Our Team

Here are some more photos from our Otago Central Rail Trail tour (on New Zealand’s south island) in January. The main picture is of the tour group we were with. They were lots of fun. There was another family from Brisbane, Australia, another woman from Brisbane and one from Melbourne. As well, there were three couples from Wellington, NZ, a woman from the UK, and the two guides who were both from Christchurch. At the time I found the going really tough, but in hindsight it was a great trip, due mostly to the fantastic people on our tour. This photo was taken at the bottom of Baldwin Street in Dunedin, purported to be the steepest street in the world. I certainly only ventured part way up – I had to stay behind to set up the tripod for the shot! The two photos at the bottom were taken on the trail. The one on the left was our first day on the trail and is near Chatto Creek where we stopped for morning tea. The one on the right was taken on our last day on the trail and is nearing the end near Middlemarch. I was really struggling against the wind at the time, so stopping to take a photo was a welcome relief. It helped that the scenery was lovely too.

The layout is for the latest Southern Girls challenge, a sketch by Trace Jackson. Interestingly there are not many entries this fortnight. Since the entrants are overwhelmingly card makers, I guess they’re not much in to using sketches. Me on the other hand, that’s my favourite thing! I rotated the sketch 180^o, and since it is relatively simple so is my layout, but I like how it turned. I think the emphasis is on the photos which is generally what I strive to do with my scrapbooking.

Everything I used on this layout comes from an old TLC Runway kit called Urban Threads. Much of it has skulls on it which was popular at the time, but I carefully covered all those up! In order to record all our tour mates’ names, I made a pull tag from some of the diecuts in the kit, attached it to a piece of cardstock and slipped it behind the main photo. That way I didn’t need to take up room on the actual layout, because I’m not really sure where I would have put it anyway. What do you think?

Till next time, happy days!

Francine