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Category: New Zealand

Winter light, Flinders Ranges, 05/06/2023 (final in series: the “Cazneaux Tree”)

Published August 12, 2024 by Pelidoug

Winter light, Flinders Ranges, 05/06/2023 (final in series: the “Cazneaux Tree”)

 

 

Venerable and majestic as it is, the pictured river red gum is neither the tallest, nor most massive, nor oldest example of the Australian mainland’s most widely distributed and most widely-loved eucalypt species.

The pictured tree, however was “the hero” in the most famous photograph ever taken of Eucalyptus camaldulensis.

87 years ago one of the most influential Australian photographers saw this tree, standing on a sparsely vegetated plateau, with Wilpena Pound’s flanks behind it.

The tree has stood there for at least several centuries; “the Pound” is circa 800 million years older.

Harold Cazneaux (aka “H.P. Cazneaux”) captioned his 1937 tree portrait, The Spirit of Endurance.

read moreWinter light, Flinders Ranges, 05/06/2023 (final in series: the “Cazneaux Tree”)
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Footprints: literally, mostly (with musical bonus)

Published January 8, 2023 by Pelidoug

Footprints: literally, mostly (with musical bonus)

 

 

This post’s actual footprints come from bears in Alaska, birds on the Indian subcontinent  and continental Australia, a Tasmanian wombat, and humans in an African desert and Australian suburbia.

The musical bonus is courtesy of one of the greatest jazz musicians – equally so as composer, virtuoso instrumentalist and inspired improviser.

There’s also a metaphorical footnote which involves New Zealand’s largest farm…

read moreFootprints: literally, mostly (with musical bonus)
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Intertidal: #11 in series (living kelp on “dry land”, Catlins Coast)

Published August 3, 2022 by Pelidoug

Intertidal: #11 in series (living kelp on “dry land”, Catlins Coast)

 

 

More famous for its (diminishing, via global warming) spectacular, fully submerged, “underwater forests”, kelp can sometimes be found, alive and well, on “dry” land.

The land in question is only “dry”, briefly, at low tide.

Also, I imagine, this circumstance would only be possible where the climate is cool and humid.

read moreIntertidal: #11 in series (living kelp on “dry land”, Catlins Coast)
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Intertidal: #10 in series (Otago Harbour, viewed from Otago Peninsula)

Published July 18, 2022 by Pelidoug

Intertidal: #10 in series (Otago Harbour, viewed from Otago Peninsula)

Where a particular intertidal zone’s “bottom” has a very gentle slope, even relatively modest tidal ranges will yield spectacular transformations, often twice-daily

One such place is immediately east of Dunedin, on the southeastern side of New Zealand’s South Island.

read moreIntertidal: #10 in series (Otago Harbour, viewed from Otago Peninsula)
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Intertidal: #9 in series (“Windows 10 Beach”)

Published July 14, 2022 by Pelidoug

Intertidal: #9 in series (“Windows 10 Beach”)

Only a modest number of human feet have walked its actual sands, but every day of our so-called “21st” century many millions of human eyes see this singular beach, virtually.

An image of it is the “screensaver” viewed countless times by subscribers to Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system.

Doubtless, most of those subscribers have no idea of what and where is this “iconic” beach.

read moreIntertidal: #9 in series (“Windows 10 Beach”)
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Intertidal: #8 in series (what is wrong with this landscape?)

Published July 11, 2022 by Pelidoug

Intertidal: #8 in series (what is wrong with this landscape?)

 

 

So much of Australia is parched, low-lying, flat(-tish)

So much of New Zealand is well-watered, extravagantly green, and its horizons usually include substantial hills or mountains.

Understandably, many visitors to NZ – Australians, especially – are utterly beguiled, and swallow, whole, the assiduously marketed fiction that New Zealand is “green” and “pure”.

read moreIntertidal: #8 in series (what is wrong with this landscape?)
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Intertidal: #7 in series (looking back into bay)

Published July 7, 2022 by Pelidoug

Intertidal: #7 in series (looking back into bay)

 

 

#6 in this series looked out to sea, from a bay on the western side of the Coromandel Peninsula – a popular “weekend escape” destination for many residents of Auckland.

This post’s featured image was taken from almost exactly the same spot, but looking into a bay whose waters were very much deeper two centuries ago.

read moreIntertidal: #7 in series (looking back into bay)
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