Author: dave

milky way

not milky way

and finally, a star trail

pity they didn’t get a chance for their second lesson otherwise i think they would have cracked it!

if you want to inspect the non-moving photos in more details you can do so here:

http://funkypancake.pixieset.com/160113estherandkeziasurfing/

esther and i collected Lily from the airport today.  she’s staying with us for a couple of days before she starts her two month tour of new zealand.

meanwhile kezia was wandering about in the mall and jane was picking up pearly/doing housework/grocery shopping

i spent a few hours editing most of the photos from our holiday and adding them back in to the blog (so you can work your way back through them).  there’s still a few more bits to do, but i’ll post those separately

and this evening we went for a walk with pearl at long bay

this morning jane and i had a quick walk on the beach then it was packing up time.

we had to be at our boat for 2pm so we had a walk along medlands beach and a picnic at tryphena

the boat trip itself was a delight – nice flat water and sunny all the way.  they didn’t have to tie the cars down this time either

finally, here’s a video of the walk up from the car to the holiday house

now we’re home and unpacked and normal life can resume …

Jane and i and for a windy walk down the beach  worth the weather being more rainy than expected.

We drove to tryphena to walk to the whaler’s point where the whale watchers would go to report sitings of whales.  Blubber was big business.

Whaling stopped in great barrier island not long after it started thanks to Japanese and Russian ‘factory’  ships driving the whales to near extinction on their routes along the east of. New Zealand meaning there weren’t. Many left. Passing the island

That also explains why we. Didn’t see. Any today.

Surfing was. Cancelled. Because the waves were. Too big so we. Stayed in tryphena until a. Pub opened

After waiting an hour.we.found out it. Would be another hour until the kitchen opened. So. Came. Home. Instead.

It’s nice and sunny now.

Sorry about the stupid capital. Letters.  Blaney stupid phone.

we sang for whales but none came

this is a sort of island postal service where boxes of things get moved around the island, presumably by bus?

Jane and i went for an early morning walk down the beach.

We all went to a nearby beach to do a loop walk to a viewpoint.   We hadn’t been warned about how steep it was going to be (making it rather slippy coming down) nor that we would need to cross a river…  Twice.   Anyway, we made it and it was nice

After lunch we went to medlands beach for the girls surf lesson.  They really enjoyed it and have booked for another tomorrow.

While they were doing that jane and i walked down the beach and back, then set up my wind shelter tent which just about worked in the 20 knot winds blowing across the beach!

Early nights for all tonight I think

(rest of surfing pictures will be a separate post in future)

Wet day today as the tail end of a tropical cyclone zooms through.

Esther and Jane went for a walk down the road first thing then we all went to a local cafe for breakfast .

We spent the afternoon mooching about and watched a dvd of Tim Vine.  My deregionalising and properly wiring the dvd last night doing us well.

 

The weather looked like it was improving a bit so we drove over to okupu to loom look at the Wharf and a walk down the sheltered bays.

It’s still quite showery and very humid but the rain is meant to fizzle out later this evening.

 

here is the wind of the morning

The ladies went for a walk on the beach before breakfast.

Then we popped in to claris to buy some provisions as the island seems to shut at 5pm and we weren’t sure if we’d be back in time.  I got jane a coffee and saw international musician and local resident Jazz Coleman in the cafe.

the closest we came to seeing a dolphin all week (the photo shown was taken on great barrier island)

This afternoon we  drove over to whangaprapara to do some exploring.   There wasn’t much there but it’s very pretty.

After a coffee at the hotel/village store/bar/dive equipment hire/car rentals etc.

We then went for a walk to a picturesque waterfall with a swimming hole underneath which looked to perfect to be true (there was another family there and i had the wrong camera (grommit) so the pictures don’t show how amazing it was).  The water was very cold though so jane and me just put our feet in.

After that we did a long walk to some hot pools.  They were just part of a river where some hot water bubbles out of the ground and people can sit in the muddy watery warmth.  Jane and i did that while e and k did some exploring.

On the way back we got some burgers from the `food court’ area.

this is the local radio station.

Turns out the weather in Friday was so bad that it blew the front down from a supermarket near where we live and lots of ferries were cancelled.  Not ours though

news article from day after

Jane and esther got up first and went for a long walk down the beach and back

Today we drove over to Port FitzRoy (capitalised is important apparently) and went to a fantastic nature reserve place called Fern Glenn. 

 

Lunch was gourmet burgers for those that could eat them on the Quay.

 

We then drove to an outdoor pursuits centre which is closed in the summer,  then did a short walk.

On the way back we visited Windy Canyon.  If you are wondering whether to pronounce it windy or windy,  then the answer is windy.

 

you can see our holiday house on this picture – i didn’t realise at the time but then noticed we could see the rocks from our house, so figured it must be in one of my photos.  and it was

This evening we went for a family walk down the beach at the bottom of the cliff that our house is balanced on.

our accommodation also had an outside toilet with a tremendous view

picture above is the view west to north from our holiday house.  click for a big version. nice!

Information centre

Tryphena (lunch, walk along bays)

throwing stones in the rock’s eyes

Walk up a small mountain

In search of a surf school to book a lesson for e&k (via medlands and clarity beaches)

Later afternoon trip to remote beach

back home

star watching on the deck