A photo scavenger hunt

I am joining in a photo scavenger hunt this week with Hawthorn and friends over at I live, I love, I craft, I am me. Some of the photo's are from the archives, some I have used recently and some of you will have seen them before but I hope you still enjoy them.

1:  The setting sun

We had been up the coast to visit the blowholes and the pancake rocks. At the end of the day we headed back to daughters holiday accommodation for a pizza tea. This is the view we had of the sunset over the Tasman Sea from the upstairs sitting room :)

2:  My local wild place

This is a garden in the town where my GKB grew up, so although it is local it is not local local. It is on a hill on the other side of the city. It was established by the artist Ralph Hotere and overlooks the Otago Harbour. All of the plantings are native trees and bushes and those legs you see belong to a sculpture by Shona Rapira Davies titled They do cut down the poles that hold up the sky. A lovely peaceful place to sit and relax and enjoy the native bush without leaving the city.

3:  Mug of favourite drink in the garden

Christmas Day 2016. The family had gathered at youngest daughter's home to celebrate. Dinner was over, the dishes were all cleaned up and put away and it was time to take a cup, or glass, of our favourite drink and relax somewhere and chat. The photo below is me, my daughter and grandaughter sharing a quiet moment together in the backyard. The other two possibly had a glass of wine but my drink of choice was instant coffee, made the way I like it :) Goodness knows where everyone else was, there were at least 20 of us there for the day.

4:  My kind of beautiful

Isn't she beautiful? Well I'm guessing this is a she, cos she looks pregnant to me. Anyway I love these big draught horses and you don't see them around much these days. Don't ask me the breed, I couldn't tell you, I took the photo from the car while we were doing some sightseeing last time we were up Middlemarch way .

5:  Look to the skies

On the same trip up to Middlemarch this was early evening sky at the camping ground we stayed at. My GKB took this photo and some people have said the cloud formation looks like a giant hand in the sky. Anyway I think it is quite dramatic.

6:  Mini beasts

Well you can't see the mini beasts as they are inside the nest. 

This is the nursery web of a nursery web spider and the babies stay inside for couple of weeks. I guess if you don't mind spiders you won't think of them as beasts but if you see them magnified they are very definitely little monsters.

7:  Rain

One evening late last winter we had a shower of rain. Or maybe it was early in spring as I see new buds on these branches. Overnight we had a good old frost. In the morning my GKB took a sequence of photos. The raindrops had frozen on the bare branches of this bush and it looked rather pretty with the early morning sun shining on them. A little like the spindly little bush had been draped with a string of diamonds :)

8:  Something summery

Flowers always say summer but this is 
a photo I love, taken one hot day last summer.

Wouldn't you have thought it would be easier to just get under the table instead of clambering up on top of it to find the little bit of shade afforded by the sun umbrella? This puppy is a real character :)

9:  Urban wilderness

What can I say? An urban area in the wilderness. 

Queenstown, New Zealand.

10: My own choice

Parked up for the winter, caravans on a
 bleak winter's evening in Central Otago.

I hope I haven't been too wordy

See you next week.

Diana

A different catch.

The fish weren't biting so my GKB took photo's instead.

Here's a sample.

Did you spot the fishing rod?

joining friday foto friends

Pike River Mine

Several of you asked about the relevance of the manikins at the entrance to the Pike River Mine in my last post. Below is an excerpt from Wikipedia explaining about the explosions that occurred at the mine in Nov. 2010. I've written a bit of an update further down.

The Pike River Mine disaster was a coal mining accident that began on 19 November 2010 in the Pike River Mine, 46 kilometres (29 mi) northeast of Greymouth, in the West Coast region of New Zealand's South Island. A methane explosion occurred in the mine at approximately 3:44 pm (NZDT, UTC+13). At the time of the explosion 31 miners and contractors were present in the mine. Two miners managed to walk from the mine; they were treated for moderate injuries and released from Greymouth Hospital the next day. The remaining 16 miners and 13 contractors,^[2] often referred to as the twenty-nine,^[3] were believed to be at least 1,500 metres (4,900 ft) from the mine's entrance.^[4]
Following a second explosion on 24 November at 2:37 pm, the 29 remaining men were believed by police to be dead.^[5] Police Superintendent Gary Knowles, officer in command of the rescue operation (Operation Pike) said he believed that "based on that explosion, no one survived."^[6] A third explosion occurred at 3:39 pm on 26 November 2010,^[7] and a fourth explosion occurred just before 2 pm on 28 November 2010.^[8] According to the new mine owner, Solid Energy, the bodies of the 29 miners who died there may never be recovered.

It was a very tragic time for the people of the coast which is a relatively small community with most people probably knowing someone concerned in the disaster. The families of the miners have been campaigning ever since to have the remains of their men brought out so they could be given decent burials but the government hasn't allowed that to happen. They said the mine had to be sealed up without anyone being able to go in to see if it was even possible to do. The families put up the 29 manikins to remind the drivers of vehicles, private and commercial but especially those employed to do the sealing, that there are still the remains of 29 men waiting be brought out. Although I haven't seen them myself I believe it is quite an eerie sight (my brother's words, his photo) and quite an emotional place to be.

Just after we had been there at Easter there was a stay put on the sealing which gave the families time to breathe and regroup so

 to speak. Tonight on the news we learnt that new footage

 from inside the mine has been released and it looks like the

 area where the men were thought to have been may not have

 been affected by fire as was first thought. So now we wait and

 see what happens. Personally I think they should go in and have

 a look and maybe bring about some sort of closure for everyone, not only the families but everyone around the country. 

According to a recent poll 39% of the people agree with me.

Photos for Five on Friday

Five totally unrelated photo's just so I can join in

 Five on Friday over at FAST

and Friday Foto Friends at Breathing in Grace.

*************

The firebox in the engine of a steam train.

A bumper crop of feijoas.

Protest manikins outside the entrance to

 the Pike River Mine, West Coast, New Zealand.

A starling's egg in the grass.

Posh fish n chips for tea.