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

Punakaiki

On the Sunday of our reunion we decided to head up to Punakaiki and the blowholes after we had finished our lunch. All the planned stuff was finished and now it was time to relax and do some sightseeing. It was a lovely day, maybe a bit chilly but for Easter on the Coast it was magnificent - the weather really put on a good performance for us. Some of the family went out to the Pike River Mine to have a look at the memorial to the miners who lost their lives in the 2010 explosion and others joined us for an excursion up the coast road. We drove along beside the Tasman Sea.

I have put a lot of pictures up so I hope you don't get too bored, I'm going to mostly let them speak for themselves with maybe the occasional interruption from me :)

looking south and... 

...north on the Coast Road.

At Punakaiki.

The Pancake rocks.

Shags.

All of the blowholes were really blowing well, 

these two pics are of the Chimney Pot 

(that's it at the bottom of the picture just off centre)...

...and although it might not look it we could

 have done with umbrellas here :)

That is nikau palm forest just behind and on

 the hill at the back is ancient beech forest.

Some family and people shots.

DIL trying to replicate the Maori weaving below.

Nikau Palms.

Refreshments before we headed to our daughters holiday

 accommodation for a pizza tea by the beach with just 

our branch of the family...

...where we were treated to a beautiful sunset over the Tasman Sea.

When I was growing up Punakaiki was not "discovered" and my uncle and aunty had a bach (crib, holiday house) on the river here. We spent wonderful summer weekends here with our cousins, in and on the river, at the beach and running around the pancake rocks. It is quite interesting to see how it has been developed and made safe for tourists where we just used to run free but that is progress and it is a great natural asset for the area.

I hope you enjoyed looking at where 

a little piece of my heart still resides.

joining Debbie today for: 
Friday Foto Friends 

Diana

Two intrepid walkers - on a road trip #2

Hello there. Here we are back on the road again.

Make yourself a pot of tea, or coffee, put your feet up

and join Sis and me on the next part of our journey.

When I left you last we had had a break in Otira for lunch 

and now we are headed to the West Coast.

Once you cross over the mountain the landscape changes dramatically. The West Coast is a very narrow strip of land on the coast, bounded by mountains and the sea and we drive through ancient, beech forest to reach it. Rainforest. 

But today the sun is shining and as we drive north up the coast we are in our shirtsleeves. Definitely overdressed. Once we are over the Taramakau River bridge we are almost there. This is a road/rail bridge which throws some people, like my GKB when he first drove on it, but we grew up with it so no problems there. :)

We booked in at the camping ground and decided not to have a cuppa but to go and visit our aunty, who is still living in Greymouth, and have one with her. She was out. Oh well, we had other places to go in connection with our reunion next year. The hotel PR lady was next. She was away for the day! A restaurateur we wanted to speak to. He was finished for the day! We weren't having much luck. I  guess that is what happens when you do things on the spur of the moment. Let's try aunty again on the way back to the camping ground. Aah, finally, she was home and we had a nice visit - and finally too, a hot cup of tea.

We bought fish and chips for tea and ate them back at the camping ground and then decided to go for a walk on the beach. These are not sandy beaches and neither are they beaches I would swim in, the Tasman Sea is too rough and rugged for me. But they are enjoyable to walk on. Not that we went far as the wind was coming up, making it a bit cool and unpleasant. It's winter, remember.

The camping ground is at the beach, leave the grounds heading west, cross a narrow track/road and you're in the flax and grass that borders the beach. As we were heading back we saw a large bird run across the grass in front of us - then another one. A pair of wekas. Weka - also known as wood hen or Maori hen. They had no fear and posed for us before calling to each other and disappearing into the scrub again. But as luck would have it none of my photos turned out so this is a photo of a postcard with a Weka on it. The photo is taken by Dave Foster. We also saw these on the roadsides as we were travelling on the West Coast side.

Weka, by Dave Foster

With the wind getting up and darkness falling we decided to have showers and call it a night. It was 7:30pm! We read and chatted and planned a programme for the reunion, but mostly we read. I couldn't believe how tired I felt. Sometime in the early hours of the morning I woke up, then there was an almighty thunderclap. Sis reckons it was the lightening that woke me. With the thunder came the rain, and did it rain. The West Coast of the South Island gets torrential rain and I hadn't experienced it for a long time

 - welcome home :)

It was still raining when we left in the morning about 10:00am. We caught up with the people who had been away the day before and decided to have a cooked breakfast before we headed off. Above is the view out of the tearooms window as we ate.

And this is what it was like as we were leaving Kumara and heading back towards the mountains, with no let up as we headed into Otira where there was a beautiful rainbow. We drove right into it and I decided to enjoy the moment instead of trying to capture it.

Can you see though, how it is coming down between the mountains and therefore having nowhere to disappear to.

It was a long haul up the mountain behind two large trucks, I think our top speed was about 15 kpm and we kept waiting for the engine to cut out. Eventually we came to a short passing  bay but it was long enough for us and we made a run for it. Through the passes on the Canterbury side the sun was out and it was a pleasant trip through to Christchurch. Another overnight stay and then we headed back to Otago and the meeting I had to be home for that evening.

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

I hope you've enjoyed our road trip.

I'm joining Amy, and others, for

Five on Friday

so why don't you pop over for a look as well.

Diana

By the way, don't ask me what mountain I crossed, I don't know to be honest, just that it is part of the Southern Alps . Growing up if we were going to Christchurch we were going  'over the hill'. We drove up the mountain, or took the railcar, and went through the passes but it has never occurred to me to find out which mountain we crossed. We knew the name of the passes, that sufficed. Maybe I should find out!

A road trip - spoiler

I went on a road trip this week with my sister.

Here are five photos of some of the

 places we stopped very briefly at, 

or passed through. I hope you enjoy. 

I will post about this trip later. 

Joining Amy at Five on Friday.

Why don't you pop on over and see 

what others have been up to as well.

Sunset over the Tasman Sea.

A rainbow as we headed into Otira, Westland.

Tussockland in the Canterbury high country.

Near Castle Hill, Canterbury, 

with the Southern Alps in the background

Ducks and geese swimming in

 a braided river in South Canterbury.

Diana