Taupotreeman

I'm with Goaty. I thought tall poppy syndrome was bad in NZ!

Ugly ass Pin Oak or Scarlet Oak. Honestly can't remember. All ended up the same though. One big pile of mulch and a couple of stems for firewood. They also did a big declining gum afterwards. Just ringing it up today and the stem is around 1m through.

Haven't posted for ages in here but finally got chance to take some photos today after I was reduced to setting up road control while a contractor came in to knock over some trees for us. Treescape came down with their 18 inch and the 8 tonner. This tree took 1 hour ten minutes from go to site cleaned and road open. Took us longer to set up the traffic management than it did to do the tree. Much as I have a beef with the company itself; the guys are an awesome bunch and it was a pleasure working with them.

You won't be the last mate. I know a lot of people who will never give up in their SLRs. Me included probably. Always worthwhile looking second hand or, even better, refurbished. B&H have a good selection of refurbished as do both canon and Nikon websites.

Crickey, where to start? First question; is it ever going to be off auto? If not, a quality point and shoot or mirrorless will do. If you're going to get into the creative side I.e. Manual modes, then an SLR or mirrorless will be more suited. Then you need to decide on how much gear, weight you want to lug around. I took around 20+ kilos to the U.S. With me and bought more gear there. A mirrorless system would have been way way lighter but the bodies are too small for me except the Sony, which is getting up there price wise. Don't get wrapped up in pixel counts. My 5D back up and 8 mp gives beautiful colour rendition and fantastic results and its positively ancient by camera standards. My 6D is better but not by much. And yes, I'm a canon man and have too much invested to change at the moment. A half decent body is ok but glass is where the money goes. Don't splash out heaps on a body until you know you're going to get into photography big time. Mirrorless are nice but the glass is still limited and expensive. My wife's Olympus is an awesome little camera and came with twin lens kit at not much more than your budget. I can't get used to it, I prefer a big lump of camera in my hand. Plenty of really good videos on YouTube to get you started. Photographersonyoutube is a really easy one to understand for the basics. Best advice though is, if you're buying for yourself go into the shop and hold the cameras, play with the buttons and see what works for you.

And another.

Chip bin is second port of call if the garden isn't sufficiently overgrown although my mate was taking a leak in the bin one time before we'd started chipping. The customer comes out to talk to me when this steaming stream starts poring out of the corner of the chip box and down his driveway. Both myself and the customer trying to ignore it.

Hell no. I work hard enough as it is. Boss at council said to me once; when I'm on my death bed I won't remember the money I made, how quickly I paid the mortgage off, how many hours I worked to get my promotions or how much I made to retire on. I WILL remember walking bare foot through Paris, eating street food in Thailand from some very dodgy looking vendors or, in my case, standing amongst New York's concrete canyons, catching the dawn ferry to Bainbridge Island to see sea otters in the dawn sunlight or seeing spring snow in the Grand Canyon.

You got it better than us. Due to persist tomorrow apparently but nice today. More snow hopefully this week.

Can I ask, purely out of curiosity, and for those who wear non safety capped boots; how do you "skirt" or deal with H&S regs?

I'm sorry for that momentary lack of whatever.

Phwoar!

Minted mushy peas was a regular at Loughborough Fair along with proper jumbo hot dogs with a mound of fried onions. Always looked forward to a cup of mushy peas.

I have both Andrew. The Steins are much harder wearing but the Meindles are like slippers and have better water proofing. Go through soles at a rapid rate though.

BOT is treat for me now as I try and avoid bread and sugar. The kiwi stuff is absolutely jam packed full of the white stuff so we usually go for Heinz, which has half as much. Always find them nice and thick with very little sauce so I wonder if the export stuff has a different recipe?

Always found the AUS insulated poles way less wibbly wobbly than the jamesons and chance (similar to marvin) as they're a little bit thicker in diameter. We could get up to 12 or 13 poles on when do line clearance but that was extreme.

Not sure if AUS are still doing their poles but they're much less fishing rod like than the jamesons. The pruning head and saw head are pretty grungy too.

It seems to be full of Aucklanders with flash holiday homes these days. They don't seem to know what an arborist is either. Or a tree surgeon. Arbortrist seems to be about as close as they can get.

No one in Taupo knows what a bloody arborist is!

And don't forget to feed it!

Oooo my oh my.

Love the one of the harbour at Crescent City. Brings back some fond memories.

Love the 150 but try a 192t with a carving bar on! The 200t is now almost redundant.

Of absolutely no help to the OP but; when I worked in Oz years ago we were working on a massive Eucalyptus. First branch around 30 feet up which was to be removed. The climber made the first cut only for the saw to blunt. Sent it down, had it sharpened and made the second cut a little further along the limb. Same thing happens. Repeat this scenario several times until we finally get the limb off. Turns out a local termite colony had chewed up the concrete footpath at the base of the tree and constructed their home out if it in the hollow limb we were trying to cut. It stretched for around 2 feet through the limb from just out from the collar. Even the drop from 30 feet didn't destroy the structure. Wish I'd taken a photo but that was pre digital.

I had a ping pong as a company motor. Got chopped in on a Holden/Vauxhall ute. The Vauxhall is bigger but gutless low down. The ping pong (ssangyong) was quite a nippy little motor, quite sweet off the mark, comfy for the front seat passengers but tight in the back, a little light on the corners but way better than the big wallowy Holden. It's also easier to see out if. NCAP rating is only 4 star I think but saw one that had been Jon an accident with an older car and it looked pretty good for a head on. Best of all, at least here in NZ, they're cheap.