A Playground for Swans

It's been a scorcher today out our way, so as outside jobs around the garden and the property were put on hold, me and the Camera Widow decided to head out for a bit of an explore around the local area.

Instead of venturing deeper into the Peninsula and have to deal with holiday traffic (and all that entails) we decided to head to the area across the lake to visit Selwyn and Greenpark Huts.

These two small settlements, as the name suggests, are home to a lot of small cabins and baches along the lower reaches of the Selwyn river (in the case of the former) with Greenpark huts sitting on the shores of Lake Ellesmere/Te Waihora close to the exit of the Halswell River.

After driving through Lower Selwyn Huts we came to the mouth as it enters the lake and decided on it being a great place to set up our picnic, as we had shade and shelter from the blistering heat and warm westerly winds. We were treated to an aural delight as skylarks rose above the barely shin deep waters in their usual spiral of choral ecstasy. We were also privileged to see a low flypast of seven royal spoonbills, their white outlines like pale ghosts against an azure sky.

Today's blip though is on the Greenpark Flats, on the lake shore at Greenpark Huts. Mother nature's arrangement of abandoned tyres and its accompanying webbed footprints reminded me of an adventure playground that only swans might be interested in.

With two consecutive Lake Ellesmere blips, I've got a hankering for another tomorrow. We'll see how the day pans out. According to the forecast it might be beach weather again...