The C-Spot: A Photography, Travel and Culture Journal

A hearty brunch. Yummm.... Scrambled eggs, on a generous serving of bacon, with hash browns, topped with smoked salmon and creamy butter melt. On a whim, my daughter and I decided to try a walking trail which we were told would lead us right to the Lower Hutt CBD. The trail was really a short-cut taken by those who prefer to walk rather than take a bus or drive a car to their place of work at the Hutt City Center. Being new to the route, we thought it was going to take forever to complete the walk. But since it was a fine day with just a little chill in the wind, we were able to make it in about 45 minutes - just about the time it takes most people to make it. My feet were a little sore though so we immediately looked for a place where we could sit down and rest. And just a few meters from where we stopped was a place called Riverside Restaurant. Since it was around 10 in the morning, just a few customers were there (in fact they occupied just one table). We thought that ...

Around seven million years ago, the Aorangi Range was an island. As the mountains eroded, scree and gravel were washed down to the coast, where they formed a sedimentary layer. Over the past 120,000 years, the Putangirua Stream has exposed this ancient layer of gravel to the erosive forces of rain and floods. Some of the sediments stayed concreted together, while others washed away. The result is the Putangirua Pinnacles 'an amazing collection of hoodoos'. This outlandish place was used as a filming location for the 'Paths of the Dead' scene in the Return of the King, the third movie in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. To find the Putangirua Pinnacles Scenic Reserve, drive about 13 kilometres along Cape Palliser Road from the Lake Ferry turn-off. The reserve has a camping ground and a choice of walking tracks. Three of the walks lead to the pinnacles. you need to allow about three hours for the round trip. (Source: http://www.newzealand.com/int/...

Surfing the internet beside a fire - a very modern-day activity in a very primal setting

This is how it looked at the peak of the snowfall. A RARE EVENT People here in NZ are calling this a "once in a lifetime" experience. Metereologists are saying that this event has not been experienced in this particular place (and others like Auckland) in the last 50 years and may never be repeated in the next 50 more years ahead. It started as a mild threat of a "cold snap," then they started referring to it as an Antarctic/polar blast. By the time it ocurred it was being called a snow storm, the first in half a century. While people in the south, e.g. Christchurch, Dunedin, etc. are not strangers to snow, they've never seen it this severe. But for people of the north island, this was a surpirse - and a pleasant surprise to many since they've never experienced snowfall (not in the last 50 years at least), and not this heavy. As faith would have it, I found myself right smack in the middle of this rare phenomenon, again. It seems I have a knack ...