Our little town of Whitby will be 40 years old this year. Its is really weird to think that when I was born this area had only a few houses built on it and the shopping centre had only just been completed. Photos in the local paper taken during the early 60's show open bush and bare hill. This town, like most of New Zealand is extremely young in comparison to any village, town or city in the UK. I can only really compare NZ towns to places like Milton Keynes in the UK, which were planned settlements and have only been around since the 1960's. I have to say the town planning in New Zealand is far more impressive than in the UK (unless you like the concrete cows and multitude of roundabouts in Milton Keynes). Whitby has masses of open spaces and walkways, the roads are wide and the development still has many mature trees and areas of natural bush.
Our Whitby in NZ was named after James Cook the pacific explorer who came from Whitby in Yorkshire. All the roads in the area have a nautical theme. According to the article in the local paper Whitby was intended to be a large settlement of 100'000 people with large commercial and industrial areas. Thankfully this never materialised as there was a sharp decline in migration from the UK and the local economy shrunk. Now Whitby is a much smaller settlement of just 11'000. That's the way I like it!
It was the Kindergarten "Wheelathon" this week. The children were sponsored to ride around a small course as many times as possible in order to raise money for a new conservatory. They also had their faces painted, ate lots of sweets and generally enjoyed themselves in the late summer sun.
J having her hair sprayed a variety of different colours.
Waiting for the starting gun!
J having her hair sprayed a variety of different colours.
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