falling, stars

Today was quite relaxed, staying with friends.  In the morning I looked round their smallholding, with its bees, chickens, ducks, and cows.  In the afternoon we took a short trip out to Bridal Veil Falls.

We walked down a staircase by the 55m drop, stopping half way to take a panorama view:

Bridal Veil Falls, from half way down: panorama view

Then we went on down to the bottom.

Bridal Veil Falls creating rainbows

The noise was tremendous:

Yes, another portrait mode video, but it’s a portrait mode waterfall!

Then we had to walk back up the 55m of staircase…

After that, we drove up to Raglan, to wait and watch the sunset, while drinking hot chocolate.

sunset at Raglan

The reason for this wait, apart from good hot chocolate, was that I had yet to see the southern night sky, due to clouds.  Even my earlier sighting of the full inverted moon had been after dawn.  But tonight was forecast clear, so we waited for sunset, then post twilight, and drove to an unlit place.

The sky!  Full of stars!  Alien stars!!  It was a most peculiar experience, seeing a sky full of completely unfamiliar star patterns.  Oh yes, I identified the Southern Cross, but wasn’t the same seeing it for real as seeing a picture.  For one thing, it’s tiny!

The Milky Way towards the galactic centre is splendid: broad and structured.  I stayed looking up and around for quite a while.

a short round trip of about 140 km