Shakespear Regional Park encompasses the lush rolling hills at the end of Whangaparaoa Peninsula. It’s an open bird sanctuary, with three main beaches, hours of hiking trails, a waterfall, a popular camp ground, and a lookout tower with 360-degree views. Open to the public, Shakespear Park is a gathering spot for families and whanau alike. […]
Springtime in New Zealand: Baby Lambs in Shakespear Park
As I look at the hills dotted with baby lambs, I know why springtime in New Zealand is my favourite time of year. A modern country, New Zealand still has the highest density of sheep per unit area in the world. We have significantly more sheep than people. In fact, the country is home to nearly […]
Little Spotted Kiwi Birds Return to Shakespear Regional Park in Auckland, New Zealand
For the first time since the late 19th century, little spotted kiwi birds roam free on New Zealand’s mainland. The celebration and release of twenty kiwi birds at Shakespear Regional Park was an event more than five years in the making. It’s a dream made possible by a lot of hard work, planning, and protecting by […]
Shakespear Park After the Cyclones: Landslide, Floods and Happy Birds
The recent unsettled weather in New Zealand wrecked havoc around the country with driving rains and high winds. While neither Cyclones Debbie nor Cook made a direct hit, the damage from these two back to back storms is evident in parts of Auckland. Even after the cyclones downgraded to tropical storms, they carried quite a punch. Our […]
Waterfall Gully: A Hike Through Shakespear Park in New Zealand
While the recent rains created havoc for much of the Auckland region, Shakespear Park seemed to flourish. Colours deepened to a richer shade, a fresh aroma filled the air, and the usual trickle at Waterfall Gully now cascaded over the rocks with power and pride. Shakespear Park is my favourite of the Auckland urban parks. Possibly it’s […]
Endangered Dotterels and Chicks on a New Zealand Beach
Out of the corner of my eye I see little balls of fluff bouncing and hovering across the beach. These baby dotterels stop to forage for food. Camera in hand, I attempt to focus on one of the endangered chicks although its camouflage makes it challenging. As a result of this lack of contrast, I […]
Photos: Adorable Lambs in Shakespear Park, Auckland New Zealand
Adorable lambs are bouncing all over Shakespear Park these days. Lambing season is the cutest time of the year in New Zealand, and the Auckland region is no exception. From our house, we can walk to Shakespear Park. This is what we found last week: Adorable Lambs Practical Information: Shakespear Park is one of a […]
Collecting Cockles at Okoromai Bay in New Zealand
As the tide retreated, we could see a few people collecting cockles at the water’s edge. I pointed them out to our Italian AFS exchange student, commenting that it is generally a summertime activity. However, fresh cockles are delicious all year long. It was only 12c yesterday, not a day I wanted to step into the water […]
Mob of Sheep – #AtoZ Postcards of New Zealand
M is for a mob of sheep at an urban park. Practical Information: A group of sheep is called a mob. (More specifically, a mob of sheep is “a group or cohort of sheep of the same breed that has run together under similar environmental conditions since the previous shearing.”) In New Zealand, a mob of […]
Photo: Moon Rise on a Cloudy New Zealand Night
“Wow, look at the moon rise.” I grabbed a camera as I turned, just in time to see the top edge duck under the cloud cover. This time we were on the wrong side of the planet to see the eclipse, yet our super moon rise was still pretty spectacular. The sheep in Shakespear Park […]
Docking Lambs – A New Experience for this City Girl
Living on the doorstep of an Auckland Regional Park offers us access to great hiking trails, varied beaches, and farm animals – in this case, sheep and cows. We all know the city girl in me is still intimidated by the cows, even after living in New Zealand for 12 years. No worries, today’s story […]
Coastal Hiking: Interesting Rock Formations in New Zealand
Swirling patterns in the cliffs and unusual rock formations dominate the coastline on the east side of Shakespear Park (Auckland, New Zealand). With a bit more energy, I could actually walk from my house to the steps leading down to Pink Beach. Yet, before last week I had never been here on the outgoing tide, […]
Wondering Why It’s Called Pink Beach? (Auckland, New Zealand)
Pink Beach is a destination I had somehow missed until last week. We have set out many times along the Tiritiri track in the general direction, but it’s only accessible at low tide. This time we checked the Auckland tide tables and planned our coastal hike around them. Starting from the Shakespear Park campground we […]
Photos of Frolicking Adorable Baby Lambs
There are hundreds of reasons to visit New Zealand and adorable baby lambs actually shouldn’t be too high on the list. However, I asked last week, and the general consensus was that my readers want more cute lamb photos. These were all shot last week, the first four with my Olympus OM-D Em5 and the last […]
Intimidated by Cows I Climb Over an Electric Fence
On part of today’s walk through Shakespear Park in Auckland (New Zealand) hubby and I parallel an electric fence. We were well beyond the paddock that held the adorable black lambs. Escape route gone, my rational mind takes over and I know these cows are not going to harm us. They are used to humans. (Even […]
A Black Sheep in the Family: Baby Lambs in Shakespear Park
Black or white, bouncing, bleating, baby lambs make me smile. Despite the chill in the air, this is my favourite time of year to walk in Shakespear Park (A regional park north of Auckland New Zealand). Birthing is just about over and the hills are dotted with happiness. And this year there is a special […]
MPI Protecting Our Oceans from Overfishing – New Zealand
From a distance, it looked as though it might be a craft demonstration led by a man pointing down at items on the table as he spoke to the surrounding group. As we cautiously approached most of the on-lookers walked away. We quickly discovered an officer of the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI), sometimes referred […]
Sarah’s Sunday Snapshots #33 – New Zealand Undergrowth
New Zealand is well known for being a lush, green country, with plenty of interesting endemic flora and gorgeous forests. I’ve been on a few photo shoots over the last several weeks (mainly to Shakespear Park) and I’ve been trying to take photos of some of the undergrowth I’ve found. My favourites are below: Shakespear Park […]
Planting Day Replenishes the Native Bush to Auckland Parks
Planting Day brings out the best of people. It is a common volunteer driven activity at many suburban and urban parks in Auckland. The sense of community is one of the things I love about living in New Zealand. Despite the rainy day, about 90 people planted nearly 4000 trees in Auckland’s Shakespear Park a […]
Sarah’s Sunday Snapshots #32 – Shakespear Textures
Across the bay from us is Shakespear Park, and my mum and I often go there to take photos. Because I really enjoy taking close up photos, I thought today I would post a few shots of my Shakespear textures and close ups. I took these photos with a Canon 70D, which I am quite enjoying […]
Photo: Cliffs at the Golden Hour in Okoromai Bay, Auckland
Golden hour on a cloudy night, the last bit of sunlight sneaking through and lighting up the cliff in a spectacular show of nature: *Just before sunset the colours get softer and redder. Photographers call this the golden hour. To improve your photos check out these 5 Tips for Golden Hour Photography from the […]
An Eerie Morning Fog over Shakespear Park in Auckland
This is the view that greeted me today as I looked out over Okoromai Bay. It was an eerie morning fog that gave a painted look to my photos and started my day with a smile. The white dots on some of the hills are sheep: The sun crept through and dramatically changed the view. […]
Everyday Differences: Even NZ’s Paddock Fence is Unique
As I walked by some farm land this morning I was thinking about how a paddock fence really is cultural, constructed differently in every country. In New Zealand they look like this: Walking alongside this fence, you can tell it is all handmade. PS: This is the same paddock that had the crop circle – […]
Are Ewe Pregnant? Scanning Sheep in New Zealand
It was an unusual start to the day. I was invited out to Shakespear Park where they were scanning nearly 600 ewes (female sheep) in order to determine if they were pregnant with multiples, singles or “empty” (their words, not mine). As they use the same ultrasound equipment that is used on humans in hospitals […]
Blood Moon over New Zealand: Beauty or the Apocalypse
Often called a blood moon, the red cast during last month’s total lunar eclipse offered me this series: Why is the moon red? As the earth eclipses the sunlight from shining directly on the moon, the light needs to travel through the earth’s atmosphere to reach it, thus having a reddish cast. The process is […]
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