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

behind the hedge and over the fence...

A few weeks ago my GKB and I went up to the caravan for a few days of R&R. My GKB likes to get out and do a bit of fishing on the lakeside and I like to just sloth around, although I do sometimes join him, as long as I can continue to sloth around once we get there. (I do go for walks around the town and on the lakeside as well, so it's not as bad as it sounds). I like to take magazines or books with me and enjoy the peace and quiet of Central Otago. Mountain air, hawks circling, and blue skies.

While we're there we usually buy fruit from the orchards, either pick our own or from the roadside stalls. Cherry picking is interesting.

Every couple of days we like to go to a big orchard up the road a bit that has a great barn sized stall that the tourist buses all stop at where they sell fruit, fresh and dried, and also 'Manuka Honey' to  tourists at inflated prices.  **TIP: If you are ever over here touring, buy your 'Manuka Honey' from the supermarket, it's the same stuff and a lot cheaper.**

But they do have delicious real fruit ice creams, oh yummy. And we have to have at least a couple a week, we don't get them at home, and anyway you have to save something for a treat!

There are one or two tables to sit at under the trees and there is a lovely garden hidden by a large hedge. We were sitting at a table enjoying our ice creams one day when a man came rushing out from behind the hedge, 'I've got to get my camera," he said "what a hidden gem."

Now my GKB and I had been behind the hedge several times. What's changed we wondered so went for a walk ourselves. What's changed? The plants had matured, some statues had been erected and it was nearing the end of the summer, so roses were still in bloom as were some of the other summer border flowers.

Very pretty. So the photo's above are from 'behind the hedge'.

Back home again I have been out, ahem, walking occassionally, and had forgotten about this lavender garden in the photo's above. I haven't been over that way for a while. It is still being developed, has only been going for about six or seven years, but you can see how it will look when  it has matured. They hire the gardens out as a weddng venue and it is one of the places we looked at for eldest daughters wedding.  

I enjoyed looking 'over the fence' and seeing what has been done to the public area since we went and looked.

Then when I went around the corner what should I come across but some alpacas lazing about in a paddock enjoying the warm autumn sun.

These were also over the fence, the reason for so much grass in the foreground, which is a good place for them I reckon, they tend to look down their haughty noses at you and are very good spitters!!

Wishing you all a great weekend.