2kiwis

The weekend just gone had us travelling to New Plymouth to see Fleetwood Mac in concert. Rather than drive all the way we broke up the journey by staying a night at Jerusalem, situated north of Wanganui on the Whanganui River. The road from Wanganui follows the river and is at times narrow and winds underneath tall cliffs and around twisting corners. The views are great, rolling hills covered in old forest and river, wide and slow, looking peaceful in the valley.

Looking upriver from an early viewpoint

Jerusalem, otherwise known as Hiruharama, is the founding site for the Sisters of Compassion and my Aunty Sue is one of the Sisters in residence who look after the management of the grounds. We parked and walked past the old convent to the church where we found Sister Margaret Mary cleaning up. Margaret Mary took us up to the Sisters’ house where we found Aunty Sue and were sat down for a chat over drinks. We had beds in the old convent and Sue took us down to show us around.

I wandered around with my camera and took shots of things, inside and out. Here are a few shots, there are more on Flickr (just click on any of the photos):

One of the upstairs dorms in the old convent

Interrupted munching

Inside the Church

Looking out over the valley from upstairs in the old convent

Steve, Debbie and Tess turned up later in the afternoon and we all had dinner together in the convent kitchen. In the evening we helped out with some small things, setting up a scanner and some other computer related queries.

The Church in the morning

We didn’t leave in a hurry the next day and Keryn assisted with making some lemon-honey while I gave some scanner tutorials. The nativity scene was put together and I took a few photos for Sue and while the sun was out I took some more shots outside as well. We set off as the sky clouded over, our drive back to Wanganui accompanied by infrequent rain.

Keryn’s parents were coming down to see Fleetwood Mac, and Steve and Debbie were also coming for the concert (Tess staying with Sue for the night). We arrived at the accommodation in New Plymouth mid afternoon, and by 5pm had been joined by Phil & Elaine and Steve & Debbie. Wendy, one of the owners of Lothlorien Cottage where we stayed, had given us some walking directions to the Brooklands Bowl where the concert would be held. A slight map reading error meant we arrived via a non direct route, but still in plenty of time. We found a spot on the grass and had a something to eat while waiting for the music to start.

Fleetwood Mac were excellent, they seemed very happy (I guess I would be too at the last concert of a series of 83) and energetic, especially Lindsey Buckingham who sang and played guitar with vigour. The band played for a couple of hours and closed with some of their more popular numbers, the crowd enthusiastically joining in.

Fleetwood Mac at the Brooklands Bowl, New Plymouth

Keryn’s parents had to head back to Auckland the next morning. The original plan was to follow us down to Lower Hutt but their newly purchased car developed a fault which meant it stayed in Auckland and their insurance paid for a hire car. So they headed back to Auckland to pick up the (hopefully) repaired car. Steve and Debbie were heading back to Wanganui where they would meet Sue and Tess. I had convinced Keryn we should go for a walk so we drove towards Mt Taranaki.

Our destination was Dawson Falls. We drove through the Goblin Forest, thick and verdant vegetation with warped trees laden with moss rising above. We parked and piled on the clothes, it being cool and misty. We had a discussion about which walk to do and eventually headed towards Wilkes Pools.

Walking through the bush

The track headed up but was very well formed and not too steep. We did have to cross a rocky stream bed but this was done with little difficulty. Arriving at the pools Keryn took a seat while I pottered about taking photos.

The base of Wilkes Pools

Keryn patiently waiting

I climbed further up the rocks to the pool above the one photographed above and then clambered down to the pool level to take a photo. That was the idea anyway, one step in the wrong place had me falling forward into the water and initially worrying mostly about not falling down the waterfall. My second worry, about a second later, was pulling my camera and tripod out of the water where it had landed while I righted myself. Carefully I climbed back up to flatter ground and took stock of my gear. A dripping camera and lens is not a happy sight.

After towelling off the camera and lens it still wasn’t looking good, and a tentative attempt at taking a shot didn’t go very well. Funnily enough I wasn’t in the mood for any more shots so I packed everything away and we headed back to the car. At the carpark the clouds lifted enough for us to get a shot of Mt Taranaki’s peak and then we were heading homeward.

Mt Taranaki

The road through the goblin forest

Many hours later I unpacked all my gear and gave it another once over. The Camera wasn’t working very well, the LCD obviously affected by the water and the dreaded Error 99 appearing on the top display. While taking out everything else from the bag I noticed the big lens was rattling…not a good sign.

Why to use a filter

Turns out that my camera bag must also have hit the rocks when I slipped but thankfully the filter on the front of the lens took the brunt of the impact, the lens itself is fine. I’ve since spoken to the Canon service centre and they have suggested leaving the camera to dry out in a warm place for a few days to see if it recovers. If not, it’ll be off to Canon for an insurance quote. Looks like I’ll be using my old camera when we go down south.

I received an email the other day to tell me that I hadn’t placed in the top photos for the Travel Photographer of the Year competition, which is a pity. However, the next day I received an email to tell me I was short listed in another UK travel photo competition, this time for the magazine Wanderlust. Again its only one photo out of the many I entered but again its a small success, so I’m happy. The photo was submitted as part of a portfolio and while the portfolio wasn’t short listed this photo was deemed good enough for the single image category Travel Icons:

Flags outside the Salt Hostel, Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

Reading the fine print it looks like there is a good chance that this photo will be displayed at the Destinations Travel Shows held in London and Birmingham next year, so if anyone goes to the shows and could grab a photo that’d be great! (I think I’ll have to remind people closer to the time). The results are not announced until February 2010.

edit 21/01/2010 Further communication around sending in a RAW file and a high quality file for judging reveals that there are 14 photos in my section which will be cut down to 10 for final judging (and the final 10 will be displayed I presume). So I may not make the cut for display, we’ll wait and see.

edit 23/01/2010 Got the news yesterday that I made the cut, so my photo will be on display at the Destinations Travel Show this February. Just a pity I can’t go and see it.

What else? We had a BBQ at our place on Saturday and even got to sit outside in the sun for a while towards the end. We’re still eating the leftovers. On Sunday Keryn hosted a baking group and lots of colourfully iced biscuits (amongst other things) were produced.

I’ve been working a fair bit of overtime the last couple of weeks which is not conductive to getting out and about. We did manage to squeeze in a visit to the Weta Cave this weekend just gone to attend a book signing by John Howe.

John is in Wellington working on the forthcoming Hobbit movie; he’s an artist and he has done a lot of work around the books of J.R.R. Tolkien. John has also done cover work for a number of well know fantasy artists.

I was expecting quite a line but there were only a handfull of people in attendance. When we had our turn we handed over a few books, said hi and chatted while John drew a couple of skeches for us. We talked about a bunch of things like his opinion of the cover for the latest Robin Hobb book (John painted the covers for the last few series), the wait for warmer weather, work on the Hobbit and getting out to see the country. We had seen John when we visited Castle Point a few months back and he said we should have said hello at the time. John did say that he’s looking forward to getting stuck in to the new locations for the Hobbit as they’ll be quite different from what he has worked on previously (in the Lord of the Rings movies). He also said that its worth visiting Hobbiton now that they’re hard at work getting it ready for shooting, and hinted that maybe this time they won’t be destroying it again once shooting is finished.

We got a few books signed. Firstly there was a book we had bought years ago called Myth & Magic that showcases much of John’s work. We got a friendly looking dragon sketch in this one:

A dragon sketch in Myth & Magic

We had bought a new book at the Weta Cave and also got a drawing in this one. The book is called Fantasy Art Workshop and its a look into John’s technique with examples from many of his past works. We got a sketch of Gandalf this time around:

Gandalf appears in John’s Fantasy Art Workshop.

The last book was a nice hardcover edition of the Hobbit we’ve had for a while. We now have it signed by Hobbit director Guillermo del Toro, John Howe and fellow artist Alan Lee. A nice little movie souvenir.

Our signed copy of the Hobbit.

We then also had a photo taken. John was very gracious, friendly and open. We had a nice chat and have some nice momentos to go with our memories.

John Howe with a couple of Kiwis.