Here is a desktop for April 2010. The picture was taken at Sunrise on Waihi Beach in New Zealand.
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Showing posts with label Waihi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Waihi. Show all posts
Thursday, 1 April 2010
April 2010 Desktop
Saturday, 20 March 2010
Sunrise, Waihi Beach, New Zealand
It was well worth getting up early this morning as the sunrise on Waihi beach was beautiful. A great way to start Sunday morning!
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Farm Life In New Zealand
On arriving in New Zealand it was time for us to take a break from the constant moving about. After 6 months of constant travelling I was looking forward to spending some time in one place.
We spent the time leading up to Christmas and New Year with Jono’s family on his Mum and Dad’s farms. It’s a busy time of year on the farms which gave me the opportunity to take lots of photographs. This set, as you’ll see, has a farm theme.
A lot of my pictures are taken in the late afternoon when the animals on the farm get fed. I like the one above as it really gives you a feel for the farm.
One of the many horses on the farm, this one is Milly, an Arabian Mare. The afternoon light gives her a lovely shine.
The Jersey calves are really cute. They are curious but a little jumpy when you get close. I had to make sure I avoided all the poo taking this one.
As you walk round the farm, Chloe the Labrador is never far. I love this picture as it looks like she is surveying her farm to make sure all is as it should be.
As I got to ‘know’ the cows my favourite has become number 15, as she is curious and will let me get pretty close to get a good shot. I like this one. It looks like she has a couple of bodyguards behind her keeping her safe.
The sheep were being shorn on the farm, the woolshed made for a great place to take pictures. It was a tricky as I didn’t want to get in the way as there was a lot of activity going on.
It’s a pretty back braking job and you can see that the sheep shearers have a lot of skill in handling the sheep.
I think I captured the exhaustion well in this one. He’d been shearing since 8 in the morning and this was taken at 12:30 when the last ones were being finished.
Here is a shot of a counter one of the shearers was using. I wonder how many sheep had been counted on it over the years.
Christmas time is also a busy time for making sure there is enough feed for the animals in the winter months. The grass was being cut for making silage. The Grass is cut and then collected and baled and then wrapped in plastic for storage.
A silage bale ready to be wrapped.
Along with silage the grass was also cut to make hay. The grass is cut and then left to dry before it is scooped up and made into your traditional rectangle hay bales. All this is done when the weather is guaranteed to be fine so that grass does not spoil. This shot shows well the grass being cut on a sunny day.
While the cutting was going on we were looking on and taking it easy. I like this picture as I think it gives off the feel of a relaxed summer’s day.
A couple of days later the hay bales were made and collected.
A few days later it was the turn of the lambs to be shorn and they had to be drafted. This was the process of separating the lambs from their mothers. The lambs were sent to the right and the sheep to the left.
Once they were separated they looked great, all the shorn sheep in one pen and the lambs in another.
The sheep were let ‘free’, they have a big herding instinct and madly follow each other. Watching them for a while I concluded that they are so stupid that they’d follow each other off a cliff face if you let them.
As the weather was so lovely we did a lot of walking around the farm exploring the nooks and crannies. The good thing about New Zealand is that there are no snakes or venomous spiders so you are pretty safe walking around. The most dangerous thing you are likely to encounter is a bee.
Apart from the Jersey cows there are others on the farm, I like the Red Devons and I particularly like this one. I imagine a Farside cartoon to this one, something along the lines of how trendy the other cows think she is with her ear pierced.
Finally a couple of people shots, this is simply Farmer and his dog.
And finally this photo because I just like it and it was taken on the farm and it’s a pretty common scene of people chatting over fences. We did also venture off the farm in the first couple of weeks in New Zealand and I’ll keep that for another post.
Tuesday, 29 December 2009
Arrival in New Zealand
We left Sydney a little late as another plane had to come back to the gate as it had to pick something up that it had forgotten and was in our way! The flight itself was three hours and we touched down in Auckland. The plane was emptied pretty quickly and we headed off to Immigration/Customs and Baggage Reclaim. As Jono has a permanent residency in New Zealand he joined the queue for the locals while I was with all the other foreign nationals. Jono got through pretty quickly as his queue was much shorter and I had to wait for a while. When it got to my turn the officer took my passport and swiped it and he then asked “Do you know why immigration want to talk to you?”. I was expecting my passport to be stamped and be on my way, so was surprised at the question. I said “No” but I did think how would I know what immigration want with me. I knew there was no reason for them to want me at all. As a British Citizen I could stay in New Zealand for up to six months on a tourist visa.
Before I knew it I was being escorted to a room where I was told to wait. Jono was told he could not come in but the officer neglected to tell him what was going on. He went to get the bags while I sat closed off from the free world. It was an odd experience, not one I’ve had to endure since a trip to Nepal years ago. This time, I had Ellen on a TV to watch and opposite me a vending machine full of crisps and chocolates. I did feel it was a cheek that I had to pay for a snack as it wasn’t my choice to be there.
While I sat there I could not help but feel guilty, even though I knew I had done nothing wrong. And all the time I sat there I was acutely aware that someone was watching me on either the security camera or through the one way mirror.
Nearly a full episode of Ellen passed, serious looking officials came and went and finally I was approached and asked what I planned to do in New Zealand and where had I been up to now. I reeled off the places we’d been, India, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Loas, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia. I think he’d had enough at that point and said let’s go and get you stamped into the country. I’m not sure what it was about but I thought better not to make a fuss or ask. I did notice, however, that once I was back waiting to get my passport stamped at the ‘special’ counter the others sat waiting were all dark skinned – most probably a coincidence!
Jono already had the bags by this point and we made our way through customs. Like in Australia, we declared that we had walking boots and had used them to hike in. After one look at our form by a custom’s official, we were ushered into a queue to have them inspected for dirt that may carry seeds and disease. Following this, we were in for a long wait in line, as the people in front of us in the queue had all sorts of exotic stuff to be inspected. One man had a box full of huge fish which I overheard him saying he’d caught the day before. Another lady had something similar but also was wearing a grass skirt – I did wonder if they inspected that too. At our turn the official took a quick look at the boots and we thought we were good to go.
Unfortunately we were then told to join another queue which was to have our bags scanned. I did expect another inspection after that but this time we were sent on our way free to finally enter New Zealand.
On the other side, we were greeted by Jono’s family. We weren’t sure who was coming to meet us other than Jono’s Mum, so it was really lovely to see the whole family turn out. For me it was great to arrive somewhere where no thought from us had gone into how we were going to get from the airport and where we were staying. I knew we were being picked up and that we would be staying with Jono’s Mum.
After some introductions we sat down and I got to have a lovely latte which helped me relax after the whole process of getting into the country. As I sat there listening to Jono catching up with his family, I could feel my head starting to hurt, my body starting to ache and my throat becoming sore. I didn’t realise it but I was getting my first cold in the six months of travel and I think my body knew that we had arrived somewhere safe. After the coffee we headed to Waihi where Jono was brought up - the place we would be making our base for the next 3 to 4 months.
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