........................A wonderful detour...................

Coming home from Dunedin, I decided to take lots of little breaks ,stopping at places that have often captured my attention  .
                                                   ..............so....................... Carpe Diem

                                                (Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May)

The First stop was in Milton at a little shop called "Two Squirrels"

The lovely owners were very welcoming "Come on in Sweets" was the call.

What a lovely greeting and an equally lovely experience.

I bought two white, starched and crochet edged pillow slips and three little rolls of old lace for the little Kindy Pinny's I am going to make the grandchildren .

How sweet of the owner to give me 4 free buckles for the pinny's.

I couldn't resist showing that sweet wee owner the fabric . We both awed and ahhed.

The second  place I  stopped was just out of  Milton  on the way to Lawrence.

I had spotted an old white cross at a "rest area".  There was a very old wall and lots of deep-green moss.

I was curious to what was behind the wall and whose grave it was.

Across from where I stopped was a sheer cliff  although it was dull and dark where I was parked  just up on the ridge tops the sun was beaming.

Its rather spectacular and to think, had I got 2 more inches of photo in the frame you would have seen the main highway.

The moss was so soft with the tiniest droplets of water... 

The lichen was equally  spectacular..

and what was over the old wall ....A drop into a gully full of water coloured by tannin 

and a little waterfall..

It was very cold so I decided it was time to move on.....

The next stop was Millers Flat...

Now Millers flat has never appealed to me because all I have ever known of it is one pub and a service station 

What a pleasant surprise was awaiting when I crossed the blue bridge

The site of the lonely graves was only 9kms down a gravel road ..I would have gone to see them but the lady in the  lovely old  Foursquare shop  reminded me it was a full moon and almost Friday the 13th......so as the sun went down I instead enjoyed  reminiscing in the store and  later discovering the old church.....

This was the old bakery it is right beside the 4 square.... 

A true piece of Kiwiana The Four Square icon.

What does Four Square mean ?

The store was once called Faigons Store an entire area is dedicated to days long gone by......

The mail delivered by horseback...

What a friendly lady that worked there.

Although her superstition  (and the fact that it was getting late) did stop me from visiting the lonely graves.

Early in 1865 the body of a young man was discovered at Rag Beach, upstream and on the opposite side of the river from the present site of the Lonely Graves. An inquest held on 22 February 1865 in the Horseshoe Hotel determined the body to be that of Charles Alms who had fallen in the river at Mutton Town Creek, some considerable distance upstream. Alms, a butcher from the Nevis had been swimming cattle across the river when he had been thrown from his horse and washed away. The body was buried in an unmarked grave and the gravesite remained untended. Later in that same year a miner named William Rigney arrived at Horseshoe Bend, and with John Ord erected a fence of rough manuka poles around the previously untended grave. Rigney obtained a piece of black pine and made a simple headstone for the grave. With a four inch nail he inscribed the words "Somebody's Darling lies buried here." In 1903 a marble headstone was erected. William Rigney died in 1912 and was buried beside "Somebody's Darling 

As to William Rigneys grave stone the words inscribed  read  William Rigney "The man that buried Somebody's Darling"

I will return to see for myself.

The oddest thing about all this is an old Poem book ...hand written.... that I got given many years ago.

The poems in this book haunt me . Some of them have made me cry.

I was able to piece together two mysterious prose.

Here's one (sorry I couldn't crop it) See the heading?

Isn't that a lovely poem....I never knew the river was called the Molyneux..I am keen to find out more about this area now.

I took the back road all the way to Roxburgh Dam missing out the township of Roxburgh altogether and quite frankly I think I will do it again and again as I discover some more interesting little nooks in Millers flat.

That ever present Full Moon....

I love the lichen

Must be why I love Kaleidoscopes so much ....

There is always so much more I would love to share .

..like the surprise that was waiting for me when I got home ...but then that can all wait till I write again.

“Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live.” 

― M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth

Like the wee lady in "The Two Squirrels" said to me 

BYE NOW SWEETS