Skippy's Palace

Here we are on the Wild West Coast. R and I left Blenheim just after 7.am this morning and drove all the way across the South Island to place called Karamea. We are here for the weekend for a gathering of the camera clubs from the top of the South Island. The “Seddon Shield “weekend. An annual event, it is the turn of the Buller Camera Club from Westport to play host. There will be representatives from clubs in Nelson, Blenheim, Greymouth, Motueka and Buller. The place will be crawling with photographers and their gear. There will be the usual debate on the merits of each of the two major brands of camera….Canon and Nikon. (Sony may get a tiny look-in.) Of course R and I are avid Nikon fans and regard those with Canon gear as “being on the dark side”. It’s all good clean fun.
We drove through some interesting little West Coast settlements on the way north from Westport. I call them settlements as they can hardly be regarded as towns. Here in Granity we came across Skippy’s place. We did not have the pleasure of meeting Skippy in person but one of his more garrulous neighbours regaled us with some of the area’s colourful history.
You will observe that Skippy has very green fingers and is obviously into creepers in a big way. But he is still managing to be in the 21st century with an electricity meter box on the veranda and a big TV aerial poking out through the greenery.
There is only internet access in the café area here at “The Last Resort” at present so I have to come across from our unit to upload images. I hope to be able to do this tomorrow as well.
The weather promises to be alternatively lovely then foul but we have our wet weather gear with us so all will be well.