I seem to be climbing a lot of hills these school holidays! At least this one isn’t as high or as steep as Mount Raggard!
This is Mount Howick, the hill I live under… or at the bottom of! The kids and I headed off early one morning, climbed to the top and had a good look around. We saw native Bottlebrush’s in bloom, fresh growth on the native pines and marvelled at how the bush finds the ‘soil spots’ on a granite hill and get their roots in.
We also watched as hawks hunted for prey and got close enough to a cave a the back of the hill to see a hive of native bee’s that have been there for years. (I’m not keen on bee’s after being stung a few times in the head during harvest time.)
We’ve also had a small amount of rain over the past few days and there were little rock pools to play in and for our Jack Russell, Rocket, to drink out of – handy not having to cart water up there for him!
It’s amazing how far the eye can see – in the right-hand corner of this photo, you can just see some hills on the horizon – they’re islands about 20 kilometres off shore!
On a clear day, you can see the sea, maybe it was because we climbed so early that it was a bit hazy.