Pedometers

Love the comments thank you. A few have asked about how I count my steps, it's called a Pedometer, a little gadget that you should be able to get from your chemist/drugstore/health shop that clips onto the waistband or pocket of your jeans etc. At the end of the day you reset it and start again next morning, easy as pie. Mine is an Omron HJ-005, probably out of date now but there are many different makes on the market. Yay I made it over the 5000 steps today!

What an awful photo - why do I have so much trouble taking flash photos I wonder. Here's a better picture of the same one in a different colour. Interesting to note that 10,000 steps is about 5 miles and that it helps to burn 2000 to 3500 calories per week. Put that together with a sensible diet and you have the makings of your old self again LOL.
Off to bed now, unfortunately the forecast for tomorrow isn't looking too good once more.

These shoes are made for walking.....

Crikey, I didn't know it had sound too!

New start

Today I started on my new programme to get fit & lose weight. I thought I would chronicle my progress here so I hope it won't frighten you all away! I weighed myself this morning - more than I thought, isn't it always - 71.5kgs in my birthday suit - no photo sorry, didn't want to frighten you off completely!
I know that 10,000 steps EACH day is the optimum amount everyone should do to keep fit & healthy, at the moment I'm just aiming for 5,000 a day, no use going overboard ;). From now on I go for my walk as soon as I get up otherwise I just keep putting it off. This morning it was threatening to rain so I took my umbrella, I knew it wouldn't rain then! I called into the hairdressers for a hair cut then walked home around the block, after stopping to take a few photos it took me ¾hr and 4842 steps, not bad but I can do better. Here I am stepping out.

I took a video on my camera of my legs walking, I'll have to see if I can put it online somehow, first time I've used my camera to take a movie.

Down one of the streets were all these trees growing on the grass berm, all bursting with buds and about to burst forth. When I got up close to take a photo I was fascinated to see the colour of the buds. It looked for all the world like someone had moved from tree to tree painting the buds black. I've been down this street hundreds of times but have never noticed that before, obviously the trees aren't that spectacular but I did like the buds.

I love this Weeping Willow tree and have photographed it many times without much success as to getting it looking as lovely as it does in real life - today I tried a different approach, up closer and with the flash, a bit better I think.

This is one of my favourite Pelargoniums, Midnight Sun, and today it was gloriously blooming in a few gardens as well as along the side of the road. Must get a cutting next time I go past.

This is the flower of our native tree the Pohutukawa (Metrosideros excelsa), popularly known as the NZ Christmas Tree. They say the earlier it flowers the longer our summer will be - roll on summer! I think this one is a cousin of our NZ tree coming from the Kermadec Islands.

Another sign of Spring - a beautiful Rhododendron. The sun was in the wrong place to get a good shot of it but I'm not complaining after waiting so long for the sun to arrive!

And so back home again! Another episode tomorrow hopefully. Anyone like to join me - even if not physically we could do it virtually.

The Mighty Civic

The Civic continued....read previous post first

The last post was getting rather long and very tedious - if anyone knows how to upload a photo so that it goes into the spot you want it to go instead of right at the start please let me know!

The Civic was the brain child of Thomas A O'Brien who said 'It has been our great endeavour to give to you, the people of Auckland, Queen City of the Dominion, a Theatre worthy of the progressive spirit of its citizens. May you spend many happy hours under the star-lit vaulted sky of the Civic'.
I did indeed spend many happy hours as a child growing up watching movies at the Civic, when very young I used to worry that it was going to rain and we would all get wet, no-one ever told me the sky and the twinkling stars were really underneath a roof! Again I didn't get any good pictures of the twinkling sky - and clouds rolling by - but if you click here Shazzt has one. This is a postcard of the Circle foyer including the original painting (fully restored after years of neglect & nicotine staining & now behind glass) that had the people coming in droves to see it, for 1929 it was quite controversial!

After the tour on our way home I was intrigued by this banner above Queen St.

After catching the train home again we called into one of our local restaurants, The Acacia, for dinner where I had pumpkin & brie soup and whitebait fritters with lime tartare sauce.

One last photo of the spring poppies in the gardens before we wended our weary way home after a lovely day out.

Well, the sun has come out now so I might be able to talk Dennis into going for another walk today!

The Civic Picture Theatre

Chalk one up for me - we actually beat the weather this weekend! Yesterday was such a lovely day we decided to catch the train into the city for our weekly photowalk instead of today which isn't looking too good, although I must say it's not raining. The Auckland Heritage Festival is on until the 30 Sept and they are having free guided tours and all sorts of things in and around the city. I've always loved the old Civic theatre which back in 2000 was reopened after a 40.8 million dollar refurbishment. It is what is known as an Atmospheric Theatre, so-called because it is designed to evoke the outdoors at night, one of two in Australasia with only seven worldwide. If you click here you can see a virtual panoramic view of the auditorium or here for the Civic's homepage.

After getting off the train at Britomart we walked upstairs to have a look at the fountain which you can see through the main skylight of the station when you're downstairs. Here is a photo I took inside last time we were there and a couple I took yesterday.



On the way up Queen St we bought our lunch and had it sitting in the sun in Aotea Square where they were having a market day.

I was fascinated to see that the square had been planted with bright yellow pansies and parsley of all things. It did look very effective though.

Of course I couldn't leave the market without buying something before we continued on to the Civic guided tour. This pretty bracelet matched my jumper perfectly.


Our tour guide was the manager who had been involved with the refurbishment and recreating of the Civic, it was an absolutely fascinating hour which ended with a film on the making of the Civic which opened in 1929 and included original film footage of the time. The theatre is of course very dark inside and as I don't have a clue as to settings on my camera I just stuck it on automatic and hoped for the best. What follows is a selection of the best which aren't too bad although I'm no professional that's for sure!

The foyer taken from upstairs. This is where my mother, aged 17 in 1929, broke the heel on her shoe coming down the stairs and fell all the way to the bottom, she wasn't hurt except for her pride!

One of the two gold panthers who guard the stage in the main auditorium.

Information on the remaking of the beautiful Flamingo Curtain.
Below are three photos of parts of the curtain including the obligatory one of me! The photo I took of all of the curtain was too far away for the flash to light it up unfortunately. However, if you click here you can see Shazzt's photo of it. She very wisely doesn't seem to have needed to use her flash, I really must learn more about taking photos in the dark without a flash.



Okay, after seeing this photo (I cropped the bottom off!) I decided it was time to really start my daily walking again. After breaking my foot last year I haven't got back into it properly again and have put on about 5kgs, time to lose it again - I'm aiming for 65kgs, currently 71, just too much for my height of 1.65m (5'5"). So everyone, help me out here, I need lots of encouragement!
Now if I could just look like this again.....

Dennis took this of me at the Domain on Sunday, beside
the Kaitiaki sculpture.

Auckland Domain - take two....

Today we decided we were going to do the Sculpture Walk in the Auckland Domain come hell or high water! Well, we made it about half way around the Domain before the rain set in once more and we abandoned ship like the wimps we are.....
It started off a lovely, if somewhat cloudy day. The minute I was out of the car we heard this almighty noise coming towards us and without warning, before I could even get my camera out, there was a fly past of five what I presume to be old war planes. It turned out to be the Battle of Britain commemmoration day and there was a ceremony at the War Memorial in front of the Museum. Anyway, I whipped out my camera just in time to get a fly past of another four planes, even though I didn't get time to put my new zoom lens on.
After that we had time to walk to three sculptures, two of which appear to be new ones that weren't on the map I have, before the rain came down. We waited awhile but there was no clear sky visible so after taking a few photos while trying to juggle an umbrella I gave it all away - so much for my little bit of culture.

Flypast of Tiger Moths (I think).

The Millennium Tree Sculpture by Guy Ngan

Kaitiaki Sculpture by Fred Graham
This sculpture represents a hawk. Fred Graham observes that birds were the original Tangata Whenua of Aotearoa, and the hawk has figured prominently in the oral traditions of Ngati Whatua and Tainui. The enormous swooping steel bird, dark against the sky, may seem threatening, but conveys the strength that makes the hawk a powerful guardian of the land.

Unknown sculpture - no plaque as yet, you can
see the Kaitiaki one in the background.

The Domain Cricket Grandstand built in 1899.

The Domain lies mostly within the Pukekawa Volcano crater,
the water from the crater drains into the Duck Ponds. You can
see the rain precipitating down in this one!

The signs of Spring!!! HAH!

Sunday's Photowalk.....

.....was cancelled due to inclement weather! We were going to do the Sculpture Walk in the domain but after driving to Newmarket to buy my new zoom lens from Sony it started to rain constantly so we left it for another day. So after getting the lens I haven't had a chance to use it yet! Here's a photo of a Kiwi that I took last time we were at the Musuem in April, stuffed I'm afraid. It's next to impossible to get one at the Zoo - they're in a darkened house because they sleep during the day & only come out at night - as they do in the wild.

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.