Russell Pike Landscape Photography

Kia ora, Our Cook Islands stay is coming to an end. As I sit here on the deck at Vara’s starting to tap in this post, coconuts fall, fish in the lagoon splash around and the bloody mozzies are out. They have to be here don’t um. That’s one of the things we are looking forward to back on the motherland, no mozzies, well at least not on the scale of the eastern world.
Cook Island’s is a bloody nice place which produced a relaxing stop for us. Plenty of snorkelling and a few photos here and there, unfortunately the surf wasn't up to much. It has to be one of the best places in the world for snorkelling, the amount of sea life we saw was insane. Every time we entered the lagoon we would see new fish. Highlights would be microwave sized Puffer fishes, crazy boxfish that had faces like dogs, Eagle Rays, Giant dustbin sized clams and Morey eels. I’m thinking that where ever else we snorkelling to from now on isn't going to top what we just had.

So we are back in New Zealand now. The first thing I saw when we landed was the papers with landslides and the like on the front pages. Turns out while we have been away, kiwi land has had some serious rain. Although it has stopped, the landslides have blocked some of the roads we were going to take, so a bit of re-planning is needed. We just hope there isn’t any on the South Island’s west coast road; Nelson has been hit badly which could take 2 weeks to clear it all up. So it’s more camper van living and plugging in the dawn/dusk sessions for the moment. We will be meeting up with Rob Smith in a few weeks to go and sniff out some waves, studying ocean currents at Dunedin University he knows the deal with the coastlines here, so should be sweet as (as they say).

Kara topping up her tan (like she needs to anyway hey) Not the best place to lay, She still has her teeth.

These black noddys are the laziest terns, Rather then dive for fish like every other type in the world. This lot after dipping there feet in the sea will land on the hot sand and wait for the big fish to drive the smaller fish into the shallows. Jumping and panicking some small fish jump clean out onto the sand. Mr noddy just fly’s over and picks them up, even the cats where getting involved. If there was no fish around, they would just go and steal it form the local herons, the thieving gits. Look smart in black, although it’s a funny colour for them to be considering it’s bloody hot in the cook islands.