We spent a lot of time at or near home over the Christmas/New Years break. This was mostly due to uncertainty created by the ongoing Covid-19 situation and staying home just seemed easiest. We had a short 4 night trip to Timaru to see my family but otherwise we?ve been staying in the Greater Wellington […]
Atiwhakatu Hut
After our overnight stay at Raukawa Hut early last year we’d been looking for another hut to visit, so many months ago now we booked a night at Atiwhakatu Hut in the Tararua Forest Park. While we were able to book Raukawa Hut for just our party Atiwhakatu Hut is a bigger hut that sleeps […]
Success and otherwise
Over the past few months I’ve had some success in photo competitions. Once again I entered the Guardians of Pauatahanui Inlet photo competition (previous success in 2013 & 2018) and managed to win the Nature category, and also have a number of other photos placed and highly commended. The photos can be seen below with […]
Back of the Bus
We’re now heading into Autumn but Wellington gave us a reminder of the best of summer with a warm and sunny afternoon on the waterfront. A week ago we’d been scheduled to see a performance called Back of the Bus performed by Java Dance Theatre as part of the What if the City was a […]
The Urban Hut Club
Five years ago Keryn and I along with a one-year-old Alayna spent some wonderful times exploring Wellington and checking out 7 Miniature Huts dotted around the landscape, put in place by local artists Kemi & Niko. From tiny to large the adventure was as much about following clues to find the huts as much as […]
Overnight at Raukawa Hut
We’ve taken plenty of holidays with Alayna, and done lots of walking, but up to now had never combined staying somewhere new with a tramp in good old New Zealand bush. We’d been talking about a staying a night in an easily accessible hut with friends and finally this became a reality with a walk […]
Nanogirl Brings the Noise
The blurb for the latest Nanogirl Live! show – Bring on the Noise! – said ” In this interactive show filled with experiments,?explosions and music ? Nanogirl Live! brings science and engineering to life in the coolest ways?possible, right before your eyes“. Over an entertaining hour we watched Nanogirl and her trusty assistant Boris, along […]
Photographing glowworms
I like to get out and photograph the sky at night. Living near Wellington at the bottom of the North Island of New Zealand there are a number of spots nearby that have low light pollution and subsequently very dark skies which helps when photographing features like the milky way and the occasional aurora australis […]
Sinclair Head seals
Sunday seemed like a good day to go for a hike. We’ve got a holiday coming up soon with lots of walking planned so we’ve been wanting to get out a bit more and have Alayna get used to longer treks. With a decent looking weather forecast we set our sights on the New Zealand […]
There he blows!
For the past few days a whale has been loitering around Wellington Harbour. Relatively quickly the whale was identified as a southern right whale, a species last seen in these parts 8 years ago. There is a myth that back in European settlement days the southern right whale population was such that their noise at […]
Rainy day Zealandia
It has been cool and wet today so what better time to head into Zealandia? Yeah, perhaps not the ideal visiting conditions but we still had a good time. The wildlife doesn’t get the option to avoid the rain and we saw plenty of birds going about their business. The forest was often a scene […]
LUX 2018
The LUX festival is back for another year so we took the opportunity of a dry Friday evening to attend the opening night. The festival covers a smaller footprint this year with no extension into the city laneways. I think this is a pity as there are a few sculptures on display that would look […]