Originally Saturday night was supposed to be good and not having a work day the next morning, ideal. however the weather did not choose to cooperate and the cloud cover made it difficult to see much of anything. I’m not really complaining though as I was working and would not have been able to go out even if it was clear.

Sunday however was a different story. After a busy day of hiking, chores and a baby shower my friend Lee Sacrey texted me to say the lights were out and a quick double check of the computer I determined that they were supposed to be very active. We loaded our gear into his truck and were off to Vee Lake just outside of Yellowknife. There we found other groups of photographers and a lot of through traffic. Not a bad thing though as it lead to a couple interesting shots. A quick sample of some of last nights exposures are below. One last note on this, when out taking photographs during the arctic winter; Keep your batteries in your pocket or warm vehicle when you are not using them. My first set froze and Lee was nice enough to let me use his A700 until I managed to drain the batteries in that as well. Turns out I do need a second camera body and more batteries… and a proper tri-pod… and a faster wide angle lens…

Orion the Hunter

Green Ribbons

To Infinity, and Beyond

A Green Flame

River in the Sky

A Dance of Color

The most important part was Christmas by far. Not just because I was spoiled rotten by the most wonderful woman in the world but because we got to spend time together and live life like normal with her.

In other news I went out with my friend Lee and a couple other photo happy people on a wildlife hunt on January 8th. Unfortunately there was very little wildlife for us to get so below are a couple of pictures from the local landscape. We did manage to see a Lynx and a Hawk but unfortunately they were quicker than our trigger fingers. Also in the group is a single photo where I was having a bit of light painting fun with a Christmas tree.

A Clear Winter Day

Winter's Touch

Cold Cones

A Forest's Winter

Tree Frost

Fun With Lights

My first day in Auckland was a fairly quiet. I mostly hung around the hostel, got groceries and read. That night I slept for about 11 hours. Which for anyone who knows me about double what I normally sleep.

The second day in Auckland was a bit more exciting. I started off the day by hiking up a volcano. Sounds impressive until you realise that it was Mt. Eden in the center of Auckland and it has been dormant for years. Also what the Kiwi’s call a mountain western Canadians call a hill. The hike up took all of 20 minutes. The crater of the old volcano was still pretty neat to see, like a giant bowl at the top of the hill. From the lip of it you could look out in all directions and see the sprawl of the city. I took a couple of dozen pictures from the top of Mt. Eden and will post those later when I find some more internet time. The internet access is very expensive where I am staying uploading 10 pictures costs roughly $5. From Mt. Eden I caught the bus down town to explore the Fan Zone and all the stores carrying RWC items. I figure I could do some shopping but really there was not much in terms of good items left. The only stock that seemed to remain is the mass surplus of items for all the 1^st tier nations, there was very little of anything else.

My third day in Auckland was spent mostly in the Auckland Museum/War Memorial. The museum contained numerous displays about the geographic properties of New Zealand, the history of the Maori people, the modern development since European settlers arrived and an entire floor dedicated to international military conflicts. There was enough of everything that it managed to keep me entertained for almost 6 hours. After leaving the museum I wandered through the Auckland Domain (sort of like a park or gardens) on my way back to the down town area. There was not much so see that I had not already but I did manage to find an Irish Jersey that fit properly and I’m now backing Green for the rest of the World Cup.

Yesterday I met a friend for drinks at the wharf and explored a technology exhibit that was going on in one of the conference centers. Some very cool items, some very dumb ideas. The remainder of my day was spent reading in the sun.

Today the weather is cloudy with wind and I have little to no motivation to do much of anything. I think I am going to find a cafe and an international news paper and see what I have been missing for the last bit.

Saturday morning, after I posted my big catch up post, I wandered around down town Wellington for a bit to get a feel for the city. As everything is pretty well in a small geographic area in the down town I did not get lost (even once). The first thing that I went to see was the large museum ‘Te Pepe’ (?). The entry was free which was a nice change because I am pretty sure that my credit card is glowing hot white from the last few weeks. Each floor of the museum had a different theme which the exhibits were built around. The first floor was ‘Awesome Force’ which went into detail about the geography of New Zealand and the events that created and are still changing the islands. Included in this exhibit were also displays on how different weather events lead to vegetation and animal migration from other places. The second floor covered much of the ‘first arrivals’ in New Zealand, this included both the indigenous Maori people and the arrival of European explorers several hundred years later. That was enough of this museum for Saturday. I would go back to it Sunday but more on that later, there were just far too many tourists out and about on Saturday to be able to explore the exhibits in any type of peace. From Te Pepe I walked along the city harbour to the ‘New Zealand Museum of Wellington’. This much smaller museum covered the history of the city from its early days right up to the start of the World Cup. As a bonus it also had an exhibit of some of the best photographs taken by the man who had photographed the All Blacks since the 1940’s. For the life of me I cannot remember his name right now, I’ll double check once I get internet access if I remember. After finding lunch I walked to the historic Wellington Cable Car and rode it up to the top of the down town area. At the top was the main entrance to the local botanical gardens and an observatory. Torn between which to explore as my day was running out of time I went for the observatory. Besides all the standard cosmic info and exhibits the majority of the displays outlined the differences in the night sky between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. From there I caught the cable car back to the city center. After a bit of email checking I ran into fellow Yellowknifer Andrew Malloy at the RWC2011 Fan Zone to finish up the day.

Sunday started out with a bang. Literally as the Frenchmen who were staying in the dorm crashed through the doors returning from drinking their sorrows away around 7am. I figured I might as well start the day at that point. Back to Te Pepe where I met up with two more people from YK, Amanda Johnson and Rachel Mullen. We were up to the top floor of the museum to look over exhibits of the treaty agreements between the local ‘iwi’ (tribes) and the Crown and managed to catch a Maori song and dance presentation that was happening. After lunch we parted ways and I was off to the ‘Fox Glove’ pub to get face painted up and socially lubricated before the game. After a couple renditions of ‘Oh Canada’ with the crowd I followed a bunch of Lumberjacks from Banff to the stadium. The game was pretty much what was expected in a match between Canada and the All Blacks. But there were a couple of positives. We did score two Trys, and scored first! Which is amazing because now I can actually say, “Remember that time that Canada was beating the All Blacks? Yeah, cause I was there!”. Its the small things in life that matter the most. Post game I stuck around as per usual and managed to get pictures of/with most of the Canadian team before they left the field. Then it was back to the Pub to remember that time when we were beating the All Blacks.

This leads to today. I’m still on a train, but the scenery is fantastic and most everyone is congratulating me on being Canadian. I don’t know what that means but I’ll take it.

The Beehive

Reflections

Old Bank

Statue

A Triangle

Ouch

Wellington Cable Car

Marching Band of Random Street Performers

Welcome!

You!

To summarize the last couple of days;

My last day in Napier was an R&R day. Though I could have done a lot (though I had already done most of it) most of what I did was wander around and people watch. The town had completely changed from two days previous, that morning I was the only person without somewhere to be. Businesses were back in session and the shops around town were empty. Through my wanders I took a couple more shots of the Napier coast line. If you look really hard to the left on some of them you can see home (:P). That night I joined a couple of people that were still in the hostel and made a large roast chicken dinner on the BBQ and essentially ate myself into a coma.

Yesterday was about the same level of activity as the day before, but a whole lot more boredom. My bus left Napier at 8am and was supposed to arrive in Wellington around 1pm. We did not arrive until nearly 6pm. There was an accident about mid way of the trip and it caused a back up that ate through hours of our time. The worst part is that where we got stuck, there was nothing to see. We were in the middle of a valley and there was vegetation on one side, train tracks and more vegetation on the other side. This would normally result in my grabbing my camera and going shutter happy but that was packed below in the storage compartment that the driver would not open in the middle of backed up traffic. Thankfully though, I did fully charge my computer the day before so I managed to play Angry Birds until the battery died. Once I finally arrived in Wellington I concluded the day by walking around finding everything that I am going to explore today before calling it a night.

Which leads us to right now; still 90min to go before any of the exhibits open and I still have 20MB of data to use at McDonalds. So I thought I’d post some pictures for you guys. Cheers!

Napier Morning

Napier Ocean

Footsteps

Napier Statue

Statue 2