Memories of NZ

Yesterday evening I watched the first part of Coast-New Zealand on the southern Fjordland of NZ on SBS TV.
The scenery in the Fjordland is spectacular and the program really showed it at its best -the sun shone in every scene. The NZ Tourism authority would have been very pleased.

The program had me reaching for my colour slides shot on my wonderful 3 day traverse of the Milford Track in Fjordland in 1995. The shot above shows a much younger me-left in photo-with two friends, Chris and Judy Collins, who tramped* the track with me.
The photo was taken by one of our fellow trampers right at the end of the Track approaching the aptly named Sandfly Point where we were picked up by boat.

The photo was taken on my Leica M6 with a 28mm Elmarit lens- on Ektachrome film.
The slides of that wonderful walk are fading away. I need to hurry and scan them all in before it is too late.

* Tramping is the New Zealand term for hiking.

A touch of summer.

Here in Australia it's still very much summer although the days are getting noticeably shorter and it really is dark when I go out for my early morning walk. In Europe and N America summer is still a long way off so here's a summery photograph of cork trees in a meadow of wild flowers taken in May 2018 in Portugal.

Camels, camels, camels.

 Prior to visiting Oman I did not appreciate how important camels are in the Gulf States. In Oman they keep camels for milk, meat, as pets, for tourist rides and for racing. A few are still used for transport. You see camels everywhere and camel racing is a serious business.. Out in the country you see big herds of camels and herdsmen looking over them. You even see them on vacant land in the towns. Omanis love their camels.

Camel camp, Wahiba Sands,Oman

Bedouin camel minders, Wahiba Sands, Oman

Tourist ride on Salala beach at sunset.

Long flat white

Phoebe, my beautiful old Himalayan stretched out on the wooden floor attempting to keep cool in our very hot and very humid summer.
Taken with my Leica X Vario using the Visoflex electronic viewfinder turned through 90º and with the camera resting on the floor.

Down under down under

Down under the #43 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car of Ashley Seward Racing on Saturday afternoon at the Bathurst 12 hours. Next car is the #4 Porsche 911 GT3 of Grove racing.

Bathurst 12 hours 2019

The winning Porsche 911 GT3-R exiting the Cutting mid race.

I've been to a few hundred motor races in the past 60 plus years. I've been fortunate to see the "greats" in action-Moss, Clark, Senna, Hill, Rindt, Villeneuve, Senna, Prost etc, etc. I've seen races all over the world from Macau to Le Mans. I've seen many exciting races and more than a few boring races but for pure entertainment and hard racing last weekend's Bathurst 12 hour GT race really was one of the best if not the best I have ever seen. It really was a ripper. The circuit is always superb, the entry was world class and it was a little too hot but that's my only whinge.
Right from the start the lead was constantly changing amongst a large group of cars from Porsche, Bentley, Audi, AMG Mercedes, BMW, Aston Martin and Nissan. In the end the Porsche 911 GT3-R of the EarlBamberMotorsport team driven by Dennis Olsen, Dirk Werner and Aussie Matt Campbell won by a margin of 3.4 seconds from the R-Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage GT3. Matt Campbell was the hero of the race after some amazing overtaking moves in the last three laps. A superb race by any measure.

A selection of my photos from the race below. For video see Bathurst 12 hours1 and Bathurst 12 hours2 
For a report on the race see   Race Report