Flying high

I flew north towards home on Thursday.  I felt like I'd been away a long time and was so, so looking forward to being home again.  

I'd loved spending so much time with my five year old grandson in Taranaki but was itching to see my new great-grand-daughter who was born while I was away.  

Nearly the whole trip was above the clouds which changed colour as the sun went down.  

I've brought some sort of sore throat bug with me.  My voice comes and goes, croaks and squeeks.  I'm chomping at the bit to see the baby but will have to wait until I am bug free.  

My older daughter is coming to stay tonight (that new baby is quite an attraction!) but am looking forward to catching up on your blogs as soon as I can.

Saturday sunset

We stopped at Wellsford again on the way home on Saturday and while Chris dashed into the Lotto shop I had my eye on the gold in the west.  No matter how I tried I couldn't get rid of the red halo above the sun.  (Dirty lens?)

Any other time I would have been happy just to photograph the vintage bus also parked in town.  I imagine the owner would have liked to see his (or her) spare wheel burnished with gold.

I held the camera above my head and hoped to get the reflection in the window.  Yay, it worked!

The same window from the other side made a lovely frame for the fast disappearing sunset.

soft evenings

Curtains are good for privacy or warmth and when I don't need them for either I'd rather not have them.  So I've taken them down from two windows in my living area.  Darkness falls here around 8.30 - 9 pm this time of year and with no material to block my view I see the sunset every evening as I sit and watch TV or lift my read from reading/knitting, whatever else I may be doing.

Day after day lately there have been pretty, soft sunsets.  Nothing dramatic, just soft scenes that gently touch the senses.

  

There was a softness to the scene in the other direction a couple of days ago.  Smoke was drifting across the mountain from a fire on the other side.

Yesterday evening, an hour or so before sunset, the neighbour was busy baling the last of his hay. The smell of freshly cut hay had been lingering most of the afternoon.  Love that smell.

Utea Park

Te Oneroa a Tohe (the long beach of Tohe) really does look to be 90 miles long when you step on to it at a point where it stretches away into the distance both north and south.  Apparantly in the days when travel was by horseback an average horse could travel 30 miles in a day before needing a rest.  So, because it took 3 days to travel from one end to the other, it was called 90 Mile Beach.    They didn't take into account the slower pace of the horses walking in sand - the beach is really 55 miles (88 km) long.  

Looking south:

Looking north.  That is Chris off in the distance.

It just looks like an endless stretch of sand flanked on one side by the Tasman Sea and sand dunes leading to the Aupouri Forest on the other.  But there is plenty to look at.  There is the occasional seashell that is different from those we are used to seeing on the east coast.  The sea weed is different and the kelp impressive.  

The only drift wood is the big stuff left by the last big storm.  But some of it has been there long enough for Jayden to find it and leave his mark.

 There weren't many birds, just one flock of gulls.

And then there are the little mysteries.  There weren't a lot of these things but every now and then there would be a bunch.  Some bunches only had three 'things', some had a dozen or more.

 

Thanks, CJ, for identifying yesterdays kelp eating things.  Jumping kelp bugs describes them perfectly. What do you think these are?

For someone seeking a quiet place to ponder the grandeur and beauty of nature there can be no better place, with only the roar of the sea to distract you.  The beach was a bit busier at low tide with mussel spat harvesting going on but at high tide there was glorious solitude.

We stayed in a little cabin at Utea Park.  There was no power but a gas stove for cooking and plenty of hot water - what more do you need?

When I lifted my head while laying on the bed and reading on Friday afternoon, this is what I saw.

And, at the end of the day as darkness gathered, rather than turning on a light, we sat and watched The Nature Show.

 I certainly don't need anything more than that.