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

Out in the paddocks

Some photos my GKB took while out and about

 on some country roads during the week.

This one is our favourite.

joining in the fun with
friday foto friends

Five on Friday

These five photo's are only related in that

 I took them while out and about this week.

Along the right bank of the Silverstream on a wet, drizzly walk.

The view from a friend's back deck. 

The cows are heading to the milking sheds.

The groynes at St. Clair beach, Dunedin.

Surfers coming in on the swells to the right.

The salt water pool and tearooms at St. Clair.

We popped in here for a cuppa.

Rural view along the left bank of the Silverstream.

Scroggs Hill in the background and beyond that the Pacific Ocean.

Little mother's bushes getting a bit of a trim by my GKB.

And I'm pretty sure that is six photo's. I'll just pretend I can't count, 

or we could say the two from St Clair constitute one :)

joining Tex at:
Good Fences
and Amy at:
Five on Friday
and Stepanie at:
roses of inspiration

taking the autumn air

Autumn is certainly here, the nights are drawing in and getting decidedly colder but the days are beautifully clear and calm, on the whole, with lovely blue skies and high white cloud. Sometimes there is a bit of a wind and today and yesterday the breeze was definitely coming off the snow on the mountains further inlands.

I decided to go for a wander yesterday over Wingatui way, through the track and down by the paddocks. I left it just a little late as the sun was getting low and was on the other side of the shelter belt, thus leaving me in the shade a bit of the time. That wasn't a problem really till I decided to turn around and come back and a bit of a breeze had come up, nipping the ears and the nose and causing just a little bit of ear ache, but that's what happens when you forget your hat. The shadows were getting long but there was still enough sun to make it quite a pleasant walk. It was so peaceful, a dog out walking with its human, just a wee Jack Russell having fun, were the only others I saw. No I tell a lie, there was a mum and dad out with their 2 kids, one on bike and another in a pushchair, all enjoying the autumn afternoon.

There were horses in the paddocks naturally, as this is horse racing territory with stables and horse studs in the area. And there were also about a dozen or so sheep further along and in another paddock some young bulls lounging around. Still further down the track I came across a big black sheep with a young chocolate coloured alpaca for company...very cute.

I finally have a new pair of shoes for walking,  how long has it taken, almost 12 months. "Tone walkers" - they are supposed to build the muscle tone in your legs as you walk, and you can certainly feel them working the leg muscles when you are out and about. I've also been to physio for my back and she has given me all sorts of exercises that are not only helping my back but other parts of the body as well, all I have to do is remember to do them all and I have to confess I haven't done any for a day or two, but tomorrow is always another day.

pounding the pavement...

Well it hasn't been a bad week, as far as the walking goes anyway. I have pounded the pavements from the centre of town to home, a couple of k's I guess. It's quite different walking on the footpaths to walking along the Silverstream, no give on the surface. Different things to look at too. And more traffic.

Earlier in the week I walked halfway around a country block, it was great. The sun was shining, the trees were in bud and blossom and only a little traffic. Coloured sheep and alpacas were out looking down their aristocratic noses as I went past their paddock. Walking past the timber mill brought back memories of the plywood factory about 40 years ago, I love the smell of freshly hewn timber.

Today I walked down the Silverstream to the bridge, out on to the road and back home down Bush Road, 3 kilometres in half an hour, not to bad for me!! Horses were communicating across the paddocks to each other and a couple of ducks flew overhead. The Alpacas were out with their coloured sheep mates, and I am sure I saw a water rat scampering up the bank of the ditch at the side of the road. Talking of horses there are some appoloosas grazing in the Bush Road paddocks. I didn't see any deer today - or ostriches!! It was good to get home again to have a drink, it was 22deg (I wore the GKB's Speights cap) and I was talking to a cyclist at the intersection who was on her way to the nearest shop to get a bottle of water. Fancy cycling around the plains without a water bottle.

And I have even been on the bike, for half an hour yesterday. Also been to the cricket grounds with the youth group and kicked a ball around, chased a frisbee and chucked a tennis ball. I slept well last night.

Anyway, this week I think I have not done too badly at all. I love getting out into God's book and seeing the sights and smelling the smells, some good, some not!!

And I did walk around the Botanical Gardens with the GKB a week or so back...