Port Hills - on fire!

The fires on the Port Hills are raging out of control again this afternoon.

This morning 10 of us kayakers set off across the harbour towards Quail Island, and then round through the gut in the Peninsula, to have a look at how Governors Bay fared yesterday and last night. The houses are still okay, but the beautiful bush is all gone, right up to the skyline. We watched helicopters dipping their monsoon buckets into the sea, returned to the trees to try to put out the fires that were still burning.

I've just heard that Governors Bay is on alert again this afternoon, and that all of the Westmoreland hill suburb has been evacuated. Oh those poor people. Some of them will have been badly affected by the earthquakes too . . . . .  Hasn't Christchurch had enough! It's sickening.

I've put a 2nd image into Extras, showing how thick the smoke was over Lyttelton.

The subject for Wideangle Wednesday today is 'foreground interest'. I haven't done very well on that score. The image would be the poorer without my friend in the wee green kayak though.