Final lot of holiday picspam

[vilakins]

Here's a selection of the other pictures I took this week (all well below 100KB).

I took kerravonsen to the airport this morning at a horrifyingly early hour. She was going to Melbourne, but others were going to...

...a certain city in Vanuatu. :-)

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Yesterday we went to North Head in Devonport (the other side of the harbour). It was a lovely day, and the last of our holiday. :-(


Devonport Beach and the city from North Head


Devonport houses; mine is on the other side of the harbour, to the left.


The disappearing gun. Built to be used against a feared Russian invasion force in the 1880s, this gun recoiled back underground when fired. North Head is riddled with tunnels linking all the gun emplacements.


Old tree on North Head with Rangitoto in the background

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And earlier in the week we were in Cornwall Park, where we had High Tea at the restaurant, and on the top of One (now None) Tree Hill. The pictures don't show it, but it was an extremely windy day.


The first blossom on this tree (or maybe just the surviving one in the wind)


A bird sheltering in a cleft in a wall.


Old tree and wall. We had wedding photos taken by these walls.


Looking towards Rangitoto from One Tree Hill. I'm amazed this picture came out considering I almost got blown over up there.


Trees and wall (across from the restaurant) with flowers


Wall flowers coz I'm very pleased at how well they came out

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And finally, a plush dinosaur that kerravonsen bought at the Museum gift shop.


What a knowing look it has!

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It was a fun week! I'm back at work tomorrow, sad to say, and I have only a few days to finish my neglected finishathon story. :-P

Comments

[kerravonsen]

Heh, you took a photo of the departures board! 8-)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

How could I resist?

[jomacmouse.livejournal.com]

You need to go there (if you haven't already), and take photos of the place for its namesake :-)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I'd like to go there. Maybe one day. :-)

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Oooh, it's all very pretty. Glad to hear the holiday was fun!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Auckland is lovely when it's not all grey and wet. We were very lucky; we only had one day like that. :-D

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

spelt correctly and everything!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Of course! Vila is considering bringing out a range of fortified wines under that name.

We also saw lots of villas, a style of housing (http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/?id=1062509&refnum=546317) built early last century for Deltas workers. :-)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I forgot to say: it's pronounced 'Veela' though, the way Gan says it in disgust when Vila drops his gun. :-P

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

Oh, it looks lovely :)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It is when the sun shines. :-)

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

Beautiful pictures, I've printed out the first and second tree photos. Beth wants to learn to paint trees and I recon the lone pine? will be a good one for her to try as there is no detail on the tree it's self to worry her. The second one is for me to try and sketch as it has so many shadows and I need practice in that. I'll post my sketch if I get round to doing it.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I look forward to seeing them. :-) There are a couple more trees in the Cornwall Park gallery (http://pics.livejournal.com/vilakins/gallery/0001t6c7), plus this one I took a couple of days ago of a kite stuck in one (http://pics.livejournal.com/vilakins/pic/0018y701). :-)

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

That's lovely scenery - and you had good weather, too (well, apart from the wind...). I hope there's going to be more such good weather!


this gun recoiled back underground when fired

"OMG, OMG, what have I done?"

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

Also, good luck with going back to work tomorrow. I know you said you were trying to get things done in advance before you left for your holiday; I hope that there's not going to be too awful a backlog built up while you've been away...

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Me too; I wish I could have taken more time off. I'm relieved I was only rung once this week though.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Today's been cool and grey again, but I'm hoping the worst is over.

LOL!

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Lovely pictures.

Built to be used against a feared Russian invasion force in the 1880s

Boggle! What gave them that idea? Did they appreciate just how far away Russia is from New Zealand? Even from Vladivostok it must be four thousand miles or more.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

That was the bit that had my jaw dropping too! But I suppose if the Brits could do it, from even further away...

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I explained to jhall1 just below. :-)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

At the time the US was quite expansionist and it was assumed that the Russians were too, they had the biggest navy in the world, they were starting to be interested in the Pacific, and they had already been in the area. This fear was one of the reasons the US established a naval base in the Philippines. Sorry, I don't know much more about it, but there was a lot of panic at the time and articles in the newspapers.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Thanks. That's fascinating. IIRC, some years later (1905?), the Russians went to war with Japan but suffered a heavy naval defeat that pretty much put an end to their ambitions in the Pacific. I've no idea where I dredged that up from, so it may all be totally wrong.

I wonder what the implications for the balance of power in the Pacific would have been if Russia hadn't sold Alaska to the US in the (I think) 1860s.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Sounds about right. Someone just mentioned the Russians firing on British fishing vessels at Dogger Bank, mistaking them for Japanese torpedo boats (!!!) and that was in 1904; I looked it up.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

That rather suggests that navigation may not have been a strong point of the Russian navy. :)

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

Very nice pics. Great view from North Head. And a disappearing gun...in the 1880s no less. Nice.

Cute dino. And work tomorrow? pfft!!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I used to think the guns were from later. The small ones are ceremonial ones fired for salutes and they're field guns dating from WW1.

I'm just waiting for my egg to boil; then it's off to work. :-(

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

What lovely pictures! Wow, the landscape is so different from what I'm used to, and it looks warm and summery, which is a nice change from here. I did a double take over the first couple of photos, because that tall tower in the city looks just like the CN tower in Toronto! What city is that?

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It's Auckland and that's the Sky Tower. I hated it when it was built about 10 years ago but I like it now; it's become part of what the city looks like.

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

A lot of people seem to hate the CN tower too, but it was here when I got here, and it seems very much part of the city to me. I like it.

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

Here (http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/places/photos/photo_toronto_toronto.html)'s a picture, for comparison...

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Ooh, very like it! Just it have a revolving restaurant too? And yeah, we claim ours as the tallest building in the southern hemisphere and that's hotly disputed too.

When ours first went up, I thought it looked like the TV tower in Berlin (http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Berlin2002/MyPhotos/ContrastingBuildings.jpg). Eh, I suppose there's a common design to them all.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I learned to love the Sky Tower when I went there with some friends (they have an excellent revolving restaurant called 'Orbit' with, of course, stunning views) and there were little fat Sky Towers with faces in the gift shop. From then on it had a personality for me, a friendly and bouncy one. :-P

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

That's nice :) I associate the CN tower with freezing cold, slightly awkward visits with parents and having photographs taken with large fibreglass moose dressed as Mounties. There is a restaurant up there, but it's not revolving, sadly.

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous photos! Looks like you had quite a blustery day.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Only at the park; Saturday on North Head was lovely; just a stiff breeze. :-)

[san-valentine.livejournal.com]

Those are some lovely photos; I'm glad you're getting some decent weather now. The coutry around you looks lovely - maybe I should visit NZ instead of the USA next time :)

I'm amused by the World Wildlife Fund tag on the plush dinosaur. They're a bit late if they want to save those...

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Ha! I thought it being mammally plush was funny too. Well, I suppose the money to go towards saving the tuatara (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuatara) which dates from around that era.

It's very beautiful here when it's not grey and wet. :-) There's a lot to see though, from the Bay of Islands down through Taupo and Rotorua and the volcanoes to the South Island with its fjords and mountains (think LOTR).

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Cute dinosaur!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Isn't it! Maybe I should have bought one for my plushie collection. I'm trying to be strong though. :-P

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

So not the same war as the Dogger Bank incident, when the Russian navy mistook the British fishing fleet for Japanese torpedo boats.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

When was that? [looks it up] Ah, 1904. That was about 20 years later, but I suppose it was when the Russians were sniffing around Japan.

[imhilien.livejournal.com]

Very nice photos... gotta love the dinosaur. :D

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

The dinosaur is adorable!