It’s very strange to have spent a long weekend on holiday away with friends while much of the world is under lockdown and suffering through COVID-19 outbreaks. We’re very aware of how lucky we are in New Zealand to have a community free of COVID which allows an almost normal life. Every morning while we […]
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 […]
Zealandia Exhibition
This month I’m lucky enough to have an exhibition of my photos at Zealandia. There are 10 photos which are a selection of favourites taken at Zealandia over the past 10 years. The exhibition is in the stairway up to the cafe, free entry and will be in place for all of February.
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 […]
School holidays trip to Timaru
The school holidays was once a time for us to avoid travelling in New Zealand, but that was back in the days of having a child who wasn’t school aged (or not having a child at all). Now we join the rest of the school-going NZ families in trying to find both things for our […]
Mana Island
Saturday saw us take up an opportunity to visit Mana Island off the coast from Porirua. The island was designated a scientific reserve in 1987 after a long history of colonisation and farming. Introduced pests and large mammals have been removed and in subsequent years over half a million trees have been planted and a […]
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 revisited
Wednesday night saw two photography walks taking place around the LUX festival. I joined up with the walk arranged via the Wellington Photography Meetup group. Winter might officially start next week but it’s been quite cold and stormy recently with the evening being cool with some rain around. This did mean that none of us […]