The Holy Grail

Got up at a very decent hour and was on the road by 9.00am. It's kind of difficult to write too much about the day as perfection is pretty hard to describe.

Blue skies, stunning scenery, relaxed pace . . . . mountains, rivers, lakes, forest, birds, friends - today had it all and I feel so overwhelmingly fortunate to have had such a perfect day. As I commented to a friend today - "I want to be here forever"

It was great to catch up with J, M and their 3 Little ones (although E is 11 now! Heavens!!) (albeit a brief catch-up with the girls who are heading over to a great aunts in Dunedin for a few days early tomorrow morning.) Hopefully they'll be up in Nelson next summer though :)

So picking just one image for today was tough . . . . .

With all the amazing scenery I've experienced over the past few days I have strangely decided to blip this hawk. Anyone who has followed me for a while will know that a hawk has been a bit of a holy grail for me. As I was driving in to Wanaka I spotted this chap sitting proudly on the tree stump. I pulled over a few hundred metres down the road but kept him in my rear view sight. Having tried hawk shots a few times before and having failed miserably (they really do have eyes like hawks!!) I decided that pre-planning was going to be important. Keeping him in my sights I changed my lens over, changed the settings to what I anticipated would be needed, wound the window down, turned around then drove slowly back to where he was sitting. I pulled up right opposite him, slowly hung my arms and camera out the window - and he never turned a feather. Darn!! I'd been had. He was a stuffed or model hawk! I was about to pull my arms and camera back into the van when he swung his head round and looked me straight in the eye . . . . . .

Wow! He shuffled his feathers a few times (he looks like he doesn't have a tail here but if you look closley you can see the bottom of it almost perpendicular to the ground. His wings aren't 'crossed' so maybe he was relaxing or soaking up the sun or cooling down or something.)

And after that totally buzzy experience he just had to be my blip today :) But if you're into scenery and want a fix for today check these out.