Attack of the Black Swan

This Saturday, Jeff and I decided to go tramping. Bell Rock is a two hour tramp located about 45 minutes from Napier. I packed my water and GORP (known as scroggen here!) in my little camelback for the afternoon trip. It was a beautiful day with no clouds in the sky. A perfect day for hiking. Jeff showed up with a backpacking pack full of all kinds of extra stuff. An emergency kit, extra clothes and a tent fly (in case we needed to build a shelter!). I scoffed at all the unnecessary items that he would have to carry. He informed me it's always better to be prepared. As we were driving up to the mountains, I saw a tiny little cloud in the sky. As we drove closer to our starting point, the cloud got bigger and bigger and eventually, as the day wore on, completely misty and overcast. I ended up having to use quite a few of Jeff's "unnecessary" items. Apparently, the weather can change drastically in one day here.

The hike still turned out to be beautiful with the clouds clearing for a few minutes so we could see the view from Bell Rock.

We drove back towards Napier and had our lunch at Lake Tutira. Hundreds of black swans live around this lake. We found a good place for a picnic and I hopped out of the car to take a close up picture of a black swan at the water's edge. In the back of my mind I wondered why Jeff didn't come from behind the car, but I was too caught up in my picture to think much about it, however, I soon found out. As I was innocently taking a picture, the swan attacked me! And Jeff laughed as I ran screaming to the shelter of the car. I guess the black swans are known for being territorial, especially if there are some baby swans around!