Pictures of my week

We have had several gorgeous days that have seen us enjoying coastal views and a picnic, coffee in the city, wondering at sea swimmers when it is April already, walking around our hills, and just enjoying being in our place.

A trip to the west coast just north of Wellington for a picnic lunch:

The view from my walk around my neighbourhood yesterday:

The inner bay this morning:

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Do-it-yourself Décor

It’s been almost nine years since I changed the photos on our black-and-white travel photo wall. It runs up a half-flight of stairs to our bedroom landing from the entrance and guest-bedroom floor, so is a key feature of our décor. The photos already on the wall weren’t the best examples of black-and-white photography, as they were all originally colour pics, and didn’t always translate perfectly when they were desaturated into a black and white image. But they were photos of places we had loved, and we always enjoyed looking at them.

Finally, after starting a year or so ago, I have finally finished our wall. I’ve gone back to some old favourite photos – the oldest are from trips to Jogjakarta and Angkor Wat back in the early 90s! The newest are from our Africa trip last year. Four continents are represented on the wall – Africa, Asia, Europe, and Australia. I think that’s a good cross-section, although they are dominated by photos from Japan and Iceland. Both places were perfect for black-and-white photographs. Most of my Korean or Vietnamese photos were too vividly colourful to translate to black and white. Gorgeous Norwegian fjords and scenery also don’t work so well in monochrome, colourful African birds lose their vibrancy, and African animals are camouflaged into their backgrounds. Selection, therefore, was tricky. I’m very pleased with the result though.

I make no excuses for filling our house with our photographs. We take photos of places that gave us pleasure, or are beautiful, and that we want to remember. There’s some joy and pride in knowing that this is a low-cost but original way of decorating the walls, and one that gives us pleasure every time we walk past it. I don’t quite understand people who are into photography, but don’t do anything with their photos.

Here are some of the photos newly gracing our wall:

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Summer Delights

1. The smells and tastes of summer – basil on my kitchen bench, and tomato sandwiches for lunch, or even dinner if it’s too hot to cook.
2. That glorious feeling of laziness, knowing that as the rest of the country is on their summer holidays, I too can lie around and read and relax, with no compulsion to “get things done” as there might be the rest of the year.
3. Gin and tonic on the deck on a warm evening, watching the piwakawaka or fantails flitting about trying to snatch the summer bugs, or the tui chasing each other, or all the little brown birds that I can’t identify hopping about.
   
4. The floral colours of summer – first red, in the pohutukawa blossoms, followed by the beautiful blue of the agapanthas in our driveway (until our neighbour cut them all down the other day at the height of their beauty, devastating me), and the various colours of the hydrangeas in my garden.
   
5. Not having to worry about whether I will be cold and need a jacket when I go out.
6. Cold grazing platters for dinner, with cheeses, dips, olives, salads, salami/prosciutto or smoked salmon (or all three if I need to use it up), and fresh bread.
   
7. Enjoying a picnic or ice-cream under the shade of a pohutukawa tree, watching humans and/or their dogs play on the beach.
    
8. The sound of the cruise ships horns as they leave the harbour sometimes reaches my open window as I sit here writing.
9. Watching the Australian Open tennis tournament, which I’ve taken to new levels this year, starting to watch many of the early match-ups, in the second, third and fourth rounds. I will admit, I’m glad it’s now over, as too frequent 2-3 am bed-times have me typing this with drooping eyes.
10. Gorgeous sunsets.
    

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Winter in Wellington

It’s a cold and miserable winter’s day. Again. We seem to have had a lot of them this winter, which also seems to have lasted since March or April this year. With no real end in sight just yet. I had to go out this morning, requiring multiple layers, a warm coat, a scarf and boots, wishing I had a hat and gloves too. I don’t dislike that, in fact I almost relish it, when I know I’ll be warm and toasty when I get back home. I like weather, and I like seasons. (Well, except for spring. I might talk about that another time.) But still, unlike some winters, I am soon going to be ready for this one to end.

In between the miserable days, we’ve had some nice, calm days when we could go on walks around the hills or the harbour. The harbour is different from day to day. One day when a southerly had come through, the harbour had rough waves, spray over the motorway and onto the carpark where we like to sit with lunch sometimes in the summer. A few days later, we went for a walk and it was flat and glassy. Some days it is completely washed out, and other days is a vibrant Mediterranean blue.

Before the storm hits

When the cold has led to snow on the mountains, it’s an excuse to visit the café on the South Coast, and take some photos of the rocks and waves and mountains across the strait. When it’s not too windy.

Finally, it is August and spring is just around the corner. The camellias in my garden know it, even though their arrival almost always surprises me. They’re the perfect flower for a non-gardener – they just appear, every year, on the camellia bushes. It’s a pleasure to look through my window when I am working in the kitchen and see the sun hitting a flower just right. The bursts of colour are welcome on this long winter.

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Safari Stories: The Leopards

After four different safaris over two trips to South Africa, we had pretty much seen all the animals/sights we wanted. We had seen lions fighting over the remains of a wildebeest/gnu, impala males fighting each other for dominance, the cutest little lion cub being picked up in his mother’s mouth, very poisonous snakes, a giraffe drinking, a bush baby, a chameleon, a dung beetle, and a wild chase after a porcupine. And all the usual suspects – beautiful leopards, elephants, buffalo, cheetah (though only once), hippos, rhinos, all the antelopes, giraffes and zebras, etc. So there was very little still on our list. But I had always wanted the classic leopard photo, relaxing in a tree, but by this time had accepted I’d probably never get it. In fact, before this trip I said that I would be happy with whatever I saw, and I wouldn’t be desperate for photos, having had so many great opportunities in the past. Famous last words! Because when the animals are there in front of me, I can’t help but capture the moment.

We went on two different safaris, at the beginning (three nights) and end (four nights)of our time in South Africa respectively. The first was in the famous Sabi Sand Game Reserve, with a 50km border that is open to Kruger National Park. This reserve has outstanding game viewing – their website claims it is the best in the world. We have been twice before, and each game drive was filled with delights. We knew we would go again, this time staying in a different lodge about thirty kms away from our previous spot. One of the main reasons you go to Sabi Sand is to see leopards. They are notoriously hard to find, because they are solitary and as a result more vulnerable when compared with the invincibility of a pride of lions. Though if they have found some food, and taken it into a tree to hide it from the hyenas and lions and even the vultures, they might be more obvious. They are incomparably beautiful though, and one of my favourite animals to see. If there is one animal on safari that I would like to touch, it would be to a leopard. Their coat is so lustrous and gorgeous I just want to stroke it. So we were pretty confident we would see a leopard or even two at our first lodge.

Sure enough, we had been at Simbambili only for a few hours, when our ranger and tracker found a leopard and her cub, finishing their warthog dinner. The cub was shy, and hid in the grasses, but we saw its ears and head pop up once or twice. The warthog was hidden too, but the adult leopard came out when she had eaten enough, and posed for us, licking her lips, and cleaning herself as cats do after a meal.

The next morning, after a 5.30 am start (although thanks to jetlag, we were wide awake), the team at Simbambili were excited because they knew a pair of leopards were mating somewhere on the reserve. Leopards are territorial, so they stay in the same area, which makes it possible to track then. The rangers and trackers knew that two days earlier, a female leopard had uncharacteristically shared a kill with a male, with whom she had mated before. Mating lasts for around three days, and they copulate frequently in that time. They also make a distinct whooping noise that our ranger tried to demonstrate so we could listen for them. We hunted them for an hour or so in the early light, the sun came up, and then we found them. And wow, we were only a few metres away as they mated, then again, then again. The female initiated it, until she felt it has been successful. And after three days of this, the male looked, quite frankly, shagged. (Double entendre intended!) It didn’t last long each time, but every three-five minutes or so she would try again. It was an incredible sighting.

After breakfast, a swim and lunch, we set off again for our evening/dusk game drive. As the sun began to set, we came across the mother and cub leopard from the night before. They were playing in a small tree. Mum was trying to teach cub to get into the tree quickly; a necessary skill when there is danger. The cub just wanted to play. He stalked his mother, jumped on her, raced into the tree and out of it. We were delighted. This is why game drives are at dawn and dusk. The predators are awake, and starting to move, after sleeping all day. A cat lying around can get boring after a while. But a cub playing with his mother – we could have watched them for hours, but eventually she decided to move off, and so did we.

After watching a hyena and some rhinos in the fast fading light, it was dark. The tracker brings out a big spotlight, checking the trees for leopards and the grasses for other predators. Their eyes reflect the light, and make it easier for them to spot. We came across a leopard in a tree! I could hardly believe it. This was the classic. A leopard, panting because her belly was so distended after gorging herself on an impala she had killed, was high in a tree. She must have had to get up there fast, because she didn’t take what was left of her kill. A hyena had stolen it, and was tucking into the leftovers under a bush nearby. Our day had been full of amazing leopards, and we were very very happy.

We had one final leopard sighting on our last morning. A leopard was treed by a pack of hyenas. They are hunters, but they are also opportunistic thieves, and when they see a leopard, they might follow them to check there is no food. In this case, they were circling the leopard, checking out the area for food. The poor leopard was stuck, until the hyenas moved on, giving up, unable to smell a kill.

Treed by the hyenas

About three weeks later, we went back into the bush for our final safari. This time we were further north, in the Thornybush game reserve that has an open border with Kruger National Park. We were satisfied with our leopard sightings in Sabi Sand, so felt relaxed about what we might see. We were just enjoying being out in the middle of the African bush, soaking up nature’s joys. The first animal we saw was a leopard in a tree. Yes, another one. This time, she had a half-eaten impala hanging in the tree, her 10-month old cub was sitting at the bottom of the tree, along with a hopeful hyena, who was waiting for the remains of the impala to fall out. The cub climbed into the tree, clambered over his mother (and was severely reprimanded by her for that), and started feasting. And mum lay down on a branch for a snooze.

We then had several leopard free days, with amazing lion and other sightings instead. By now we had two South Africans in our vehicle with us, and – to my surprise – they said they’d never seen a leopard in the wild. The ranger and tracker tried to oblige, but the leopards proved elusive. I got them excited one day – I had heard a screaming noise at our tent and recorded it, and they identified it as a monkey’s alarm call, something they do only when they see a predator. They were excited, and thought they were finally finding the leopard, as they knew she had crossed the river near our tent a day or so earlier. We drove around and around looking for tracks, but had no luck.

The next morning, about four different vehicles from our lodge and others were all coordinating over the radio to try and find a leopard. They had seen tracks, and we drove a long way to try and find them. Suddenly, we came across a family of warthogs, and they scattered. We heard a squeal, wondered if it was an alarm call, but a very short time later, we saw that it was a leopard with one of the warthogs. The warthog was a goner – the leopard firmly had its throat in its mouth. The leopard found a bush, sat under it, lay the warthog down, and had a rest. Then it decided it was dinner time, but I will spare you the photos. I felt sad for the warthog and particularly the rest of the warthog family. But this is real life in the natural world. What a privilege it is to be able to see it, in all its beauty and even its horror.

Anticipating his warthog dinner

All photos ©https://aseparatelife.wordpress.com 2023

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