I’m surprised with myself but in retirement I seem to have become a bit of a painter now too. Perhaps not too surprising because my mother was very good at it and I did dabble a little in my youth while at Christchurch Teachers College.
Anyway I’ve produced a few and now have sold six originals, three since I have become one of the local displayed artists at the Reefton Gallery on the West Coast of the South Island-New Zealand (Te Whare Toi o Inangahua – Te Tai Poutini -Te Wai Pounamu – Aotearoa) There I also sell prints and greeting cards made from a few of these.
Here, about 5km from my home, there was once a gold mining town . The place has some fame as the birth place of Dr Jack Lovelock the 1500m Champion of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Jack had blue eyes and blond hair and Adolf Hitler was delighted that at last an “Aryan” won a major event after being annoyed that the African American Jesse Owens was taking too many honours.
Broadway is actually the name of my town’s main street but it has nothing to do with Manhatten. It was named after the town’s first judge in the 1870s -. Warden Broad. He lived here and made the business’s shift to his street after a flood along a parallel street (The Strand) beside the Inangahua River destroyed many of the first commercial propertys. Everything then had to be done Broad’s Way.
A view from State Highway 73 crossing the Southern Alps from the West Coast to Canterbury at Porters Pass just after climbing from the Canterbury Plains.
This is an old locomotive on display in Reefton. I’ve imagined it working its last days retired from mainline duties and on the short coal mine branch that once ran from the Reefton Station
My regular…The Broadway Cafe
Afternoon Sun. Murray Creek Track
Just a few hundred metres from home on an old miners track
Bushsteps
View along another old miners track near home
From the Rahu
A view from the road about 25km from home on the Rahu Saddle on State Highway 7
Morning Light – Blacks Point
This is also just a few hundred metres from my home in Blacks Point
North Beach – Westport
About 80 km from home on the Tasman Sea coast at the town of Westport
Top Track Blacks Point to Reefton Along yet another old miners track along a high ridge about 1km from home
Mokihinui Dusk
Along the coast north of Westport
Looking Up
As you do when walking in a forest
Black Ferns
Whoops..this photo of my latest is a bit blurry. I’ll replace it soon. Anyway the name is maybe a bit of a homage to New Zealand’s world champion women’s rugby team one of whom (Ruby Tui) comes from this part of Aotearoa
Keith Tonkin 