Storm Aftermath

Yesterday it rained all day.  That gentle rain that's so good for your garden and I was quite happy with it, as Blenheim can be on the dry side most of the time.

Then last night as I was watching the Olympics, I suddenly realised I couldn't hear the television as the rain had become so loud, and then I noticed my house shaking in the wind and I realised that a storm had developed outside.

I simply turned up the heat and ignored it.

I woke today to find everything a little sodden, and noticed that their were warnings in place where roads were closed!  At 4pm I decided to venture out with my camera to see for myself!  This is what I found...

You know that little ford that is always dry on Old Renwick Road?  That's the Omaka River which is completely dry 99.9% of the time.  When it's not dry, there's a little trickle of water.  I guess this is what happens when it rains heavily...

Highfield Winery - the vines were flooded.   And the road was closed.  The little one way bridges were on Dog Point Road were nearly underwater as well.

Here's the Omaka River in full flood.  At this point a motorist stopped me and said that I had the wrong equipment.  It was a Kayak I needed, not a camera!  Yeah right!

I then drove into town to take a look at the Taylor River by Raupo Cafe.  I've seen floods up here before in my 2.5 years I've been in Marlborough, but this is the highest I've seen it yet.  The little foot bridge is almost submerged.

And be very careful - it's very slippery down there when it's frosty!

No walking the dog along the pathways beside the river today...

And everywhere there were danger keep out signs!

There were a number of photographers about, and I got talking to one of them.  He told me the little footbridge is designed to float of it's foundations if the current of the river gets too great.  Then once the river goes down, a digger goes in and pops it back up again.  Interesting!

Despite the cold wind and rainy conditions, some hardy soul was still enjoying his pizza on the steps, while watching the water levels rise!

On the way home I stopped at the point where the river sometimes breaks its banks and flows over the road.

Guess a picnic on the picnic table is out of the question!

Apparently this isn't the worst Blenheim has had.  The Taylor Dam stops the Taylor River from getting really bad.  Although the Wairau breaks its banks every 20 years or so - the last time in 1983.

More rain is expected tonight!  I wonder what tomorrow will bring!

Rock the Wonder Dog and Mt Olympus Station

I had the opportunity to head up the Waihopai Valley to Mt Olympus station last week, bearing gifts of chocolate from San Francisco that a friend had sent out to Lynne Russell the owner, as a thank you for a visit a while back.  I love going out there.  There's nothing like getting away from the 'city' or 'town' to breathe fresh country air and feel space around you, and to see the animals and watch Lynne work with them is just lovely.

I'll introduce you to a few here..

First - meet Rock - the wonder dog who is a Border Collie extroadinaire. A few years ago, Rock started showing signs of a bad back.  It got to the stage where he could no longer jump into the back of the ute, or even work for any period of time and it was obvious he was in pain.  Off to the vet, where the vet thought with lack of movement, and the amount of pain Rock seemed to be in, that it was most likely cancer in the spine. He asked Lynne if she would like the dog put down as that seemed the most humane thing to do.

Lynne wasn't ready for that, she was very fond of the dog and said no, that as a dog owner and farmer she would take responsibility for it, so took the dog home laden with lots of pain killers for him.  After a couple of weeks, Rock was no better, in fact seemed considerably worse and miserable, so she decided that she had to do the humane thing and ease his suffering.

With tears running down her face, she took him into the barn, pointed a rifle just behind Rocks ear and shot him point blank range.

With a yelp Rock leapt up and jumped to the other side of the barn where he sat there panting.  Lynne waited for a few seconds expecting him to collapse and die as he should do, but he just sat there panting.  On investigation she found the bullet was a dud, it had gone off, and there was gunpowder all around his ear.  Yet it was obvious that he could now move freely and had no pain, and was eager to get back to work!!

Seems that the shock of the noise of the rifle gave Rock such a fright that when he leapt up, whatever was lodged in his spine was released and fixed the problem completely.  Rock went on to become one of Lynne's best herding dog.

She has other dogs being trained up to replace Rock now, as he is getting on slightly.  First - Sweep.

Sweep is a bit of a character - you ask him to smile and he does.  He's not sure of the clicking of the camera though.  But he did perform way up high on Mt Olympus for me and I caught his signature smile!

Then there's Mike..

He's a bit younger and is in training.  He's very very eager to work and takes off at the first whiff of a sheep! Great fun to watch.

Now meet the National Endurance champion horse for three years running.  Retired now and living the life of Riley on Mt Olympus...

Lynne then popped us into the four wheel drive and we headed up to the top of the Mountain.  We were on the lookout for falcons.  We were also testing out Lynn's new camera before she heads out overseas.  I lvoe the layers of the valleys and hills in the next photo.  This is about three quarters of the way up.

At the top - looking over to the chain of mountains known as the Inland Kaikouras.  You can tell winter is on the way because of the light dusting of snow on them! 

Looking down the other side to the Wairau Valley, and the Richmond Ranges.  In the middle of the image, you can see Mt Fishtail, which I can see from my lounge.  It's interesting getting a different perspective of it.

I thought the tussock grass was an interesting pattern.  Made from the sheep going through it and the wind.

After a hot cuppa back at the farmhouse, I started making my way back up the Waihopai Valley towards home.  I had to keep stopping to take photos as the late afternoon light was really gorgeous.  Here is the river with the winter willows reflected...  Autumn in this part was truly over..

I stopped outside the Benhopai Station.  They have some interesting buildings.  The big old barn...

And an old dilapidated cottage with the last of the afternoon sun on it.  I took a few shots on the road first, but then walked into the driveway and shot it a bit closer.

A closer shot with the shadows of the winter trees and the peeling paint.

As I left I took another shot of the big barn - which lost that light very soon afterwards..

As I left, I noticed that the sun was shining through the leaves of a tree that had still not quite lost all it's leaves.  Out came my macro lens.

At this stage I was wishing I had my tripod, but on opening the boot found that it was obviously still in the garage.  I could have kicked myself!

A tiny bit of silhouette around the leaves on this one makes it interesting too..

I could have stayed in this one place for ages.  There was so much I could have photographed, but the light was fading fast.  I made one more stop to photograph the birds on the wire.   Note the southerly storm gathering in the hills.  It bypassed Blenheim as it usually does and headed over to Wellington instead!

The reason I stopped for the above photo is this....  I have always wanted to copy a cartoon, but photographically, where it states that Wireless Technology ain't for the birds...

So this is my first attempt!  It needs a bit of work still - but I'm almost there!!

Yet another fantastic trip out to the station.  Thanks Lynne!

Silly Games

Human behaviour never ceases to amaze me.  It shouldn’t surprise me, as I’ve been around now for 50 years, and I shouldn’t expect adult behaviour from every adult.  But when bad, silly behaviour comes from supposed leaders of the Deaf community, it saddens me.  These people should actually know better.

It’s childish to defriend people from facebook suddenly, without reason.  It doesn’t give you any power.

It’s further childish to slander those people you have defriended when they can’t defend themselves.

Worse, it’s terrible to mislead others in the Deaf Community by not giving the full story, or full and correct information.  

It’s unethical to whisper in innuendos and open ended questions, open to anyone’s interpretation.

This is bully behaviour, like you expect in a school playground, not what you expect of people in leadership positions.

It’s time that this behaviour was stopped.  Deaf leaders have a responsibility to their community to lead by example, not picking on people without factual information.  They need to embrace positive causes instead of tarnishing projects negatively.

If you have questions about ethics or if you’re concerned about something, it’s far better to go to the source of the matter and ask the questions straight.  If you are still unsure, you can seek legal advice, but remember this; the law states very clearly that a person is innocent until proven guilty not the other way around.  Any written word on the contrary is harmful, and can be proven as slander.

The Deaf community can only grow and prosper when these types of behaviours are stopped.

The Shipwreck

I recently spent a couple of days off and on, cleaning out my laptop of all my photos.  Saving them onto an external HDD and just looking to see what I have sitting there doing nothing.  While cleaning them out, I came across our walk to the Shipwreck at the Wairau Lagoons back in February 2011, while Steven was here.  That shows you just how far behind I am and I doubt that I'll ever catch up now, unless I stop taking photos for several years.  That's pretty unlikely to happen!

Blenheim has it's own shipwreck and it's very easy walking distance, and completely flat.  So even with my sore ankle, it's doable. Well it was last year, I doubt I could do it at the moment.  but to show you how easy it is, I've taken a few photos...  Nice flat easy walking...  The signs say it takes 3 hours return - but it's an easy 30-40 minutes to the shipwreck, so you don't need 3 hours for the walk.

Looking to the right over to the Mt Vernon cliffs.  Notice the love Marlborough blue skies?  We get that.  Alot!  Cloudless hot summers and although the 2011/12 summer wasn't that good, Autumn has been fantastic.

Here we are - From left to right - Debbie, Sheila, Carolyn and Steven.  There's *always* one or two people that don't look at the camera isn't there?

Along the river bed.  Usually there's lots of bird life, but that day seemed to be devoid of it.  All hiding.

Here's the first glimpse of the shipwreck.  Seems to be floating in a field of grass!! 

Determined to get to the shipwreck and taking the walk seriously!!  Note that the girls all have their feet off the ground. Steven did have to spoil it at the back there!!!

Looking back the way we came over to the Wither Hills.. 

The same image but this time with all sky - I like all sky images, but it's not for everyone.  It would be interesting to know what people do prefer though - so if you prefer all sky images or otherwise, leave me a message to let me know.  I like them because they are more minimalistic.

Closer to the shipwreck.  It's been described as a quasi-shipwreck - not a real one.  It was a steamer built in 1883 which did its last voyage in 1928 carrying supplies and miners to the goldfields of the West Coast.  It was then dismantled and towed to the Wairau River Mouth where it was then scuttled to make a breakwater.  However, the weather interrupted the scuttling and it floated into the lagoon where it still rests 80 years later.  It's since lying there for exploration, and has been used for army practise in the past as well..

Which might account for some of these holes...

The late afternoon sun threw our shadows onto the rusting hulk.  The sun brought out the beautiful colours though... 

Looking towards the sea - I walked over this mud trying to get an image from the other side, but the mud was sticky and well... muddy.  I gave up as it was making it difficult to walk!

Of the five of us, 3 of us had our cameras there that day - and Carolyn and Steven took every opportunity like myself to get every conceivable angle!

 Sheila had other ideas.

She explained to the rest of us landlubbers what it was like up there.  However, with my balance and foot, I didn't particularly want to cut myself on rusty metal!

Carolyn tried though...

And that was as far as she got - stuck!!!

It made a good opportunity for a photoshoot though!  With the bright blue sky as a backdrop.

The land was so flat you can see for miles...

The sun was dropping lower and lower so we started heading back...

The light on the wither hills was magic..

Debbie and Sheila got ahead of the photographers...

The pathway is along the river, but when you're on the path, you can't see a thing as it's so flat.

You can tell there had not been much rain due to the cracks in the mud.  The evening light made it really interesting though and I had to stop and study and photograph it.

I've grown to love this sight - the hills never look the same - every evening is totally different.   

Ducks going home ....

All in all - a lovely stroll in the late afternoon - I recommend it to anyone visiting.  Probably the easiest and flattest walk in the South Island.

The area also has about 70 species of birds that breed there.  There is also a large spoonbill population in the area.

I must go back again soon.