{"id":20139,"date":"2013-04-29T06:30:56","date_gmt":"2013-04-28T18:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=20139"},"modified":"2013-04-28T20:55:32","modified_gmt":"2013-04-28T08:55:32","slug":"inside-middle-earth-tamaki-makaurau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2013\/04\/29\/inside-middle-earth-tamaki-makaurau\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Middle Earth: Tamaki Makaurau"},"content":{"rendered":"

A great many people around the world have gotten to know New Zealand as “Middle Earth” in The Lord of the Rings<\/strong> films.<\/p>\n

And since I am a Fantasy author living right here in Middle Earth, over the next wee while I thought I’d share a few images of “my” Middle Earth right here on the blog.<\/p>\n

First up, the Queen of the North, or Tamaki Makarau ( ‘Tamaki of the Thousand Lovers’), aka Auckland and its environs — New Zealand’s largest city. I posted a poem about it a while back, titled “Something About Auckland”<\/em><\/a>—and there really is something rather special and magical about the place, imho.<\/p>\n

Do you recall the U2 song “One Tree Hill”<\/em> from the Joshua Tree<\/strong> album–well, these first two photos are taken from One Tree Hill at sunrise… The first one shows the dawn breaking over the isthmus (the core of Auckland is an isthmus that lies between two harbours—the Waitemata in the east, and the Manukau in the west.)<\/p>\n

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credit: B Miller<\/p><\/div>\n

The second photo, still at first light, is looking north and east to Rangitoto Island, a dormant volcano that marks the entrance to the Waitemata harbour:<\/p>\n

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Rangitoto island, first light: credit A. Robins<\/p><\/div>\n

And then we head west, to the wild Muriwai Beach and the gannet colony at its southern end:<\/p>\n

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Muriwai Beach; credit A Robins<\/p><\/div>\n

With gannets — one with chicks on the headland…<\/p>\n

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Gannet & chicks, credit B. Miller<\/p><\/div>\n

And one in flight:<\/p>\n

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Gannet in flight; credit B. Miller<\/p><\/div>\n

Then over to the gentler East Coast…<\/p>\n

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Credit: A Robins<\/p><\/div>\n

… complete with gull on a shell strewn beach:<\/p>\n

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Credit: A. Robins<\/p><\/div>\n

The back to the downtown heart of the Queen City, with the ubiquitous Sky Tower centre stage, but note to the mangroves, because yes, Auckland is a subtropical region:<\/p>\n

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The Queen City; credit B. Miller<\/p><\/div>\n

Hmm, love that road sign in the picture… \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

And finally, an Auckland sunset:<\/p>\n

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Queen City sunset; credit B. Miller<\/p><\/div>\n

And there you have it, installment the first of “Inside Middle Earth”, an adventure told in photographs. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A great many people around the world have gotten to know New Zealand as “Middle Earth” in The Lord of the Rings films. And since I am a Fantasy author living right here in Middle Earth, over the next wee while I thought I’d share a few images of “my” Middle Earth right here on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funstuff","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20139"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20163,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20139\/revisions\/20163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}