We could offer the job to Brad and Angie. The French got rid of their leader and have put a pig lover in place of him. You can see the domino effect that is taking place in Europe as Govt. leaders are being toppled on one cooked up reason after another. Could Obama be the next followed by Italy. Is John in with the terrorists?

G'day Joybel,

Back in those days love the only way East Coasters could get into the middle of the North Island and all points North was by 5 goat tracks....
Hastings to Taihape via Gentle Annie, Napier to Taupo via Rangitaiki (SF's hubby logged here, she might respond) Wairoa to Rotorua-Taupo via Lake Waikaremoana, Gisborne to Rotoura via Waioweka Gorge, and right around the Cape.

As native timber/logging was huge in this whole area, trucks, trailers, and articulated trucks were very common with the roads very steep, all metal, very narrow to the point of being single lane in many cases. Most private motorists in our area (Napier-Hastings) if heading north would deviate miles and miles out of their way via Woodville and the Manawatu gorge then head north. Two reasons being....running into logging trucks and being forced to reverse up hill to the first place where a passing action could happen and in some cases this could be up to 1/2 a mile. It was unwritten and accepted by private motorists that you did not stop a logging/timber truck while he was climbing on those roads due to his possible inability to restart his truck climbing again due to lack of traction and steepness.

Secondly, cars in those days were nowhere near as reliable as they are today and if you broke down it would cost you a fortune to get to the nearest garage and repaired together-with the anger of a truck driver if he could not get passed you....I could tell a couple of funny stories about that but won't....anyway, I could add much more but that's enough as I've got to head to Q'land's TAB.

Cheers love....thanks for staying out of my road.

How long since you went over the Napier - Taupo road Squirter? Shes a dream of a road now.

I can remember coming up that Pohukura Hill in the early '60s...had to stop every mile or so to cool the motor.

As for the "Gentle Annie".... I can remember my Father saying " Gentle Annie!...I'd call her a bl**** prostitute

Silverfern,

Do you mean the Cook of Thomas Cook the travel agent? no but I have read their advertisment from the old days promoting the service,yes the Thomas Cook travel agency was around that long ago.

My maiden name was Cook and I remember the folks talking about a Bill Cook who used to drive a stage coach over that road...dont know what relation he was to the family.

SF,

Crowther & Mc Cauly were the operaters

The plonkers let us down in 2006 when they were lobbied to steer clear of the labelling by the big Supermarkets.See my #52

G'day SF.

Fairly regular love as my son lives in Hastings. He's the only relation I've got south of New Zealand (Auckland) the rest are all up North....sorry, got 1 left in Christchurch but from what I can gather they have had a guts full, understandably, and are heading back to possibly Tutukaka or Ngunguru.

I too a modern day truckie over the old section from the Waipunga to Rappies just west of the Tarawera boozer about 10 to 15 years ago....his response, could not be done !!!!

Cheers love.

I see in Stuff today shoes are now in the long line of products that contain toxic chemicals. Back on subject it is not just GM crops in the States that's the problem but Monsanto sprays are causing many problems, some worst that GM crops. Seems the residual left in ground can effect other crops later down the years. You can't get organic certification if certain sprays have been used on/in the soil. Also the combination of the two seems to have lead to problems that will/may occur in other crops. It's all about shelf-life in the supermarket than a better healthier product. These are the supermarket chains that pump carbon monoxide into meat as it's packed to try and get 21+ days shelf life. When they do this the meat looks red but I for one would never eat it.

But the even larger looming problem is as follows;
Cattle fed on GMO tucker - its manure is used to fertilise vege crops - the GMO gene is passed to the vege - humans eat that vege and the vege passes GMO gene to human which acts as a chelator and that chelator stops the uptake of the very metals that the vege is being eaten to obtain. Thank you, Monsanto - the most evil Co anywhere.

Link is elsewhere but will post it here again.
C&P link below;
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/12/10/dr-don-huber-interview-part-1.aspx

http://www.combat-monsanto.co.uk/

http://www.combat-monsanto.co.uk/spip.php?article549&var_recherche=monsanto%2Cindia


C&P
"VIDARBHA REGION, India — The reminders are still here as Gokal wipes tears from his face. There’s the white headscarf with gold trim, next to a pair of cracked and worn sandals. The rope is here, too, snaking along the ground next to a large mango tree, a perfect noose tied at its end.

Five days ago, Gokal’s father hanged himself from the mango tree. His name was Motiram Baban Landkar, and Gokal and his two brothers don’t know how old he was when he died. In this part of rural India, birthdays go unnoticed and age matters little. The three sons can agree only that their father was about as old as the mango tree, and he took his life on May 31 to escape a debt of about $850.

He is one of nearly 200,000 Indian farmers, many of them cotton growers, to commit suicide since 1997. In fact, suicide among farmers in India has become so prevalent that officials in New Delhi keep a tally.

Hanging and consumption of poison are the common methods of death, and most farmer suicides have occurred in India’s cotton belt, which extends from Hyderabad north to Nagpur, at the geographical center of India, and east to the state of Gujarat.

Many in India blame a combination of climate change, globalization and the U.S. corporation Monsanto for pushing to suicide thousands of subsistence farmers.
Cotton seed has historically been among farmers’ lowest expenses. During the harvest, cotton growers would cultivate crop seeds and save them for the following season. As a general practice, they also would swap seeds with neighboring farmers, ensuring through natural selection that subsequent generations of cotton seed would be best suited for the region. Although local cotton did not provide the same potential yields as cotton seed from the Americas, it had adapted to India’s unique climate — an intense monsoon season followed by months of drought.

Monsanto helped to abolish this practice. At the turn of the century, the company introduced a genetically modified cotton plant that produces bacteria known as Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, a commonly used pesticide against bollworm. When Bt cotton seed first came to market nationwide in 2002 under the trademark Bollgard, a box recommended for one acre of farmland was 1,400 rupees, about $35, a substantial amount for a farmer who in a good year will earn a few hundred dollars to support his family. Although government-regulated prices have been halved to 750 rupees per box — a predatory pricing lawsuit filed by the state of Andhra Pradesh forced Monsanto and the federal government to lower the prices — the input costs of Bt cotton are still more than the average farmer can afford to spend out of pocket.

What’s more, unlike with traditional seeds, farmers aren’t able replant seeds harvested from the crop. Doing so not only would violate a farmer’s legal agreement with the seed company but would be impractical as well. Because Bt sold in India is only available in hybrid seeds, replanting the next generation of seeds is a genetic crapshoot. Hybrids genetically segregate with every generation, with only one-third of seeds showing the same genetic traits of the parent. While hybrids can offer yield benefits for farmers, they primarily offer Monsanto greater control of intellectual property through this genetic segregation. As a result, farmers must buy new seeds year after year.
On a macro level, Bt cotton has been a success in India. Since its introduction, national cotton production has doubled. But on a micro level, when examined from farm to farm, Monsanto’s technology has clearly offered mixed results.

Because the genetically modified Bt trait is only readily available in hybrid seeds, the crop requires more water than traditional Indian seeds. Affluent farmers with irrigated fields can fully exploit the technology and profit from increased yields, and these farmers are success stories for Monsanto."

I recommend the following 2 books "Water Wars" & "Soil not Oil" Shiva, Vandena
as being well worth the read.
" World According to Monsanto" Robin, Marie-Monique
is another good read if a bit frightening as to where we are heading with Globalisation and TPP. The section how the business lobby in the USA influences the FDA and when you consider that we don't do any testing ourselves it is a wonder that we have not had more disasters of the Tomato varity. What really gets me though is how GE Soy bean has now contaminated all the soy seed in North America and yet no one has been able to sue the GE firms for this contamination, but Monsanto has successfully bankrupted farmers who have been found to be growing "Round up ready" crops even though they have never bought the seed.
The round up ready soy is now becoming a weed which they are not able to control in their roadsides etc.