Turning the Supertanker

So what did you do this summer..? January 28, 2009

As we all head back to school, a  similar range of questions will be asked of thousands of colleagues in hundreds of staff rooms throughout the southern hemisphere.  I thought that I would first ask and then answer my own question on the blogsphere and hopefully many of you will answer this same question and link to here and share your summer, so here goes.

…Well.  I decided to get away from it all, 2008 was a fantastic year and I needed to re-charge my batteries.  I switched off my phone, packed up my camera gear and headed with the family to the South Island, with the intention of getting way off the beaten track.  We did it last year too, but focused on the Marlborough Sounds and Golden Bay.  This year we went to the Alps and the deep south. What follows are a selection of images from this most recent trip.

We watched the rain lift and a full moon light Aoraki/Mout Cook at 11:00 pm

I photographed this Yellowhammer at Lindis Pass

I stood in an icy alpine stream at Monkey Creek to photograph this mountain in the Eglington Valley

We stopped at the Chasm to let the brakes on our vehicle cool down, eggs could have been fried on the rims they were that hot!

I got up close and personal with several Kea, this one is scavenging some discarded Kumera.

This Bell bird serenaded us for hours when we camped in Atholl

At Slope Point, the southern most point of land on the South Island, this brooding sky and crumbling cliff greeted us!

We decided not to purchase this ‘investment property’ in the Catlins!

Getting to this part of the bush in the Catlins was a bit hairy, the rain poured down and on a particularly steep and slippery section of the gravel road, the vehicle lost all traction for a while and we slid, for far too long!  All good in the end, but collective blood pressure rose!

However the sliding and the rain and the subsequent walk rewarded us with this:

This is part of what I did this summer, how about you?