Saturday 18 April 2020

Off Topic Posting

Taking an example from Jonathon over at the Palouse Wargaming blog, following are a few images of bush walks my wife and I did back in February - a distant memory now as we are not allowed to traipse all over the country at the moment - in fact, my wife thinks I cant even drive a couple of km to take the dog to a local bush walk...I am not sure the restrictions are intended to be quite that severe but for the purpose of domestic harmony, I am just sticking to her interpretation!

I do hope there are not TOO many here - I did edit them - honest!


Walk one - 15 Feb 2020 - as the sign says, Pirongia Forest Park, approximately two hour drive south west of our home town.





I crawled into his 10m long cave/tunnel - it was literally pitch black in there - I just aimed the phone in the general direction and took a couple of pictures!





Walk Two - 23 Feb - about two hours drive south east this time.



The walk to the Kauri trees involved crossing the same small river eight times





My wife Ruth at the fourth or fifth river crossing



Kauri trees grow very tall and very straight - thousands were cut down in the late 19th century for use as masts in ship building




Our dog Sam waiting for his lock down lunchtime walk I do each day whilst "working from home", followed by four views of our usual route around the neighbourhood - the roads are not normally this quiet!





Finally below, contrasting the weather - virtually same view of our back yard/garden/section on 11 April...


....and today, Sat 18 April (although now it looks more like the first picture again



More toy soldiers next time - promise!

10 comments:

  1. Beautiful scenery, Keith! This looks like a lush rainforest.
    No need to apologize for sharing such lovely scenery. I enjoyed a look around your part of the world!

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    1. Thanks Jonathon, as your were the instigator / inspiration for this post, I should expect nothing less....I just hope others are interested too!

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  2. Great stuff Keith.
    I am finding myself walking more in the daily hour than I do normally each day... The lack of commute means I even sneak in a hours hobby time in the morning.
    Cheers
    Stu

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    1. I know exactly what you mean Stu....I have two to two and a half hours more time to myself because I don't have to travel into Auckland each day...I just go into the spare bedroom around seven forty five and connect up my work laptop to the company VPN.... I could get used to it to be honest!

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  3. Some lovely scenery Keith...
    Sadly I have nothing like that near me...though I could always leave the garden unattended for a couple of years...

    All the best. Aly

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    1. Thanks Aly. We are very well endowed with scenic walking tracks in this country.

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  4. I think the kauri is my favourite tree, along with the oak. I still remember seeing the perfectly square kauri in the Coromandel. I'm glad they never cut that one down.

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    1. Thanks Lawrence - we now have a disease called Kauri die back that is affecting these giants of the forest much like Dutch Elm disease did in Europe a generation or two back - a lot of walking trails etc have been closed to the public to try to prevent the spread of the disease - wait, that sounds familiar....!

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  5. Lovely scenery! We're not allowed to drive anywhere to walk the dog, so its only local walks for us!
    Best Iain

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    1. Well maybe my wife is correct about NZ too Lawrence ....I just heard via my daughter that we are staying at Level 4 till 2359 next Monday, which is a public holiday here...ANZAC Day

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