Palmy North, 1: The Gypsy Fair

In all our trips to New Zealand and wanderings therein, we had always missed Palmerston North. Always somewhere else to get to, not on the way, whatever. Indeed we had gotten to Palmerston South way back in 2009, near the Moeraki Boulders. But not Palmy North, and it was a blemish on our travel record, especially since Palmy is twinned with Missoula, Montana, our last best home, from which we retired in 2008. Sister cities. Once, while working in Missoula, I met with a delegation visiting from Palmerston North. "Oh yes, my son was an orc," I remember the woman saying when I conveyed my interest in LOTR and its having been filmed in NZ. I'd have a lot more to talk about now.

Anyhow, on February 4th, following the climb on Mt. Cleese, we drove into Palmy North, parked, and, even for a sunny Saturday afternoon, found a city bursting with activity and sights, to which this and the next two posts can hardly do justice. First, in a big park-like square right downtown, there was the Gypsy Fair...

We'd encountered the Gypsy Fair once before, near Nelson,
South Island, in 2014, and thought it was mostly about home-made
Kiwi RVs

Here it was about Kiwis traveling about in their RVs and doing
business from them; the RVs were rather less of interest

Recycled roadkill?

Oliebollen! 

Movable futurist entrepreneurship

Itinerant blacksmith

The only interesting rig