Posts by ChrisW
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Capture: Someone, Somewhere, In Summertime, in reply to JacksonP,
What a magic place.
Indeed magic and thanks, Jackson.
First sight of 2013 through bleary eyes when I stumbled out of the tent in the morning. The signs were good the night and year before, but is that a roseate glow, or shepherds' warning?
And second sight.
No shepherds at Waikareiti, the rain came on the SI West Coast instead (sorry, West Coasters!), but the weather stayed fine another few days here - so the roseate glow of optimism for 2013.
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High cloud catches the later sun, Angle-fire.
Later, the
Navigational stars come out,
Pointers to the Southern Cross
circling the pole -
Here's to 2013! -
New Year's Eve, a pumice-sand beach without footprints on the northern side of Lake Waikareiti - perched at 900 m altitude in the beech forest above Waikaremoana. Tent set up a few metres behind in the bush. The sunset colours are understated as the few clouds are fitted into the landscape, the fire muted also as I'm starting off frying pieces of bacon in its own fat, the resulting smell is picking up, and the first morepork of the evening called a minute ago.
Yes it was very satisfying, and it didn't go downhill from there ...
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Capture: Someone, Somewhere, In Summertime, in reply to Nora Leggs,
Heh! They do make a nice set. But more than just the night before, yours looks like a lifetime on the turps, even to the rheumy eye.
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Capture: Someone, Somewhere, In Summertime, in reply to Jarno van der Linden,
Thanks Jarno - looks a great spot. I've often seen Mt Stokes from Picton, and from sailing on Queen Charlotte Sound and paddling on Pelorus. When a Wellingtonian I thought it handy enough and wouldn't it be a good to pick a spell of fine weather and sleep the night on the summit there - not just to spread the effort of climbing and descending to ease the body strain, but with that mosaic of water and land all around, what a place to see the sunset from and then dawn-sunrise!
Such thoughts renewed, mmm, just might do something about them.
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A resemblance perhaps? But this one altogether too punk to be a roof inspector.
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Capture: Someone, Somewhere, In Summertime, in reply to Jackie Clark,
much more exciting was the Blue Heron
That's a White-faced Heron, Jackie - common in such places and all sorts of others, occasionally as at my place appearing as something of a sniffy roof inspector. Self-introduced from Australia in the 1940s and now common all over as an honorary native NZer.
Whereas the Reef Heron is an uncommon native from way back, is much darker slatey grey with any white around the face scarcely apparent, and only found in small numbers on natural shoreline areas befitting this sensible name, though aka Blue Heron etc. -
Capture: Spring is Like a Perhaps Hand, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
If you don't harvest the buds, they open to stamens of the most intense blue. Like a giant thistle, which they essentially are
Something like this? Wouldn't want that to happen, eh. :-)
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Capture: Someone, Somewhere, In Summertime, in reply to Jos,
Jos (and Jackson) - is that big puriri really Taketakerau itself, or another splendid specimen in Hukutaia? Though perhaps seen from a different side, it seems much more 'tidy' than in my memory of Taketakerau (last visit ~10 years ago).
Have either of you seen Taketakerau - The Millennium Tree by Marnie Anstiss - an interesting book that won the children's book section of the Ashton Wylie Book Awards 2012? It's based on the premise that the tree is 2000 years old (a reasonable educated guess) so germinated at the same time a boy child was born in a stable far far away thus the retrospective start of our calendar, and follows a selection of subsequent world history and NZ human history in parallel with the story of the tree and its ecological context, these becoming somewhat intertwined.
A great concept and the book looks the part – but falls rather short of its potential in my view with some of its historical snippets or lack thereof a disappointment, but still, worth a look.
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Capture: Someone, Somewhere, In Summertime, in reply to Cecelia,
Thanks Cecelia, I think you're right, both places seem attractive and achievable - with ancestral churchyard cemetery as well, this will be a Big Day Out!
