It’s that wonderful time of year when the morning sun is starting to have a tiny bit more heat in it as it rises over the Dunedin Hills along the Peninsula. With the changing of seasons from Winter to Spring, the early morning sun when accompanied by clear, cloudless mornings creates a lovely dawn glow as it strikes the front of the various buildings around the city centre.
The other morning I managed to catch the last of the early morning sun hitting St Joseph’s Cathedral before it disappeared behind a large bank of cloud.
This was a late evening shot I took in summer. The swell on the shoreline and around the rockpools was one of those gentle tides that washes slowly between piles of seaweed that have been washed ashore.
Dunedin has some magical spots on the coast to catch the sunset. There’s an endless supply of locations to catch the suns last rays of the day. This spot is not far from my house where on a night like this you can see the sunset along the coast with the city lights in the distance.
The boardwalk track at Glenorchy is a most magnificent place as it twists, turns and loops around the lagoon. It crosses and cuts over the wetlands that have incredible views of Mt Earnslaw, the surrounding ranges and is filled with amazing birdlife.
George Duppa first arrived in Port Nicholson on the ship The Oriental in early 1840. Born near Maidstone, Kent, England in 1819, George was the youngest son of Baldwin and Mary Duppa. Upon arrival in Aotearoa he spent time clearing land on the west bank of the Hutt River until he eventually moved to the area now known as Oriental Bay. Once in the bay, he erected a prefabricated house that he had shipped out from England.
At the time, the area was called Duppa because of its one and only resident. In fact, the bay was so remote that it was also used for quarantine purposes. It only became known as Oriental bay after George Duppa named the area after the ship he originally arrived on.
If you wander around Wellington for long enough you’ll come across some of the sculptures that are placed around the city. One of these is a giant 6½-metre-high tripod sculpture that was created by Weta Workshop. The bronze sculpture is made from recycled mechanical parts including old camera reels, Nintendo controllers, Gameboys, a toasted sandwich maker, among other objects. Unveiled in 2005 at the end of Courtney Place, it was commissioned by the Wellington City Council to celebrate the film industry.
High on Mount Cook, in the cold, early hours of Saturday 3rd December 1910, Australian mountaineer Freda du Faur and her companions Peter and Alec Graham started their final ascent on the summit.
Born and raised in Sydney, Freda taught herself to rock climb and pursued it with a passion. In 1906, at the age of 24, she summered in New Zealand and after seeing images of Mount Cook became determined to climb it. She then spent the years between 1908 and 1910 preparing for her ascent on the peak. So, on Saturday 3rd December 1910, accompanied with two companions, Freda du Faur became the first woman to successfully climb Mount Cook.
Earlier this year I spent a few days in Makarora. While I was there, I planned on going to visit the famous Blue Pools. Unfortunately, when I arrived at the car park I found a large sign saying the two swing bridges that lead to the Blue Pools were closed due to the bridges having reached the end of their life. It also went on to advise that while the track was open, access to the Blue Pools wasn’t possible. Not wanting to waste a good bush walk, the best I could figure was that a walk through the forest would still be nice and rivers are always pleasant to watch, so I happily set off following the track into the bush.
The Ravensbourne overbridge is a wonderful piece of subject matter. I’ve seen it in many works of art. There’s a form and structure to it that makes it work artistically.
Here in Aotearoa as we close in on the end of the winter months, the sunlight hours are getting slightly longer, and there’s a definite shift towards spring appearing around the city. Of course, with spring approaching, that means summer is only just around the corner!
This isn’t quite the Dingle Burn, but it’s pretty close to it. Access to this whole area starts at the Dingle Burn Peninsula Track and leads to the Turihuka Conservation Area, the Hāwea Conservation Park and the Hunter River Tracks. The whole area is very magnificent and has tracks that can take anything from several hours to several days to walk and enjoy.
The intricate and elaborate Pai Lou archway that stands out front of the Lan Yuan Gardens in Dunedin is quite a beautiful thing. The other week, after having a very tranquil walk around the gardens, upon leaving I took a moment to view and appreciate the Pai Lou archway. From a distance, it looks quite impressive, however up close it’s absolutely magnificent. I left having a whole new appreciation for it.
Like most towns in Otago and the Lake’s District, Glenorchy was born out of the gold rush that occurred in the 1860’s. Once Glenorchy was settled and populated by prospectors, the only real access to it was via steamers that carried people and cargo up and down the lake from Queenstown. At Glenorchy, the goods and cargo going to and from steamers on the lake was stored and sorted in a goods shed that also operated as the local station.
As the steamers were owned by NZ Railways, Glenorchy was officially a railway station and the rails that ran from the end of the wharf to the shed were technically railway. Thus, at the time, the track that ran from the shed to the end of the wharf was the shortest piece of railway in the country.
This is the view from Lewis Acker’s stone cottage on Stewart Island looking out to Harrolds Bay. Acker lived quite an amazing life which started in New England, America, around 1815. He then went to sea which brought him to the shores of Aotearoa as a 16 year old. He returned several years later as part of the sealing and whaling industry before purchasing 600 acres of land on Stewart Island from local Maori. It was here in a small bay on Stewart Island that Acker built a remarkable stone, one room, two windowed house where he lived with his wife Mary Pi and eight children until they moved back to the mainland in 1856.
It seems that Acker was a particularly skilled person as not only did he spend time working in the sealing and whaling industry, but he built boats, ran a sawmill, was a river boat pilot and spent time running a farm. At the time of his death in 1885, aged around 70 he had been married twice and was father to 14 children, having outlived six of them.
My short walk through Riverton took me past the main shops, over the town bridge and to the wharf. After spending some time wondering if a strong wind would blow part of the wooden structure over, I retraced my steps over the bridge. It was then that I past a number of interesting art projects made from all sorts of recycled material.
When Edinburgh butcher David Bethune came to Dunedin he went in search of land and eventually bought the area now known as Bethunes Gully in 1878. On the large property he set up a sawmill, brick kiln and slaughter yard where he lived and worked for a number of years, until he moved his family further into the city and was declared bankrupt in 1889. The gully then became overgrown and disused until one John Begg Thompson purchased it in 1916. Thompson then leased the property to the City Council until his death in 1955 when it became city property.
I’d spent the day driving the dirt roads near Gimmerburn in the Maniototo looking for old structures. Actually, I wasn’t altogether sure what I was searching for, I just trusted that I’d know when I saw it. It was somewhere between Gimmerburn and Waipiata that I found an old water race that seemed a good subject for further investigation when I saw these sheep in a nearby paddock looking strangely curious.
For reasons I don’t know and I can’t explain, it had been some time since I’d been to the Esplanade at St Clair. I used to stop off quite regularly however, recently I realised it had been a good month or two since my last visit. So, I decided to stop off on my way home last night. It was dusk, and the early Friday evening foot traffic was starting to populate the local bars and restaurants as dusk took hold.
There are many magnificent beaches in the South Island of New Zealand, and Tautuku Beach has to be right there with the best of them. It’s incredibly splendid, in an isolated sort of way.
First light on the Kirkliston Range in the Hakataramea Valley on Homestead Road. Tucked away in the Waimate District, the Hakataramea Valley sits at the foot Kirkliston range in the South Island of New Zealand. This image brought to mind a poetic line when I was working on it. But then again, photography links very closely with poetry.
My wander around Dunedin city brought me to Dowling Street. The bright sunlight was already making its presence felt, creating silhouettes of the buildings as the morning took hold.
With a bit of time on my hands, and since the sun was shining, I decided to spend the morning at the beach. It wasn’t particularly warm, but sometimes just being out in the sunshine is enough.
It occurred to me the day that it had never occurred to me how the Pacific Ocean was named. In 1520, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan set out on a little expedition to find the “Spice Islands” in eastern Indonesia. After making his way through some rather rough waters in Chile, he came upon the calm and peaceful waters of the Pacific Ocean. Mare Pacificum, meaning “peaceful sea.”
The weather could best be described as awful. It could also be referred to as dire, atrocious or ghastly. The day had started out with rain, then the wind hit, the rain got harder, then it turned to hail and the temperature hadn’t reached more then five or six degrees. So, it seemed logical to go indoors and visit a local museum.
I spent some time wandering the various streets that make up the town’s centre, I walked along the lakefront and took in the splendid scenery that surrounds the town. When I was younger, I remember Queenstown being a place with spectacular scenery, full of wonder and excitement. As you approached there was always an air of eagerness in the backseat of the vehicle my Dad was driving. Firstly you’d drive through Frankton, then the housing developments would become less frequent and almost non-existent until we passed the bottle house which was a marvel in itself. The famed Bottle House was always a clear sign that the magical place of Queenstown wasn’t too far away, until we rounded a bend and caught sight of the gondolas making their way up through the trees to the Skyline Restaurant. This was always the cue to look in amazement out the car window at the most mysterious of towns. Although it always did seem to be packed with people, rather expensive (so my parents told me) and full of construction everywhere we went.
I ate a delightful lunch at a charming place called Chocolate Dayz Cafe before I headed off on foot along the Pencarrow Coast. Having no plan apart from walking as far as I could. I spent the afternoon strolling along the coastal streets through Eastbourne and along the beaches stopping to look at nothing in particular before heading back for my ferry.
Being a few minutes early I ventured across to an ice cream parlour to buy a drink where a young man was in the process of failing to balance two scoops of ice cream on a cone. This task he failed at twice more before the customer equally failed at using his debit card to pay for the items. All of this was completed moments before I could insist on making and paying for the bloody things myself to avoid dying of old age.
A short time later, clutching my well deserved drink and seated on the ferry the vessel set off once more across the harbour.
Back in the summer months, I spent a day exploring near the area of Portobello on the Otago Peninsula. I timed my day with low tide, meaning I had loads of fun scrambling over the shoreline rocks near the aquarium, walking along tracks that went around the hillside and taking lots of photos from unique angles. I also spent some time sitting in the long grass enjoying the view looking back down Otago Harbour.
… from a Small City. My daily musings from Ōtepoti to get you inspired. Read the blog, view the photos, embrace the creativity.
error: This content is protected by copyright. If you wish to use an image you are required to make a purchase through the galleries.
St Joseph’s Cathedral on a spring morning – Buy 
