Tag Archives: Mangawhai Village

New Zealand, Photography

54. Mangawhai

Sunday, April 5: Sunny throughout & warm

Beki’s

The eclipse last night went off perfectly well, except for a bit of cloud in the run up. By the time the penumbral eclipse was well into happening the skies were clear and then, of course, as the light of the moon dimmed the stars became much brighter and there was a grand view of the Milky Way from the south side of the house which rivalled that on the Whanganui River Journey. I was occupied with my two cameras and a number of sequences were achieved. Set up the A470 to do a last hour of the moon reappearing and then shut down when the batteries ran out while I had a beer. Beki’s house alarm went off at some point and then became silent but she had been awoken by it, and got up and asked me to go to bed. Read more…

New Zealand, Photography, Swimming

53. Russell – Mangawhai Village

Saturday, April 4: Fine & warm with variable cloud

Beki’s (airbnb, $50)

The two Japanese guests had gotten up very early to catch the sun rise and there wasn’t much to do for breakfast, apart from also frying the sandwiches for lunch. Showed Nissi and Chisato some of my photos on facebook (startrailing the clouds, and lightning) and they immediately signed up as friends. As I speak no Japanese, their banter was just background, but every now and then they would discuss some English word or grammatical question (“disgusting” seemed to be quite a favourite, and “He’s mean, isn’t he?” was also high on the agenda) indicating that he was trying to show off his knowledge of the language. In any case 10:00 was approaching, so I threw all of my things together, then packed my stuff out of the fridge into the chilly bin. I went and found Ron to pay him for his efforts and we had a chat about walking in the Waitakere. Then I was headed in the direction of Opua. Read more…