I am not an animal person, but I was pleasantly surprised by the number of native animals that we saw. On the way back to the cottage, after our walk, we saw a pack of wallabies. Just grazing at the town’s field (wallabies eat grass? – I suppose so, looked like that was what they were doing ;). Some even had joeys in their pouches. I found it hard to get a good shot, it was dark and I had maxed out my ISO and zoom. 
What was really funny was, I used my flash on one and it was obviously studying me – and I ended up giving it “red” eye! So here is what an eerie looking wallaby with red eye staring straight at you looks like.
On my first trip, just at the veranda, I managed to get a kookaburra just perched on the branch allowing me to photograph it. This time though, I only managed to fire 3 shots off before it decided it would perch elsewhere, far away from me. This is one of the shots after some heavy handed editing.
Besides not being an animal person, I am certainly not a morning person. In all my photography experiences, I have only ever got up once before dawn to photograph the sunrise, that was at Lake Tekapo NZ. (Kendall laughs at me for being only the sunset photographer and never the sunrise) Anyway, I didn’t plan to get up for the sunrise on this trip either, however, I woke and couldn’t get myself back to sleep, so I decided, since I am already awake, let’s just make use of it. So I dressed in the thickest jacket, socks, sweaters, hats, gloves etc that I had and stepped out the door. Since you can see the cottage from the Pinnacles, it only make sense that you can see the Pinnacles from the cottage. The Pinnacles only had the rising sun on it for about 15 seconds! I kid you not. So much for sunrise shots. I did however, encounter something unexpected.
There had been a few wallabies around, grazing, and I saw them as soon as I walked out the cottage. I tried to photograph them, but encountered yet again – gear limitations. So got some lousy shots. I walked up the hill, about 20meters from the cottage, set up my tripod etc in anticipation of the sunrise. Then I turned around and guess what I saw!?
Deers!!! With as much zoom as I had on my lense I tried to photograph them.
The one with the antlers – I assume the male one, was studying me. He was still studying me, after the rest of the pack had turned and darted away. I managed to get about 7 shots off, while trying slowly to creep closer, must have lasted only about 30 seconds. It was unexpected and quite exciting. Have never seen deers, certainly not wild ones before.
At first I thought, gee isn’t it exciting to have wild animals in your backyard. But then I thought, hmmm not very nice to have animal droppings all over your backyard, I changed my mind.
I was trying to photograph the flowers of a shrub that looked really pretty. It was turning out to be very hard wit the breeze, so I thought – hmmm why dont I just break one off a sprig and bring it home with me! Then I can get it in a controlled environment, but…… once at home the flowers closed somewhat, and I didn’t get another shot. I stuck the sprig in a pot hoping that it is how it is propagated, but it doesn’t look like it is. It is now in the process of drying and dying……
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