generic and fight on either side as required

Some close ups of the gun...Minairons helpfully do separate Republican and Nationalist gun crews, so they are likely to be part of the next order

Several views of one of the FT 17's

As my natural sympathies lie with the Republicans, I started painting the Nationalists first! Above an officer

Rifleman

Another officer

Standard bearer

FT 17 and infantry to give an idea of scale - I think they work well

What do you think of the uniform colour? It looks far too bright to me but it is as recommended on the rear of the packet and as the paint is Vallejos, both figure manufacturer and paint supplier are Spanish - so they should know what they are talking about...?!

Yesterday, after several hours searching the internet, I ordered some additional tanks from a site in Poland! Super-Hobby.com has a number of kits by a Polish manufacturer First to Fight and obviously the German kit is all very early - PzKfw I and II at about £5 each! I also got a couple of T26 Russian tanks. Tha'ts the great thing about 20mm, literally thousands of plastic kits available for all forms of vehicular support!

Now, in Part Two of todays post, here are the latest batch of holiday snaps.....

The day started with a return trip over the Remarkables, which we last did in darkness! (see sunset over the mountains in a previous blog)

I believe the sign says its the highest or second highest sealed road in Mew Zealand

After the breath taking views, we headed back up the Gibbston Valley - todays plan? Wine tasting!

The first stop

Unfortunately I waited till the two staff were not behind the bar to take this image, In retrospect, I wish I had a pic of Bindy, the 23 year old trainee sommelier who did our wine cave tour, because she was truly outstanding! So knowledgeable and down to earth, dismissive of all the usual tenets of wine snobbery that really P...me off. you know, "It had notes of pistachio and Cuban cigars" sort of bollox!

First vines planted early 1980's - Bindy made the comment that French tourists roll their eyes at this stage! :)

A useful map of the wine growing area, showing most of the places we visited in our 6 days 

Where the wine tasting was conducted - built illegally an the early 1980's by an alcoholic Irish journalist who knew nothing about viticulture but founded this vineyard. He paid Italian tunneling contractors working on the nearby Clyde Hydro Dam project to create this on their free weekends, paying them in barrels of wine! The cave cannot be extended and no one else can build one, because it is completely illegal - so will remain forever unique to this vineyard!

We drove on to the next vineyard at Mount Difficulty, which had some stunning scenery

If you zoom in on this pic, you can see some of the landscape has a distinctly Western US feel to it (well to our eyes anyway!)

Lunch at Mt Difficulty - I know, it looks TINY, but actually, it was plenty once eaten - beautiful Pork Belly with spot on crackling!

"Roaring Meg" is one of the locally produced wines, taking its name from this natural feature, which is used to create hydro electricity

Came across this so had to take a pic of course - also Googled the background story:

"Driver inexperience was one of the main causes behind an army Unimog crash that killed three young soldiers, the Queenstown coroner has found.

In his finding released today, Alan Macalister said all three men died of misadventure, but the accident could have been avoided if the 17-year-old driver had been supervised.

Private David James Partington, 17, the driver, Private Ashley Patrick Goodwin, 19, and Private Shane Adrian Ohlen, 21, died when their Unimog crashed through a steel road barrier and plunged about 70m into the Kawerau River at Kawerau Gorge on February 23, 2005.

The men were taking part in a driver training exercise."

Final stop of the day - Mt Rosa vineyard

Another beautifully tranquil location to sample a few local wines in the mid afternoon sun

We sampled 7 wines plus a mulled wine mix, all for the princely sum of $15 a head - a great day to be sure (our driver Brett was on Heineken Light - that's probably why he picked up bloody Covid!)

Talking of Covid, we have done our seven days, my daughter and I have tested three times and don't have it, so looking like a return to working at the office tomorrow for me - thank the Lord! My daughter has worked two or three times this week anyway - as a flight attendant she is classified as essential and just has to do a test the day she is working to make sure she is clear.

Thanks for visiting and well done on making it to the end - please do mark your visit by leaving a comment!