Another Robin (toutouwai)

Driving north from Murchison today was a bit of an exercise in frustration - given not just the normal holiday traffic but that fact that the road has become the main road south due to the earthquake having closed State Highway 1.

So I made the Red barn my first stop.  Had a coffee and catch-up with the people there.  

When I got back on the road it was even more frustrating.  I don't mind that the volume of traffic has dropped the overall speed, that's probably a good thing.  What I mind is poor drivers and road hogs.  So I pulled off again at Kawatri Junction, just to have a breather and let the drivers who were annoying me get well in front.  

I was only going to pull off for a couple of minutes, but once I was there I figured I might as well make the most of it and take a wander in the bush.  The first birds I saw were fantails and bellbirds but they clearly didn't want their photos taken today.  Then this wee robin appeared (I think it's a lady robin but it's a bit hard to tell).  I've never seen a robin quite this far north before.  She was happy to pose for a photo, and I thought I'd blip her so you can see an adult version of yesterday's fledgling.

Back on the road, and a slow drive into Nelson.  The traffic was moving so slowly that I didn't even need to pull over to let faster traffic past the van - there was no point as everyone was slow anyway.  Only a few idiots were overtaking great lines of traffic.  It would have been great to see more police on the straights, monitoring that sort of dangerous behaviour!

Early blip for me, as I've arrived at my sister's to find no-one home.  So I'm sitting at her table using her internet :-)