Rain approaching over the Tasman sea

Leslie Horacek from Brussels, Belgium

This looks lilke a poweful place, strong energy.

Aaron I wanted to say thank you so very much for creating such a fantastic website. I just LOVE the new community page and click back and forth over it just to see how it changes. It's like living art! All the other little things too are just fantastic. I'm thankful you are such a creative soul sharing your talents. =)

22 Aug 2006 7:02pm

Terry Hand from Mullumbimby, Australia

Enjoyed your photos. Actually came upon them when I Googled Grey Lynn where I lived during the Second World War (the kids all stayed with Grandma while Dad and uncles went off to war). However, there are photos that bring back many memories for me. I was actually born at Muriwai in 1942 and my Grandfather owned a good deal of it as well as half of Helensville. This shot of Maori Bay is particularly poignant for me, my mum and Dad used to take us for picnics to this spot (it was little bit more inaccessible in those days).

The shot also brought back memories of a day back in 1958, as a member of the Muriwai Surf Club we had to carry a body back up over this hill. A fisherman got swept off flat rock (to the right of this photo) in a monster sea, we raced over with a reel we had to put the reel up on a ledge because it kept getting rolled over. The guy was floating face down in the gut between the sugar loaf (the rock where the gannets nest) and flat rock. I drew the short straw and went in with the belt but before I could get near him he got swept around the corner between the sugar loaf and Split Rock. There was no way we could get to him from flat rock so they pulled me in (by this time we were all pretty exhausted) but the others picked up the reel and carried it up over the hill to Maori Bay (there were no walkways in those days just a rough track). Because I had done the swim in the first attempt I was given the “easy” job, I had to run up to the store in the Domain and ring for the doctor because we knew that if we got to the guy we would need him, either to do something drastic or to declare him dead! No mobile phones in those days.

Dr Innes-Smith arrived (an old Scottish dude in his 70,s and a three-piece tweed suit) and I had to coax him over the hill to Maori Bay. When we got there the others had managed to get to the fisherman with the line just off the Mussel Bed (the black L shaped spot in the middle of your picture). They were applying respiration. Doc Innes-Smith looked like he was on his last legs the poor old bloke, we had come over through the swamp which used to lie between the hill where Quarry Rd is now and the headland and he was blue. Nevertheless, the spirit of the Hippocratic oath kicked in and he opened his Gladstone bag and pulled out this whacking great needle and administered it. Unfortunately it was to no avail, we couldn’t bring the bloke back. It was a grim group the struggled back over the hill with the reel.

Sorry if this sounds a bit morbid, but I often think when I take a photograph of a particularly beautiful place (a snapshot in time) I often wonder how other people have experienced that place.

15 Oct 2006 5:12am