Places and Plants

The latest Lens-Artists Challenge is Pastimes and I thought I might take part. Thinking about pastimes I thought ‘places and plants’ because when we’re not doing necessary things, we love to visit places and/or look at plants. I looked through Nigel’s archives and soon had too many photos to do a nice neat post for the Challenge so here’s an informal presentation of some – I’ve deliberately mixed them up a bit!

Most taken by Nigel and if I’ve taken the shot it’s with his camera.

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Click on ANY image below to enlarge

This is a big farm garden in the rural back country of Central Otago called Clachanburn developed by Jane Falconer. We loved it and even stayed in the cottage on site. This is on arrival, we’d pre-ordered a devonshire tea 🙂

Cromwell district in Central Otago, interesting additions for travellers’ entertainment! New Zealand back roads are great fun to travel 🙂
Best to click on this to enlarge

Nigel and I have in the past done a lot of tramping together, from day tramps to 4-5 days continuous tramping carrying our tent and food. Here we were heading out on a full-on day walk at Wyuna near Glenorchy (near Queenstown).

Nigel took this clever photo when we visited Crank Up at Edendale, Southland. It’s a big show of steam-powered machines, classic tractors and more.

Prior to the car we have now, we had this Ford Courier ute so the start to a tramp would look like this. This must be on arrival as I wouldn’t be looking so smiley if we’d been out tramping all day.

Limestone rock in Canterbury.

The start of a long day’s tramp, also in Canterbury. We were staying in a cottage on a remote high country farm. It’s exciting heading off into mountainous landscape like this! Poled route with tall orange-capped poles for better visibility in snowy weather.

Same location as above. I’m not a rockclimber but we still encounter some steep climbs when out tramping… I’m usually exhausted by the time we get back.

Another garden visit, this is at Cromwell. We enjoy seeing plants both in the wild and in gardens. Nigel is a Landscape Architect but looking at plants is a fun thing we both enjoy.

If visiting a particular town can be called a pastime we just love to visit Oamaru over on the east coast with its Victorian whitestone buildings, steam punk, lively arts scene and great cafes. Judging by the colour, this is licorice ice-cream! Deja Moo is an amazing ice-cream shop in the Victorian Precinct. 31 Jan 2017.

Let me know if you enjoyed this post – I’d selected more photos and could do another post in similar vein if there’s the interest. Cheers!

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Text by Liz, photos mostly by Nigel else by Liz; Exploring Colour (2020)