Budding Protea

Queen Protea bud. Named for the Greek god, Proteus who was able to shift shape. OK, here is the open flower… Amazing stuff!

The truth about fog

Carl Sandburg was wrong. Wrong. wrong, wrong… and here is the proof. Fog does not move in on little cat feet. Fog rolls in in massive waves, encircling and smothering everything in its path. I watched this gigantic mist roll in and engulf the city of Wellington. The Inter-Islander was just ahead of us as

Be My Buttercup

Went to the Dunedin Botanical Gardens today. Saw lots of very interesting unusual plants. Ended up following this bee around as he flied from flower to flower. Giving the new macro lens a workout… Oh and I saw and did lots of other things, too. But here you go.

The Crown Road

  There’s a long way to get from Queenstown to Wanaka. And there’s also a shortcut… The Crown Road, winding over the Crown ranges – hairpin turns, rock-slides and a bit of screaming on my part. We always go this way and it always terrifies me… It looks so pretty, so scenic from here…

Upstairs, downstairs

Is it a preference or an indication of social standing. It’s so hard to tell anything with sheep.

Alpine Dawn

It’s actually a bit after dawn, the sun still very low in the sky, the mist rising from the lake, shuffling along like an old man on his first trip to the loo for the day. For those who are used to more regular posts, I do apologise – it just seems I’ve lost my

Misty River morning

Winter has taken on a dreamy surrealistic feel about now. We’ve never had more rain than we’ve had in the last few months. The endless pounding of rain on the roof; the bending, arching trees; the Y-light nothing colour that you can almost see through to a world that seems almost there. We did have

Technicolor gloomy day

No sun. Clouds so heavy they felt like a blanket covering it all, a drippy blanket at that… but those blue blue waters of the south island just never give up. They just keep on flowing bluer than blue. No matter how you feel.

If I was James Bond

Aerial view of a ski resort in the Remarkables. If I was James Bond or Indiana Jones I would leap down, land on top of the slope and make my way from there, ending up at the lodge with a nice brandy waiting for me. But I am not. So I won’t. Damn!  

Blue Pools 2012

A creek running into the Haast River on the South Island, about an hour north of Wanaka, a convergence dubbed the Blue Pools. One of the real pleasures of returning to the same place every year is that you see it in so many different conditions. The sky was heavily overcast when we were there