beach
beach archives
driving down 90 mile beach
90 mile beach is in the north of new zealand and as well as being a beach it's also a main road
so if you've got a car and up for a challenge you can drive down it (as long as you keep to the national speed limit of 100km/hr)
here's a video from inside the bus
and here's me taking some of the photos above
(some photos by andrew)
sunny sunday afternoon
i know this is the last thing you northern hemisphericals will want to hear, but it's lovely down here. i tell you not to gloat, but because i'm a brit and love to talk about the weather.
if it's any consolation it really doesn't feel christmassy here one little bit !
surfing beach (with not much surf)
absolute poo-sters if you wanted to surf apparently.
wenderholm
it is rather pretty on this wobbly island
biking on the beach
moving to new zealand has provided all sorts of fantastic opportunities which we wouldn't have had in blighty. like riding bikes on a wide open beach.
no wet or sandy bodies past this point please
i'm not sure how strictly this rule was policed.
fun at the beach
it's starting to get cold, but that doesn't stop an afternoon of fun at the beach
lovely long bay
this is still my favourite beach
not only does it look great on the sandy bits but the rocky bits are quite cool too
crazy paving ?
lunch on the beach
i went to wellington today (wednesday) and had my lunch on the beach. lovely
beach blender
not quite the same level of human remains as on the streets of london, but new zealand has its own junk to share
surfs up
this is how we spent yesterday - boogie boarding about in the huge surf at tawharanui. it's a bank holiday weekend here in new zealand and like all the best bank holiday weekends it did rain later in the afternoon.
hope this warms your cockles if you are in chillier climes
the beach after work
i've not talked too much about our ordinary life as expats in new zealand on the funkypancake blog
that's because we're keeping a separate online blog about that
but i thought you might be interested to see what we did after work yesterday
it's weird sitting on a local beach watching a cruise ship gently slide by a dormant volcano whilst people go about their beachy lifes
hot water beach
a bizarre beach where you dig your own hot water pool at low tide and then sit in the sweltering hot waters naturally coming out of the ground under the sand.
we went there at christmas and i uploaded these photos to the blog in January. but some reason i didn't actually click to publish the pictures until now. sorry about that.
piha rescue
we went to piha yesterday. home of piha rescue and crazy surfin dudes. excellent stuff.
marine reserve
we went to a marine reserve yesterday and it was very excellent.
kezia's flip flop fell in the water at one point, but we fished it back out
you can snorkel there. but we didn't this time
instead we went on a glass bottom'd boat. made with real bottoms i think
after that we went down the coast and the girls did some boogie boarding.
another day another beach
this time Mission Bay, east auckland
overlowing beaches
here's a rather subtle overflow pipe. best not to walk underneath that one i think
another day another beach
jane and i headed up north a bit yesterday and found some more absolutely gorgeous beaches. i'll stop posting pictures of them soon, but the novelties not yet worn off.
incredibly windy (and therefore cold) today as can be seen from jane's wonky hair
life's a beach
still pinching ourselves that this is real and we actually now can call this place home !
big sand
on our last day up in the highlands we went to a beach at the end of the world to find a geocache
unfortunately, due to the rain there was a raging torrent cutting us off from our destination.
the girls had their wellies on but jane and i had to remove our shoes and wade through the freezing water
we found the geocache eventually
kezia carried my boots over a second rocky stream
here are my feet, previously unseen by sunlight
all in all a good family adventure
more minehead
right, i think that's enough minehead don't you ?
beer on the beach #3
i know people get annoyed by me posting two very similar pictures together, but i honestly couldn't decide which i liked best ! if you can brave the commenting system, let me know !
mineheads
we went to minehead at easter when the sun was out. here are the actual mineheads.
footprints in the sand
by now we should be up in scotland somewhere. hope you are having a good summer !
the strange withered hand
just a little stick on a black beach. nothing to see here. move along
drains to the beach
you don't have to use the drains to get to the beach. but you can. if you are water
the pacific (to be specific)
this is a beach we went to on our last day in new zealand. seems ages ago now. just to prove it can be sunny down there.
spade on the beach
that's esther and kezia through the hole. (not to be confused with the other version of this picture which had a man walking through the hole)
hardest (and most pointless) job in the world
this man appears to be attempting to brush brighton beach back in to the sea. good luck to him i say.
british holidays at their best
this was from dorset last may. gorgeous.
spade
what do you call this ? i call a spade a spade.
down at the beach
i had some time off work last week so we spent three days in wales. the weather was fabulous and we spent everyday on the beach.
here are the girls in sand holes (safety precautions were observed at all times)
bournemouth pier
closed until next spring for repairs
how to make the biggest sandcastle
it's a bit excessive, but what a great way to make an impression (quite literally) at the beach.
searching for dinosaurs on the beach
we went to Charmouth beach to find fossils when we were on holiday. A man in the information desk recommended visiting Seatown at low tide and so we did.
i instantly hit gold (quite nearly literally) by finding 2 £1 coins on the beach in the pebbles
the only big fossil we found was this one stuck in a rock
here's esther looking for fossils
we did eventually find loads of teeny fossils, but i didn't take any pictures of them ! Sorry about that
shells
this might make a nice desktop perhaps.
greetings from bournemouth
we had a family trip to bournemouth yesterday. it's my favourite time of year to go beaching. not too warm (jumper weather) and as a result not very busy
i fiddled with this photo to try and get the contrast right but it went a bit retro, so i thought i'd turn it in to a wonky old postcard instead.
it's a classic british scene - old lady in a big bikini adamant she's going to lay in the sun, even though it was too cold. husband, reading the paper, shielded by the windbreak, a parasol and his hat. neither of them said anything to each other (except when he helped her get changed on the beach by holding a teeny weeny towel over her - jane and i turned our chairs to face the opposite direction at that bit!)
bucket and spade
yesterday i said i trusted the man with a beard more than a mad dressed up as a clown. but now i'd seen the colonel on the beach i'm not so sure. it's all a little too eery for my liking.
not to scale
here is a temporary beach on the side of a viennese canal. all looks fine, except when you notice the size of those apples. that end deck chair wouldn't suit anyone who had a fear of fruit !
