Searching for the Perfect Photo in New Zealand (via Toyota Starlet)
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R.Symancek
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Weekend Trip to Trotter's Gorge
Our past weekend trip left my a straggler, since I had a late class at the University of Otago, I couldn't make the hour drive to the cabin we planned on staying at until after dark. The only direction I was given was that the cabin was about a 15 minute walk in from where the cars were parked. Cam and a few of our friends from Uni left early, so their arrival left them plenty of daylight. When I showed up, my headlight ran out of batteries, leaving only a cell phone to light my way... But it was the wrong way. I walked forty minutes into the tick jungle-like brush alone, which could have been a problem, but I decided to keep pressing on because I found glow worms along the edges of the rocks. At first I thought I was seeing things, but no lie, glow worms were all over Trotter's Gorge, and even more so in the Trotter's Gorge cave. Google glow worms. You will see them in caves. That's what it looked like. I'm extremely dissapointed in myself for not trying to get a picture, but at the time, my obligation was to find the cabin, and not fall off a rock ledge. This means I will have to come back... soon.
Anyway, an hour or so later I found Cam and our friend Tim looking for me as I stumbled along another trail. I wasn't expecting our cabin to be as big as it was. I was thinking more in terms of hut when I was looking for it. Once I was settled in, I was told we were going eel spearing (Sorry for those of you wanting to see nice living eels, as it turns out, Kiwis like the taste. We will do what we can to get awesome shots of living ones another time maybe, but they are hard to find in the day). So, into the darkness we went with a flashlight and a spear. Each taking turns, we caught enough for the night day's meal.
Our friends Kate and Tim with a longfin eel.
The next day we spent cooking them up and hiking around the gorge. The top of the gorge gave us awesome views of the ocean... and some good rocks to boulder. Trotter's Gorge was a wonderful place to spend the weekend, and only an hour away, we saved on some gas money this week. It was also extremely nice to spend time with real Kiwi's and our friends Marti and Brenda from Spain.
The Starlet leaving the gorge for the trip back.
Our past weekend trip left my a straggler, since I had a late class at the University of Otago, I couldn't make the hour drive to the cabin we planned on staying at until after dark. The only direction I was given was that the cabin was about a 15 minute walk in from where the cars were parked. Cam and a few of our friends from Uni left early, so their arrival left them plenty of daylight. When I showed up, my headlight ran out of batteries, leaving only a cell phone to light my way... But it was the wrong way. I walked forty minutes into the tick jungle-like brush alone, which could have been a problem, but I decided to keep pressing on because I found glow worms along the edges of the rocks. At first I thought I was seeing things, but no lie, glow worms were all over Trotter's Gorge, and even more so in the Trotter's Gorge cave. Google glow worms. You will see them in caves. That's what it looked like. I'm extremely dissapointed in myself for not trying to get a picture, but at the time, my obligation was to find the cabin, and not fall off a rock ledge. This means I will have to come back... soon.
Anyway, an hour or so later I found Cam and our friend Tim looking for me as I stumbled along another trail. I wasn't expecting our cabin to be as big as it was. I was thinking more in terms of hut when I was looking for it. Once I was settled in, I was told we were going eel spearing (Sorry for those of you wanting to see nice living eels, as it turns out, Kiwis like the taste. We will do what we can to get awesome shots of living ones another time maybe, but they are hard to find in the day). So, into the darkness we went with a flashlight and a spear. Each taking turns, we caught enough for the night day's meal.
Our friends Kate and Tim with a longfin eel.
The next day we spent cooking them up and hiking around the gorge. The top of the gorge gave us awesome views of the ocean... and some good rocks to boulder. Trotter's Gorge was a wonderful place to spend the weekend, and only an hour away, we saved on some gas money this week. It was also extremely nice to spend time with real Kiwi's and our friends Marti and Brenda from Spain.
The Starlet leaving the gorge for the trip back.
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R.Symancek
New member
So, I'm a little pressed for time since I'm getting ready for the Rally of Otago (only as a mechanic/service crew... no the Starlet is not racing Rally Otago). But I'll try to catch up with more posts when I can. Hope you all liked the Trotter's Gorge post... next up... this. What is it?
Albatross!
R.Symancek
New member
Winner! You get a.... well... a virtual pat on the back, how does that sound?
Yes, the other day was a great Albatross spotting day. Pictures to come.
R.Symancek
New member
The Story of the Great Albatross
This is the story of the Great Albatross.
It starts out: Once there was an Albatross colony on the far side of the Otago peninsula. Some say it is the only Albatross colony on a main body of land. If you got to this said colony, humans make you pay heeps of money to look at the 'Albatri' from behind glass windows. And understandably so, not that in complaining, really. But, we don't have heeps of money to pay to go look at them from a building with glass windows that were sure to ruin any shot we tried to get of the birds. So we took our chances just walking around outside the gate.
Cam whipped out the Canon 500mm.
To our surprise, at some points during our stay, Albatross would fly right over our heads! Beautiful birds! And so graceful in the air! It was a pleasure to see them glide along the shores.
We saw a friendly seal too! These shots I took with my old Nikon D70s... but once Cam gets around to it, I'll post some better Albatross pictures.
This is the story of the Great Albatross.
It starts out: Once there was an Albatross colony on the far side of the Otago peninsula. Some say it is the only Albatross colony on a main body of land. If you got to this said colony, humans make you pay heeps of money to look at the 'Albatri' from behind glass windows. And understandably so, not that in complaining, really. But, we don't have heeps of money to pay to go look at them from a building with glass windows that were sure to ruin any shot we tried to get of the birds. So we took our chances just walking around outside the gate.
Cam whipped out the Canon 500mm.
To our surprise, at some points during our stay, Albatross would fly right over our heads! Beautiful birds! And so graceful in the air! It was a pleasure to see them glide along the shores.
We saw a friendly seal too! These shots I took with my old Nikon D70s... but once Cam gets around to it, I'll post some better Albatross pictures.
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R.Symancek
New member
And now for my next act!.... Uh-oh.
R.Symancek
New member
Starlet Decides to Take a Break
I didn't want to say it's broken, because there are literally only about five moving parts in the Starlet's entire engine bay. If only I could tell you guys that it was just a loose belt. It wasn't. So, in order to catch everyone up to speed:
I was driving around the city when I came to a stop. The car stuttered and lost power at the stop. I ended up getting out, and since the Starlet only weighs a few pounds, I was able to push it the three blocks back to the parking lot. Once in the parking lot, I checked for the two main possible causes: spark? or fuel? After checking for fuel, seeing the pump working, and throwing some starting fluid down the carb... and still not getting any catch, I boiled down my problems to being a spark issue. I thought this was weird, since the car stopped running when I was coming to a halt. It just seemed fuel related. So, I pulled a spark plug, and they looked a little used up, but not too bad. But spark was weak. I didn't have a lot of time or tools on me to do a full diagnosis of how much power I was getting where, so I had to do a little bit of non-cost-effective guessing. The distributor looked a bit used up. I thought, why not a new cap? I skateboarded to the nearest Repco and picked up a new distributor and spark plugs. Installed. No luck. I still have a weak spark. At this point I did a little more testing. I figured that the coil must have been fine, since I was getting good power on starting. I then checked the points gap in the distributor (looked good), and the timing of the cap itself (which I didn't see how this could have lost timing in the first place, but it seemed to time with the points well). So, can anyone guess where to go from here. I know the answer since I figured it out already. But it's a problem I've never dealt with before, and if I had done a bit more testing before buying, could have saved me a new distributor and plugs (although they are nice to have).
I didn't want to say it's broken, because there are literally only about five moving parts in the Starlet's entire engine bay. If only I could tell you guys that it was just a loose belt. It wasn't. So, in order to catch everyone up to speed:
I was driving around the city when I came to a stop. The car stuttered and lost power at the stop. I ended up getting out, and since the Starlet only weighs a few pounds, I was able to push it the three blocks back to the parking lot. Once in the parking lot, I checked for the two main possible causes: spark? or fuel? After checking for fuel, seeing the pump working, and throwing some starting fluid down the carb... and still not getting any catch, I boiled down my problems to being a spark issue. I thought this was weird, since the car stopped running when I was coming to a halt. It just seemed fuel related. So, I pulled a spark plug, and they looked a little used up, but not too bad. But spark was weak. I didn't have a lot of time or tools on me to do a full diagnosis of how much power I was getting where, so I had to do a little bit of non-cost-effective guessing. The distributor looked a bit used up. I thought, why not a new cap? I skateboarded to the nearest Repco and picked up a new distributor and spark plugs. Installed. No luck. I still have a weak spark. At this point I did a little more testing. I figured that the coil must have been fine, since I was getting good power on starting. I then checked the points gap in the distributor (looked good), and the timing of the cap itself (which I didn't see how this could have lost timing in the first place, but it seemed to time with the points well). So, can anyone guess where to go from here. I know the answer since I figured it out already. But it's a problem I've never dealt with before, and if I had done a bit more testing before buying, could have saved me a new distributor and plugs (although they are nice to have).
R.Symancek
New member
RWD Starlet
So, while the Starlet was down, I was offered a ride for the Otago Sports Car Clubs Grass Autocross event in Milton, NZ. And wouldn't you know, it ended up being a Starlet. However, this model was a 1983, which means it's rear wheel drive, or as some like to say 'Real' wheel drive. I admired RWD Starlets since I saw Americans shove big block Chevy V8s in them. I often wondered why people wanted to dump that much money into a hatch that does wheelies, when they could go sideways for next to nothing. But, wheelies are cool too! However, I got to spend all day going sideways, for absolutely next to nothing (that was as long as I didn't put the Starlet on it's roof.... I didn't). Thanks Tony Johnston and the Johnston family of Tony Johnston Panelbeating and Rally Car Preparation! Now to get back to work on the little FWD.
So, while the Starlet was down, I was offered a ride for the Otago Sports Car Clubs Grass Autocross event in Milton, NZ. And wouldn't you know, it ended up being a Starlet. However, this model was a 1983, which means it's rear wheel drive, or as some like to say 'Real' wheel drive. I admired RWD Starlets since I saw Americans shove big block Chevy V8s in them. I often wondered why people wanted to dump that much money into a hatch that does wheelies, when they could go sideways for next to nothing. But, wheelies are cool too! However, I got to spend all day going sideways, for absolutely next to nothing (that was as long as I didn't put the Starlet on it's roof.... I didn't). Thanks Tony Johnston and the Johnston family of Tony Johnston Panelbeating and Rally Car Preparation! Now to get back to work on the little FWD.
BlackClassic
If Not Now When?
Stellar pictures!!!!! I like the idea of searching for that one epic pic, gosh it'll be hard for you guys to choose!
YukonMontanaTannerTrapper
Explorer
Very enjoyable reading. I'll be on the road soon as well and just can't wait to get going. Reading about it is the next best thing. Thanks for posting.