BLOG about PAINTING

Today we went back to Scandrett. It was the first park we went to after we arrived. Ha. We had been here only a couple of days and were much less used to the roads and driving. We were thoroughly traumatized by the trip there and back - a mere 10-15 minutes in each direction. Now it seems so tame! There's still the long, twisting, gravel access road with the blind corners and barely any place wide enough to crawl by oncoming cars, but now we've seen so many other hair-raising tracks that this seems pretty tame.

The day was stunningly gorgeous - sunny, warm and windless. The fields had dried out so we could take the track out to Mullett Point and from there around the perimeter of the headland, through the high field dotted with huge Pahutakawa trees, then down the draw to the beach and back along the hard-packed sand past the Dotterels and Oystercatchers to the parking lot. Along the way, I took time to do a quick sketch in my notebook of a fisherman on the shore below the headland.

Fishing at Mullett Point

Spring is here. We saw more boats out on the water today than we have seen in almost the entire time we've been here. We also saw other walkers - perhaps half a dozen in the entire park. I guess Kiwis don't visit their parks that much in winter. Fine by us. We have the place to ourselves!