GreeNZ Peace: A Photographic Stroll around the Mount

We celebrated a beautiful Winter's day with a walk around Mount Maunganui. Now there's double barrel mimicry in that name. Commonly known as The Mount. Or Mauao. Breaking down the Maori name, Maunganui gives you "Maunga" - mountain; "nui"- big. So by saying Mount Maunganui, you're basically saying Mount Mountain Big. Why don't we just call it Maunganui? Just so. Kapish?!

I have divided my many photos into 2 categories: water and boats, and then, scenery. It really was a stunning day to walk around a stunning landscape. And a wonderful opportunity to celebrate what a magical part of the world we live in.

Water and Boats

Study in Blue.

There were heaps of people walking around Maunganui at this time of the day (about 4pm), some loping, jogging, pushing prams, running, sitting in the sunshine - we even spied one man with a huge leg cast, leaning on a kneeling scooter. He seemed to negotiate the flat terrain just fine.

Serenity at Sunset

My father gave me my first camera as a teenager. It was a Minolta. I remember I spent all my spare cash on rolls of film and processing photos. What a difference it would have made to my life then, to have had digital opulence. Have camera, can take 1000's of photos and view them online, @ no extra cost! One of my favourite hangouts as a student, was to go down to the harbour and take endless shots of the boats in Hout Bay and Kalk Bay, Cape Town. So this walk on Saturday took me back, a mini trip down memory lane.

Kotuku (White Heron)

Gale. Though she don't look like she would fare well in a gale.

There is something truly magical about boats. I have always been drawn to them. The irony of it is that I do not own a pair of sea legs at all. In fact, the only time I ever went out on a boat, was when I was 19 years old and my father sent me and my step mother for a 5 day cruise from Cape Town to Durban on a luxury liner. We stepped on board and as most of the passengers were rich elderly folk, the crew were virile young Italian and Greek men, within minutes I had several "appointments" set up, from a lowly deck hand right up to the ships purser. What a great time I had, trying to make each appointment at a designated place, and time. In between severe bouts of sea sickness. My stepmother and I desperately lurched our way to the on-board pharmacy to buy sea-sick tablets, which we'd swallow - only to spew them up within 2 minutes. We were fine if we stuck to the upper decks but you can't sleep on deck! We had these lavish meals we simply could not eat, as we couldn't stomach them!!

Our fellow passengers would laugh sympathetically at us as we would eject ourselves at top speed to run kamakaze-recklessly, upstairs to gulp the fresh air in crazy desperation. They told us that they had come through a severe storm in the Bay of Biscay, and that they had lost much of the deck furniture in the catapulting swells. They had all huddled together in the dining room, sleeping side by side and praying for their lives to be spared. So they were highly amused that we couldn't handle such calm seas!

The glow of the reflection on the water....

I remember also, a seemingly ancient English gentleman who was travelling alone around the world, who put his gnarled hand on mine and said something to the effect: "If you get lonely, remember I'm in room 301. The door is always open. Remember; room 301." I later learned that he had leaned over to my stepmother and whispered the same endearment into her ear. We had a good giggle over that one! What were we to do with him? Read a bedtime story to him??

One evening, it had been suggested that we go to the ship's night club as they had an event on that night. So we duly dressed up, remembered to pop a sea-sick tab as the club was below deck and burst through the club's swing doors to realise at that moment of arrival, that the entire off duty crew were scrubbed, dressed and standing around the walls of the club. We were the only females in the club!! Totally scarey. We didn't stay long, lest we become the objects of a feeding frenzy!

The sculpture of Tangaroa, God of the Sea, stands in challenging position to welcome passing shipping trade.

Amazing wind power

Ghost vessel seen through witchety branches

A barge in the distance, this rock reminds me of a sunken ship wreck

Stunning Sunset Scenery

Searing Sunset lighting up the way

I loved the long shadows on the beach of a mum and daughter

Sand artists at work

Giant jellyfish art installation

It's days like this that makes the cold, dark days of winter bearable. They lift the spirit and inject a lightness of being. I felt drunk on happy rays. The light was amazingly saturated prisms of colour. Like looking at a changing landscape painting.