County Grounds arty shots

Here's some more stuff from our wander about the county grounds. These were more for me than for location scouting.

The first day I went I missed the right spot for the woods entirely. But the open fields had some nice flowers blooming so that's ok.

Location Scouting County Grounds

Our first Imagine MKE project is going to be about the County Grounds so we wandered through the woods looking for the things that make the area cool and visual.

Here are my best guesses on where all the pictures were taken. Along with a note about parking and where to pick up the path into the woods.

Floating down the Herring River

I was feeling in a bit of a funk over all the rejections that I've gotten for Enid's Wall lately. So I gave myself the afternoon off and floated down the river. I got some video of the bigger and smaller kinds of egrets. I also saw 2 adult great blue herons. And I saw one that looked like it should be a great blue, but was about half the size. Maybe a juvenile? The photo is too blurry to tell really, though I put it in at the end of the video.

Don't adjust your speakers, there is no sound.

Chatham Sharks

I was out tooling around taking photos and video for my Enid's Wall teaser and discovered that the sharks are out at the Chatham library.

Playing with a new toy

It's not mine, it's from work, but if I'm meant to be teaching it to the students then I'd better be pretty good at it myself, right? Also it's fun.

It's called a Ronin and it's a gimbal stabilizer. I think it probably works better with two people, because it comes with a remote so that you can force what direction it looks.

Thoughts about Enid's Wall

I am working on grant proposals so that I can guarantee a producer a salary for at least long enough for us to find the rest of the money we will need to make the film. It's a good process because it is forcing me to think about the film in a deeper and also broader way. Not just story structure and character development, or locations and logistics, all the practical things that have been on my mind for a while. Now I'm thinking about themes and artistic expression. Why am I telling this story and why am I telling it in this way? So here is what's on my mind this weekend:

Monday - the longest day

[I wrote this on my tablet over the course of the day]

I woke up about 7:30, which is about usual for here. Took a shower even though I knew I didn’t need one nearly as much just then as I would by lunchtime. But it was my last access to a shower for quite a while so I did it anyway. Then I had the free breakfast at the lodge. It wasn’t much, cornflakes, toast, and tea, but I had enough hiking food still so I wasn’t worried.

The Remarkables really are Remarkable

The house had a great view. I became slightly obsessed for those few days with the changing light over the lake.

From the skyline gondola looking back over Queenstown. Our house is circled in yellow.

Some gratuitous helicopter pictures

Apparently there are more helicopter pilots per capita in Queenstown than anywhere else in New Zealand, and possibly anywhere else anywhere. Not a big permanent population in Queenstown to begin with, and not a lot of good roads. So you can do heli-weddings, heli-rafting, heli-skiing in the winter, heli-tours of the fjords. Pretty much heli-anything.

The happy day

Here are a few photos from the wedding that I processed quick on the day so that people could share. I'll probably come back and add more from that day once I have been through everything.

The second helicopter is not that much more

All the other birds

The Dunedin post was getting unwieldy now that I added photos, so here are all the rest of the birds that we saw in those few days. If birds aren't your thing, move on to the next post.

Baby ducks

A couple days in Dunedin

Tuesday
We packed this day so full I'm finding it hard to remember what we did this morning. Ok, so first we went to the Otego Settler's Museum. They did in fact start with the original Maori settlers, but they quickly moved on to the Europeans, or at least the history once the Europeans arrived. The one room they had was good, but I still feel like I need to know more about the Maori. I'll keep trying.

Happy New Year

Today is a bit of a relaxing day. We are checking out of Te Anau, but are in no rush to really leave town. So leisurely breakfast, then a bit of souvenir shopping if the shops are open. It's enough of a tourist town that they might be and I'm hoping so. Not that I can't buy souvenirs in the other towns, but I have managed to lose my freebie sunglasses and I forgot to bring a hat. I managed to get sunburned yesterday. I'll also certainly be packed before Nancy so after I finish my morning tea I might grab my camera for one last look at the lake. Here on the back side of the fjords the mountains are more rolling and it reminds me a lot of Lake George.

--Later--

We drove across the country yesterday, but only sort of. We went from the west coast to the east through the rolling green hills of the southern part of the South Island. It was pretty, in a much less dramatic way. Every hill was blanketed in sheep. It was a nice drive, good to see it all. We stopped half way in the town of Gore to have some lunch. We ate at the only place that was actually open. Oh yeah, happy new year.

So it was about 4 when we got to Dunedin, but of course it's summer pretty far south so that gave us plenty of time to do something before dark. Because here it is at 9pm and it's not dark yet, not even a little. Anyway, we went for a stroll through the botanic gardens. That was lovely, I never tire of taking photos of flowers and now I had a good reason for bringing that macro lens. Then we had fish and chips at an Irish pub on the Octagon.

I'm ready for an early bed tonight. It's funny because Leah is generally a perfectly amiable traveling companion, but oh my goodness she never gets tired.

Pictures will come later.

--Later--
There's lots of flower pictures, but they can wait for more editing so just a couple for today.

There is a whole street art tour in Dunedin, but this was right outside our hotel window.