Second Day of Spring Down Under

As promised here's the first layout of a few photos I took last Sunday when we visited Huia & Little Huia in the Waitakere Ranges not far from where I live in New Lynn. See two entries ago for more information on where we went that day. Unfortunately it rained on and off all day and was overcast so I had trouble getting the light right in the scenic photos. I tried to make the bottom three photos a panoramic one but it didn't work out because the light in each one was very different, it looked weird. The water that ran under the bridge went over the road and into the sea, very strange!

Thanks to Sharon for her list of PhotoWalking locations in Auckland I'm going to try to do them all over the coming summer. This coming weekend if the weather is fine I thought we might do the Sculpture Walk around the Auckland Domain and photograph the various sculptures done by well known NZ artists. I've been to the domain and museum many times of course but I've never actually walked right around it all at once - see your own country first they say, in this case your own town!

Father's Day in NZ

Last Sunday was Father's Day here in NZ so we decided to visit some of the grandchildren and do the PhotoWalking in between visits. We went to Harry's place for lunch in Takapuna and in the afternoon we drove to Huia in the Waitakere Ranges. The previous Sunday there had been a BBC drama called 'The Man Who Lost His Head' starring Martin Clunes on TV and DH was sure he recognised some of the scenes in it as being in Huia. We stopped and took some awe inspiring photos of the Manukau Harbour but it started to rain by the time we reached Huia & Little Huia so we didn't get to do much of a walk around the area. Not that there is much to see in Little Huia, a small beach and a half a dozen houses if that! But still a beautiful spot so more photos taken of course, I didn't recognise anything from the film though. On the way home we stopped in at the Huia Settler's Museum and spent a delightful hour there. We were speaking to a couple of the ladies who worked there and when they heard where we had just been one of them said 'oh did you know that was where the film on TV last week was filmed'! So DH's memory isn't as bad as I thought it was after all :). After that we continued on to visit Lauren & Becky in Wood Bay for a lovely roast dinner and more photos. Just as we drove into their street DH noticed a couple of Wood Pigeons in a tree so I spent another hour trying to get some decent photos of them. The light was dying and of course the sky was behind them as I was shooting from underneath so not a lot of them are any good. They were still in the tree when I left, what an experience. Just after that I passed a Tui flitting around about me, by this time the light was bad so nothing good there either, still it was fun trying!
It was the second day of spring but hardly anything to write home about, hope it warms up soon.
I'm still trying to find time to do a couple of LOs with the photos I took so in the meantime here's a few photos of the birds.



Kereru - NZ native Wood Pigeon


Tui - endemic NZ bird, best known for it's beautiful
song and white feather tufts on it's throat.


Kereru - mate of the one above.