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A few more piccies
Jul. 8th, 2007 11:46 pmThis is where I lived in one area of Auckland (out of the many). Our house was to the right and behind the grey roof in the right foreground. All that area beyond there is bush, which I'd disappear into for hours. The dip in the hills to the rear is where the beach is.
( piccie )
This is the wee estuary just before the beach. There are mangroves, cabbage trees, and what I used to call toetoe (pronounced toi-toi), although it's actually non-native pampas grass, alas (toetoe is very similar, but has droopier fronds - the pampas grass is pushing it out of its niche). I would have had some piccies of that, but bloody hands again. The greens in the shot are unaltered, by the way. My camera is crap at washing out highlights when it's dark, but those greens really are lurid. There was a tui (bellbird) hanging around having a chat while I was walking to the beach - I tried to record him chirpling away, and I'll have to see what I ended up with.
( another one )
And here's one of my favourite parts in the bush - a stand of young kauri trees. That bushland was all logged off in the late 19th Century (for house building, furniture-making and ship spars), and what is there now has been regenerated from that. The kauri trees there are just 70 or 80 year old tiddlers, not much wider than my own body. Mature trees can live for several hundred years (over a thousand is not unknown), and achieve diameters of up to 4-5 metres. These ones have a little way to go. Again, the quality of the photo is not good - the greens of the bush have been washed out due to the lighting "correction", and it should all look much darker.
( trees )
Oh, and this is all right in the middle of suburban Auckland. It's a 15 minute drive to the central city (not during rush hour). As a kid, I was lucky to be able to spend time in such a place.
( piccie )
This is the wee estuary just before the beach. There are mangroves, cabbage trees, and what I used to call toetoe (pronounced toi-toi), although it's actually non-native pampas grass, alas (toetoe is very similar, but has droopier fronds - the pampas grass is pushing it out of its niche). I would have had some piccies of that, but bloody hands again. The greens in the shot are unaltered, by the way. My camera is crap at washing out highlights when it's dark, but those greens really are lurid. There was a tui (bellbird) hanging around having a chat while I was walking to the beach - I tried to record him chirpling away, and I'll have to see what I ended up with.
( another one )
And here's one of my favourite parts in the bush - a stand of young kauri trees. That bushland was all logged off in the late 19th Century (for house building, furniture-making and ship spars), and what is there now has been regenerated from that. The kauri trees there are just 70 or 80 year old tiddlers, not much wider than my own body. Mature trees can live for several hundred years (over a thousand is not unknown), and achieve diameters of up to 4-5 metres. These ones have a little way to go. Again, the quality of the photo is not good - the greens of the bush have been washed out due to the lighting "correction", and it should all look much darker.
( trees )
Oh, and this is all right in the middle of suburban Auckland. It's a 15 minute drive to the central city (not during rush hour). As a kid, I was lucky to be able to spend time in such a place.