Away on a Trip

 We are on a short (4 days/3 nights) trip to Christchurch in the South Island to mark our impending thirty seventh wedding anniversary. 

Immediately after landing at 8am, we picked up our rental car and headed south for Lake Tekapo. En route,  we passed through the small rural town of Geraldine,  and I noticed an interesting building. We carried on to our destination and took the obligatory pictures (these will follow in a later post) but on our return trip, I suggested to my dear wife that I might stop in Geraldine for a short visit 

British army WW2 Truck...I am sure lots of you can let me know in the comments exactly what model!

A 25lb field gun

Lloyd carrier 

Ex NZ Army Scorpion tank. The guy running the museum used to drive them, and he owns this one...which is still in working condition and is driven around on occasion.  He told me they once removed the governors on the engine and the tank did 109kmh on the Desert Road where the army has its Waiouru training area....our version of Salisbury Plain.

Two WW2 carriers Universal (Bren gun) to the left and Thorneycroft to the right

M113 armoured personnel carrier

A WW2 Russian Maxim MMG and a couple of helmets

US softskins

Vietnam era mortar in a "firebase" setting

Inside the rear of the M113

NZ soldier with a "Jimpy" = GPMG, General Purpose Machine Gun.

To give school kids a general idea of a WW1 trench

Some WW1 artifacts

A display by a local reenactment group...1 SS Leibstandarte....who would have thunk, in rural New Zealand?!

A WW1 Ambulance...looks like a Model T Ford to me...can anyone confirm,  or correct?

The sign says it all....with the odd wrong word here and there!

Probably the most modern vehicle in the collection 

The Scorpion from a different angle

WW1/Back of Beyond side arms.

WW1 French Nieuport aircraft, but don't ask me which model! I think it is a modern reproduction....a pilot flew it once...but said it was scarily unstable, and it's never been in the air again!

This is a Fokker D7.....pretty sure the guy said it was a 5/6 replica.

One last image of a US truck and  a Dingo scout car.

I have done this post entirely on my phone and a very slow and time consuming process it has been, so I am finishing up here. I will present some "Why not visit beautiful New Zealand for your next overseas holiday" propaganda in a subsequent post!