Photo Challenge - Part 2

Today was so sunny and beautiful that I spent most of the day with my camera around my neck taking pics of anything I could see. I was actually waiting to go visit a friend but due to family issues it never happened. I don't mind though, there are other days and I got to potter about instead.

A Family Crest

So it's not for a family and I'm not entirely sure what a crest is defined as but I figured this was close enough for a country that doesn't display family crests.

A Castle Turret

This was another tough one because as far as I'm aware there aren't any true castles in New Zealand. This Castle restaurant though is close enough to fit the bill.

Free Shot

I went for a little wander this morning and this sign just stood out for me. I'm not sure why

Clouds

This is how clear it was today. The pattern of weather lately seems to be all clouds or no clouds so this seemed about the best shot I was going to get.

In The Garden

Since it's the middle of winter there isn't much in our garden except dead looking things so here's my photo. We decided to have a little fun on our saturday night so burnt as much of the dry greenwaste as we could while enjoying a cider.

A Pond With A Fountain

A large pond, more of a lake perhaps, ok definitely a lake and a very large fountain. It still counts!



I still have quite a few pics on my list so I think I will have to make a special trip out and about to tick some more off.

Taranaki Touring. Part 2

Day two of our adventure away started with a somewhat unplanned walk. We had decided to check out a lake that was on the way to where we were heading that day. When we got there we found out it was a fully fenced reserve with double electric gates and huge pest proof fences, I forgot to take photos but it was pretty surreal having to drive through.
Once we were in we had a mooch at the info boards and then decided to go for a 10 minute walk along the lake trail but once we started we figured we may as well carry on and it took us an hour to complete the circuit. It was a nice walk through native bush with plenty of bird song and the sound of ducks on the water. There were no mammals to see though as New Zealand has no native land based animals.

Being so close to the mountain meant that we had to go check it out, unfortunately the weather wasn't the best so I couldn't get any great pictures but it was still a nice drive. We drove up to one of the car parks and then took a short 20 minute walk to Dawson Falls which was very pretty and we met a nice family at the base who took our pictures for us and we returned the favour. I still get surprised about how friendly New Zealand people are sometimes.

To finish off the day we did a tour around the coastline, the highlight of which was seeing the Cape Egmont lighthouse.

The next day we went into the town of New Plymouth for a look around. The first place we explored was Pukekura park which has lots of pretty pathways with visual features such as a nice bridge, a little waterfall and large old trees. We walked the length of the park until we got to the little free zoo that they have. It's mostly farm animals but I'm always happy with that. They also had some exotic birds, meercats, otters and monkeys. We took a walk along the coastal pathway as well although we didn't really enjoy it as there was a lot of bike traffic but none of them had bells so it felt like we were constantly watching our backs trying not to get run over by bikes. It was pleasant scenery though and on the way back we stumbled across a Truck gathering. It was pretty cool, I've never seen so many big rigs all in one place. I think the best one though was a child size one that the kids could climb into the trailer of to get a ride around the fair. Very cute

When we got back to the farm that night we fed all the animals and then took the quad out for a ride. We followed the tracks for quite a long way and found a whole heap of mushrooms on the way. It was all quite exciting in a novel kind of way since neither of us had been on a quad for awhile and I always love collecting mushrooms.

Ducks and Dads

As ever my week has been unusual. For a start my Dad flew in to visit us for 2 months which means the guest room is in use! I picked him up from the airport yesterday lunchtime and he was pretty tired. He lives in England but segmented his flights by staying over in Bali and Australia so although his flight to New Zealand was only 5 hours or so he was on a night flight so missed out on sleep.

I took him shopping for some groceries and then he came back to work with me. I mowed lawns while he read a book (from my library) and dozed in the car. I don't really have anything too exciting to report at the moment apart from the fact that I hope I will have something exciting to report in the near future! I have signed up for another house stay over the long Easter weekend, this time for my cousin who lives about 2 hours away from me on a farm so that should be interesting but I shall divulge more when it happens. Make sure to stay tuned for more weirdness to come.

On a cute note we had lunch at the lake the other day and as ever we got surrounded by ducks. One cheeky chappy actually hid under the bench we were sitting on and would pop his head up every now and then to see if we had a tit bit for him. Of course it was so cute and funny that we couldn't help but feed him.

Hello, um, Human? Do you have anything to eat?

 Ooh! Whats this human? Is it tasty? Can I have it?

 *sniffs* Ooh corn snack! Yes please!