Since I took this photograph I have been speculating about the reason why this item of clothing exists, and I’ll be damned if I can work it out.
Still, it was more interesting than anything I could find in Invercargill tonight. On to Stewart Island tomorrow.
The city of Dunedin is dominated by this institution, the oldest university in New Zealand I believe (and pronounced o-TAH-go, not o-TAY-go). I spend a lot of my life on university campuses and can authoritatively state that this is a particularly fine example of the genre.
Incidentally I just about tolerate the car that has sneaked into this shot. I bet you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of cars that have appeared on this blog. I think virtually nothing ruins an otherwise pleasing shot more than there being a car in it. With the exception of vintage ones, they’re all identical, ugly, boring and vastly over-rated machines. OK, rant over.
Could have offered up photos taken from the plane, but there will, I’m sure, be plenty of New Zealand landscapes coming up over the next few days, and I also got a good shot of Auckland but that’s also a theme used a few days ago. So here’s a photo taken of the plane. Here is everyone plugged into their little worlds as we fly over the Tasman Sea.
Having never actually been to Torquay, UK, I was today taken to its namesake south of Geelong, where a spectacular beach – just one of many such beaches in this country – fringes the Bass Strait. I like the way the light catches this forest of blue plastic triangles beside the walkway to the sands, part of a dune regeneration project.
Although I flew into Melbourne yesterday I’m not actually staying there this weekend, instead, I’m hanging out in Geelong which is a smaller city a bit further round the bay. I’m staying with an old university friend I haven’t seen in about ten years since she emigrated out here for work. There’s not an awful lot to Geelong but, like the rest of this country, it does have some cool wildlife. I was stalking this heron for a good 20 minutes from along the path by the bay near the marina, and got a few good shots, but this one I chose because the reeds just beneath the water give it a sort of texture, and the S-shape of its neck is just beautiful. It’s the second heron to appear on the blog and the first one was beautiful too.
Things you don’t necessarily want to hear from the pilot as you’re coming into land: “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re turning the seatbelt sign on, there seems to be some thunderstorm activity around the airport”. Cue one of the bumpier landings I’ve ever experienced. But we made it.
No artistic merit to this pic at all, but it represents the fact that tomorrow I am starting a 4-week road trip that is going to take in eleven separate flights, three national parks, three major cities and four smaller ones, two Australian states and all three principal islands of New Zealand. And there was you thinking it only had two, right? But don’t worry, the laptop is coming with me, so you’ll see it all on here, I hope.
Blimey. I haven’t seen anyone doing this seriously in years, possibly decades, have you?
This is Debs who is a regular of the Railway (you’ve seen it often enough) – she has been here for a while visiting family and we both happened to be in Brisbane tonight, so shared a couple of Guinnesses (there they are) at the Irish pub with its cool balcony on the corner of George and Elizabeth Streets. Sláinte!
The east exit. It does get busier than this during the week. Taken as I returned from the airport having transited (on a very bumpy flight) back from Adelaide. The lonely ‘wet floor’ marker – placed there for no reason I could discern – gives it a sense of pathos I think…
Being 42 