Our Tree – been and gone

We arrived at Totara Valley to find that the old tree on the neighbouring property that we considered ‘ours’ had been blown over… apparently there had once been four or five of these black poplars… the landscape is still beautiful but we miss the tree that helped define it.

After:

Before:

Tekapo-Aoraki/Mt Cook

Lake Alexandrina from the unimaginatively named Mt John

One of my favourite haunts is the inland area of South Canterbury around the lakes of the Mackenzie Country and Lake Tekapo in particular.  For many years as a child my family stayed in an old house on one of the large sheep farming runs at the head of the lake, Mt Gerald Station.  For me, that meant sleeping in a tent, playing cricket games, swimming in a large cold pool, going rabbiting (my father with the gun, but me and the others equally serious), and endless hours to wander and play and imagine…

Fortunately, Lake Tekapo is just over an hour away from our shack at Totara Valley, and more fortunately, Anne and I have just spent three nights there with some of our favourite people… the weather was perfect, the company sublime, and the scenery there and at Mt Cook/Aoraki absolutely perfect given it was winter!

A few more photographs…

Tekapo at dawn

friends at the lakeside

sheep dog monument

open fire at work

batman – our mate Brian finds a dress-up box

tourists at Lake Pukaki with Aoraki splendid in the background

Aoraki-Mt Cook

snow & ice

swing-bridge

hawk in flight

Mt Sefton

Lake Tekapo township

a pylon photo

I had a recent request from a guy wanting to use one of my photos for his blog – it looks quite good in the middle of his technical information. http://blog.greenstage.co.nz/2014/08/a-distributed-electricity-company_6.html

cloud at home tonight (well near!)

cloud in christchurch