The meeting was dominated by Dennis Charlett of Christchurch on his superfast Suzuki GSXR600.

It’s always fun to contrast the various riding styles.  Look at these two completely different ways to go round a bend.  First the Formula 1 bike:

Now the Supermoto, here ridden by local hero Josh Coppins:

Josh showed superb control, sometimes drifting in the corners as the track dried out, or pulling a wheelie down the whole length of the back straight after winning.

(Yes, I know.  That’s not the back straight.  But I missed his big one.)

Another feature is the range of bikes racing.  For example, this ancient machine was really fast, finishing well up in the Classic section.

It was a “Denelt Montlhery 500″, raced by Peter Jones of Christchurch.  I’d actually never heard 0f that brand, but ‘Sheldon’s European Motorcycle Universe’ explained that the name comes from founders Dunford and Elliot back in the 1920s.  Montlhery is a French track.  This machine seemed to rev at half the rate of the other classics, but had power to burn!  Must be interesting to ride though – note the girder forks and rigid back end.

The Manx Norton 500 of Bruce Verdon is beautiful to watch and even better to listen to.  (I had been regretting putting my hearing aids in that morning, at least until this bike went past.)

My neighbouring onlooker (whose daughter lent me her chair for a while – thank you!) got very enthusiastic about this new Norton Commando 961:

Teenager Scout Fletcher of Christchurch is one of few women racing, doing well on a Suzuki 150:

It’s fairly easy to get good, sharp shots with a long lens if a very fast shutter speed is used.  Trouble is, the bikes look as if they are standing still, not racing.  The best shots come from using a fairly slow shutter speed and panning the camera to blur the background.  I found I was rather out of practice this year, my proportion of ‘keepers’ was way down.  That’s where a programme like ‘Lightroom’ really comes into its own, speeding up the editing process no end.

I’ll try to get a representative selection covering as many of the entrants as possible up on the pBase site, www.pbase.co/kiwi_g .  It will take a few days yet though.

The flowers are always welcome, for New Zealanders they are a sign of Christmas:

a great attraction for bees (and birds):

After about 15-20 mins (using the 300mm f4 plus an extension tube), I managed to get a more or less sharp closeup:

(It’s hard to combine photography with duties as a host at this time of year.)

The challenge was to find some images that were a bit different.  The beautiful little Garin Chapel was my first target.

I quite liked those plants.  Not sure what they’re called, no doubt they are a weed.

This is Nelson’s oldest cemetary, with some of the graves dating back to the mid-1800s (that’s really old by New Zealand standards!).  Here was one for a man who died in 1940, and his wife who survived him by 30 years, obviously still mourned:

Some of the memorials were quite imposing, such as this one for Francis Trask.  He was Nelson’s MP and also Mayor.

However, the one that stands out is the grave of Thomas Cawthron (this shot obviously taken on an earlier occasion).  If you follow this blog you will understand that I am biased, of course.

The inscription reads: “Erected to the memory of Thomas Cawthron, born 26 May 1833, died 6 October 1915, who having provided for the sick and needy devoted the greater portion of his fortune to the erection and maintenance of the Cawthron Institute and thus bequeathed to his fellow citizens a signal example of public spirit and liberality.”

Getting back to the Garin Chapel: most photographs of this building are taken from the front, even though there is a lovely stained glass window in the rear wall.  But you can see why:

The building is totally ruined however by the work of a (volunteer?) plumber, who saved some pipe and labour by joining the downpipes to a central outlet.

Aesthetically challenged, he was.

Finally, one autumn I shot this picture of my wife looking at the ‘Painted Ladies’ that pop up all over the cemetary.  It was an ideal image to try some Photoshop artistic effects:

Here’s a detail crop to show the effect:

This was one time it worked for me.

I got there first, before the sun was up.  The light was still very cold, but was great for bringing out the detail.  This rose was called “Clodagh McRedy”:

It was hard to get a full bloom on its own, they nestled together.  I liked this youngster peeking through its older siblings:

Then the sun opped up over the hill and it was all light and contrast.  This next one had the name “Racy Lady”:

In the shadow of the large trees however the light was still very subdued.  I liked the delicate colour in this next rose, “Wise Woman”:

Must be hard to come up with their names.  Here is “Amber Flush”:

Now one that I’m sure my mother would like, “Lemon Honey”:

The strong backlighting made for some dramatic images:

Finally I came across one called “Tintinara”.  For some reason the deep red roses seemed to have more dew on them.  Maybe it was just more visible.  I had quite a play with these, before a breeze came up and made closeup photography almost impossible.

For the photographers: all of these were taken with the Nikon 300mm f4 AFS (the lens I was lucky to recover after leaving it behind on a beach – see that story here).  Without extension tubes the subject distance is around 3 m, while with a 36mm tube (used for the last two), the subject distance is still a whopping 1.6 m.  The images are not cropped very much at all.

The main attraction for me was a field trip, where locals were to take us on a tour of the Otago Peninsular, showing off their favourite places.  For example, this windy beach on the southern coast of the peninsular (here) :

It was a good day for the gulls:

The next stop was up on a high cliff, the Boulder Beach Conservation Area:

The plan was to take advantage of the evening light and a glorious sunset by positioning ourselves in good time on a suitable lookout.  Alas, the weather foiled that idea.  Mist and cloud rolled in, flattening the light and removing any chance of a sunset.  But we tried:

As the light fell, the real action was in the sky:

The final stop gave us a view across the harbour to Dunedin:

Back to the presentations.  Craig Mackenzie spoke for more than an hour on his journey in wildlife photography.  What came through loud and clear was the amount of sheer hard work required.  He doesn’t get his wonderful images by accident or good luck.  You can see some of his images here and here.

Graham Dainty spoke on “Fine Art Landscape Photography”.  His theme was Fiordland, how to get an image that captured its essence.   More hard work here: finding ways to get to this very inaccessible region, moving around in this difficult terrain, coping with the weather, none of it was easy.  More of his work here.

So Dunedin certainly lived up to my expectations.

It’s a nice image, but I’m not sure I have avoided the dreaded ‘cliche’ tag.  I tried to really concentrate, get the feel of the place.  The sky was interesting:

But suddenly I had company, a couple of young tourists from Austria.  They were up early!

They were charming:

but a bit distracting.  So no  world-beating images that morning.  However, there was still interesting stuff:

Each morning I managed to get out well before sunrise.  The results were worth the effort:

The settlement at Shag Point consists of a row of houses and holiday homes stretched along the small road that heads out to the point.  Some are the typical “kiwi bach”:

All of the buildings share similar, outstanding views.  Here’s the sight from the front window of the house we were staying in:

The geology is interesting.  The rocks along the shoreline contain many spherical boulders which, unlike those up the coast at Moeraki (see the next post), erode more quickly than their surroundings and leave behind round holes:

But back to the early morning trips.  Shag Point is a very special place.  It is managed jointly by the Department of Conservation and Ngai Tahu (see here).  The deed of settlement between the NZ Government and Ngai Tahu in 1998 recognised the special traditional relationship Ngäi Tahu have with the natural environment.  It included the concept of Topuni.  This comes from the traditional Ngäi Tahu custom of rangatira (chiefs) extending their mana (power and authority) over areas or people by placing their cloak over them. The Töpuni cloak was nvariably made from the kurï or Mäori dog. This distinguished those who wore such cloaks from all others and represented the highest order of mana. Töpuni provides an enduring public symbol of the tribe’s commitment to conserving areas of high natural and historic values, as well as ensuring an active role for Ngäi Tahu in the management of these areas.  Töpuni has been laid over 14 areas of public conservation land of significance to Ngäi Tahu.

The name Matakaea recalls the tradition of the Arai Te Uru canoe, which capsized off Moeraki. The crew managed to swim ashore, leaving the cargo to be washed ashore. The crew  members fled inland, and were transformed into mountains. The navigator is said to have been transformed into a large rock just off Shag Point, shown here:

He looks as if he was quite a determined fellow:

 I learned how the area got its pakeha name, Shag Point.  On each morning, just a minute or so after the sun had popped up over the horizon, a flock of shags appeared flying fast and low in a vee formation.  They came up from the south, headed around the point and off towards fishing grounds further up the coast.  Another appeared, then another.  Perhaps 40 or more squadrons, many thousands of birds.  I tried to photograph them, but I had been using shutters speeds of several seconds because of the low light level and all I got were some blurred dark shadows.

They reminded me of a pelleton.  Although the sea was fairly calm, there was quite a large swell coming in.  Every so often a wave would rear up, the leader of the flight would suddenly lift to avoid a mightly splash, the bird behind would lift a little higher, and so on.  The poor birds at the rear were going up and down like yoyos.

Shag Point also has some intesresting industrial history.  It was the scene of the first coal mining in New Zealand and remains of the mines, which operated until the 1970s or so, can still be seen on the point.  Some of the seams extended offshore.  You can read about that here and here.  It even had it’s own railway.

We had signed up for a 10 day “cultural exchange visit” arranged through Skådebanan, an organisation I joined through my work social club (which seems to be still going strong), through which we could get tickets to cultural events in Sweden.  Probably because we were living in Sweden at the time, getting a visa took only a couple of days, even though in 1971 the cold war was still in full swing.  We found ourselves in a large 4 star hotel in the centre of town, the Oktiabrskaya Hotel.  It was very close to the Moscow Station:

We had heard that the parade was going to pass that station so, like good energetic tourists, got there early to watch.  It was cold and light snow was falling. When there didn’t seem to be much sign of any action, I tried asking  one of the soldiers.  He ran off to get his officer, who could apparently speak English.  “Vot you vant?”  asked the boss, epaulettes flapping.  “We want to see the parade”.  “Da, here vait” was  the reply.  Sure enough, masses of people soon came marching, workers from a sewing machine factory.

Back came the officer.  “OK, now march!” he ordered.  Thinking that it was best to do what he said, we complied.  We’d walk a few blocks along Nevsky Prospekt and then come back to the hotel.  But it didn’t quite turn out like that.

The problem was that all of the possible exits were blocked by heavy trucks or guards. The trucks were packed so tightly that the drivers of last ones in sat in their cab for the duration, unable to get out.  So we marched, seven kilometers, all the way down to the Hermitage.  Once we got there we saw no sign of any tanks or missiles, I suppose they were coming later.  Just masses of people singing, playing balalaikas and generally having a good time.  Despite the cold and snow.

I wanted to get a better shot, so asked some of the soldiers herding us if I could walk out to the middle of the square. “Da, da” was the rather surprising reply.  So out
I went and got some great shots of the building draped in flags and giant pictures of Lenin.

I couldn’t see where Kirsty was, but spotted a dozen or so soldiers waving.  “Come over here, stupid” they were no doubt saying, but I got lots of back slaps and friendly smiles.

It was a great experience, but then we had the seven kilometer walk back to the hotel.

Harder for my wife as she was seven months pregnant at the time.  But very picturesque.

A few days later we were back, on our official group visit to the Hermitage.  The place didn’t quite look the same:

It was a memorable trip.  We saw some great performances, including a 100th anniversary performance of ‘Don Quixote’ by the Kirov ballet in which even the bit parts were played by dancers with the “5 star order of Lenin”.  The hotel wasn’t exactly 4 star back then, no cold water in our room and toilet paper like cardboard. I took some back with me to the tissue group at the paper research institute in Stockholm where I worked.  But our overwhelming impression was of the kindness and friendliness of the people we met, even though we had absolutely no language in common.  Through our guide, who eventually opened up a little, we also experienced their wicked sense of (black) humour as she told us the current jokes circulating about their leaders.

PS The date for the October Revolution parades comes two weeks later than in other countries, on Nov 7. This difference is due to the Russian Orthodox Church following the older Julian  calendar.

Latest news: my friend Terry has just sent me a link to a video taken along the route of the bus tours, with a very good commentary by Warwick Isaacs, Demolition MAnager for CERA (Chch Earthquake Recovery Authority). Long, but well worth watching.

A closer look showed that the front steps and walls had dropped a bit.

The building next door, DorsetTowers, had not done so well. It was empty, on a slight lean and had been “red-stickered” so I guess it will be demolished.

Round the corner, Victoria Street had some very sad sights.  Beautiful  Knox Church, with a congregation still showing plenty of spirit.

The Victoria Street clock survived amazingly well, with the clock face still showing the time of the earthquake and its top piece at a jaunty angle:

A little further down Victoria Street opposite the casino was Ace Wasabi, our favourite Japanese restaurant. Alas, no more.

The Canterbury Provincial Chambers is being taken down with great care, block by block. It is to be rebuilt.

Across the street is a row of much more modern buildings which apparently are all scheduled for demolition.  There are so many empty sections around the city centre right now, it’s hard to believe that another 700 buildings are still to come down.

We drove round to Madras Street, where we could get reasonably close to the site of the former CTV building.  My wife worked in the top floor of this building during the four years we spent in Christchurch. There’s just bare land now, but the flowers, notes and other mementos speak of the love and grief for the many who were killed here.

There was a brighter side to the day, however . A few days earlier the new Cashel Mall had been opened, made from shipping containers. It was bright and cheerful.

I managed to catch a typical Christchurch scene: a Christ’s College boy who’d found something nice to look at.

The planting took place at the end of last month.  I took some pictures (you can find the whole selection here).  Not just hard work but a lot of fun, especially for the kids who took part.   Our local MP Nick Smith was there, digging away:

But it was the kids that I found myself photographing:

They worked hard.  It was quite a walk to stack the empty containers:

We had an introduction from  ‘bug man’ Ruud Kleinpaste (of ‘Maggie’s Garden Show’ fame), who knows a bit about trees too.

I also learned something.  A few days earlier I had lent my camera to another photographer who snapped off a few shots and then handed it back.  I didn’t notice at the time, but the camera had been flipped to manual focus, which I seldom use outdoors.  So, even though I was using a wide angle lens with a great depth of field, half of my shots were useless.  A lesson to always check camera settings before a shoot!

You can see the remaining shots on my pBase site.  Kids, if you want any pictures just contact me and you can have them for free. (Sorry I’m late posting this.)