Shakespeare Park

The day before daughter and son-in-law to be arrived, Kev and I visited Shakespeare Park on the outskirts of Auckland (north).  We were currently in a low (weather-wise), so it was a bit blowy, but otherwise quite good for walking (it was very warm out of the wind - t-shirts and sweat, in the wind - fleeces and cool!).

This is just before Shakespeare Park - having a windy picnic underneath the pohutakawa trees - which as you can see are blossoming just in time for Christmas.  They are so pretty and a real sign of the Kiwi Summer.

This is our sandwich eating view!  Luverly eh?!

Aren't the roots on this pohutukawa tree fab!  Great for climbing on.

Upon our arrival and after the ritual 'dash to the loo' that takes place once car has stopped, we saw lots of these fellers and their missuses....

They were quite vocal at times.

We then embarked upon a stiff walk along the beach - watching a couple of windsurfers whizz along at dizzying speeds and four children splashing and swimming in the sea in full school uniform (obviously just completed their school year that day!).

After the beach walk, we took the path through the bush and up the hill.

Above - Hot view from the shady hillside walk.

View from top of the hill - white caps show the windiness of the day - usually very calm here.

We saw these two birdies wandering around at the top of the hill - if you look closely, you will see a sort of antennae feather sticking out from the top of their heads!  Sorry the photo is not too clear.  I thought they were carrying something in their beaks at first until I realised that their beaks were not at the top of their heads of course!  No idea what these birds are called - will try to find out for youse.  We also saw a couple of these at the Waitangi Treaty Ground - so must be reasonably common.

More views on the way down.

Windy and cold view from the bottom of the hill.

That is a very wind blown cabbage tree upon which Kev is resting!

Our walk back towards the car became a very interesting one and fun too!  Here's what happened........

As we were on the flat straight towards the car, a quad bike suddenly came up from behind and drew up next to us.  "Hi - just letting you know that we are driving our sheep through and into the field over there" came the cheery voice of a very friendly young Kiwi man.

"Okay", replied us happy walkers (thinking that we'll keep an eye out and move over when said time comes).

We turned around to see where the sheep may be coming from when we saw this in the very near distance!

 

Ooops - time to move!  We hurriedly moved sideways into the shade of a tree (next to someone's caravan) and watched:

as they got closer (they were actually kicking up lots of dust - not shown on the phot0 though!)

There they go!  Passing us by.  There was a lab being used as a sheep dog - he/she was having a fab time and did an excellent job of rounding up the odd errant sheep deciding to head for the sea etc!

You can see him/her here just in front of the second quad bike (same colour as the sheep! - the dog, I mean).

There they go!

You can see the dust clearly here - plus what looks like someone's clothes as they frantically ran out of the way of the galloping sheep!

Almost there....

All peacefully ensconced in their new home as though nothing had ever happened just a few moments before!

What a lovely day we had.  Stopped on the way back for a coffee and cake and made our happy way home!

Ooh - just for my spider phobic friends - forgot to say earlier - this is who I saw upon my morning visit to the shower:

Big eh?!

When I put it under a glass to chuck outside, it was so big that one of its legs was stuck outside the glass' rim!  Had to jiggle it around to fit it all in!  It also JUMPED once I'd fitted it securely inside!  Made me jump too when it did that!  However, all's well that ends well - I opened the front door and chucked it out into the garden.

Tara!

x Sue