Night at the bach

Notice the constellation of orion here with his sword pointing up. Upside down from the Southern hemisphere.



Not a very good photo of the eclipse but the cloud covered everything until it was nearly over. It had been a total lunar eclipse.

Short holiday at Sanctuary Lake Bach

A few days pre-Christmas rest at a rented bach in the Dome forest near Warkworth, north of Auckland. A small house in 38 acres with it's own lake.



The rain came down for the first couple of days but didn't dampen the spirits because we had a super bubble blower. Then when the weather cleared we had plenty of exploring to do.



The bach is Eco friendly, powered by a small hydro generator set below the lake and topped up with solar. Here is the hydro generator down in the forest below the lakes. The water has been split into two pipes and comes in from both front and back onto the turbine. Above it, the spinning aluminium drum, is the generator.


The house and lake are surrounded by forest which provided some great walks over tree logs and amongst the ponga trees. Ponga's are NZ tree ferns.




Family photo on the pier by the lake. One night Joe took a torch to the water's edge and we discovered that splashing the water and shining the torch into it attracted some quite large eels which bobbed up to the surface in the torch light. I wonder if we'll be swimming in it tomorrow.