Dragonfly

Spent some more time on a dragonfly hunt this morning - this time on the jetty at Lake Mahinapua which had been a popular spot yesterday with a bunch of kids jumping from the jetty and swimming in the lake. Today it couldn't have been more different - totally quiet - at least to begin with - flat, calm waters, just me and Mother Nature.....absolutely blissful. And the bonus - my success rate soared :)  Managed to get a number of much more focused specimens doing their thing and am pretty happy with a couple of this chap.  Does anyone else think he looks like a World War II fighter plane?  The next challenge would be to get a lot closer to the wee beasties (this image is heavily cropped)......food for thought for the future.

Onward then to Okarito.  I've stayed here at the campground several years ago so was very pleasantly surprised to find it has changed quite a bit.  I remembered it as a large grassed area with a very quirky-but-nice kitchen area.  Now it's a compacted gravel surface that has been leveled with a number of bays for camper vans.  There's still a grassed area for tenties (which I was me back then!) but I haven't needed to check out the communal kitchen area as I bring my own with me these days.

Had a nice chat to a couple of 'neighbours' about which of the snow-covered peaks that came into clear visibility once the sea mist dispersed, was Mt Cook.  The jury's out on that one.

Again, the Tasman Ocean crashing on the beach is my lullaby tonight.