White island Adventure Bay of Plenty New Zealand with haiku and a narrative poem

White Island Trip with Volcanic Safari's.  

 I thought for a while

 on the way out in the boat

 that if White Island decided

 to unleash  her fury

and erupt.

 All the safety precautions 

 in the world

would be in vain

 because

 we'd all be blown to pieces

 

 Poisoned with noxious gas,

suffocated with smoke

or burned 

to bone with lava. 

 

 The chances of tragedy

happening on

White island

 isn't very high 

...  or is it?

 monitored

by scientists

daily

the last time

 it erupted was two 

years ago

 

 that was 

at night so

no-one was hurt

 

with a

live volcano

you never know

 

 It's an eerie,

erratic

puffing billy

The prospect

 of  an explosion

filled me with

dread but it

also thrilled me

like a horror story

 

 Just one week before

 an eighty year old man

 on a guided tour  

slipped to his end at

Whale island

 

I've been  to that

island  and

 I remembered  thinking

how dangerous

it was

the open cliff face

where

 he stumbled ...

this place should be

fenced off

someone could fall

over the edge so easily

  I thought while

shivering in the wind

nothing

 untoward 

happened to us

on our 

White island adventure

even though all day

 I felt like I was

channelling ghosts

 

                                   Hopping off the boat

onto a

 bobbing

 rubber dinghy

 required

balance and timing

without

squashing fingers and toes

 clambering up the

iron rods to

the sand bagged

 rocks required

 the physical agility

of a mountain goat

 

 going for a tramp

near the edge

of the boiling cauldron

 required an average

 level of fitness and had us all puffing

 

  Imagining

I was on the moon

with  its craters

 and physical

complications

of restricted breathing

kept me alert

 

 

 enhaling

                                         yellow torrents
                                        of steam laced sulphur
                                        had us all coughing

                                         respite  proffered
                                          by guides bearing
                                          baskets of
                                             boiled lollies
                                         had us all sucking
                                        
                                        sipping acidic
                                     and iron  flavoured
                                      hot running  water                                        from two streams
                                        reminded us that
                                        there was no natural
                                      way to quench your thirst
                                        in the tough terrain                                     
                                                                                                                      
                                  
                                                         watching smoke

 venting from

fissures

like steam trains 

chugging through  

funnels of white yellow tunnels

rock

the wasted remains

of the sulphur mines

 with decaying buildings

and cogs that 

were crusty with rust 

 

 saturated skeletons

of  Autumnal

orange  grey and  brown

what type of man 

would be

 attracted to a job

 like  in an offshore

desolated

sulphur mine?

                                        if you lived there

too long sulphur

ate through 

the soles of your

shoes

 

 

and rotted

the enamel off  your teeth

corroded your 

fillings so they fell out 

                                                                      

 on the voyage home

 the island's

 gannet colony

teemed with

 

pointy beaks

peering over the

cliffs to the fish

 filled sea below

 

some of the

 gannets followed 

us home

 dive bombing 

like torpedos

for their prey

 just as we were

approaching

 the Whakatane bar

we were asked to search

 for a missing swimmer

at Ohope beach 

 visions of

hauling in a dead 

bloated body

floated into my mind

 but luckily he

turned up on the beach alive

 

 

 

 

Go there if you want 

                                                a live

volcano encounter

with  possible wild life

its well worth the

 

 

 

                                  

 You  hopefully won't 

be blown up and you'll

 be treated like royalty 

by the Volcanic Safari team

Drop me a line if you go

I'd love to hear your

 impressions...

 

 Haiku about  my adventure to Whale island

 following the boat

  waves of frothy milk fan out  

danger lurks ahead

          

                     looking out for fish
                on the way to white island
                all I see is foam

focusing on spray

that flings up beside the boat 

looks like shattered glass

  view of whale island
   from the beach at Ohiwa
looks like a slipper



     




you have to be brave
to negotiate the waves
bouncing rubber boat

shape of  a dogs head
silhouetted on the land
wonder if it bites




naked lava flows
undulating on the crust
bush blankets old wounds 





Creative Quote of the day

“It is spectacular to watch an erupting volcano; but it is even much more spectacular to watch the rise of a newly exploding revolutionary idea!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan  

 Facts About White island

Attempts were first made to mine sulfur on White Island around the beginning of the 20th century.

 On 10 September 1914, 10 miners were killed when part of the crater wall collapsed, causing a landslide.
The only survivor was the mining company’s cat, Peter the Great. Sulfur was used in the manufacture of sulphuric acid and superphosphate fertiliser.

White Island, in the Bay of Plenty 50 km from Whakatāne and Ōpōtiki, is New Zealand’s most active volcano.
 Known to Māori as Whakaari (‘to uplift or expose to view’), it is important to the local iwi, Ngāti Awa and Te Whakatōhea.

Sulfur mining on White Island recommenced in the late 1920s but proved uneconomic and ceased in the early 1930s. 
A total of 11,000 tonnes had been obtained. 
Today the island is a privately owned scenic reserve and tourism venture.

The Art of Creative Photography. Ohiwa Harbour Bay Of Plenty Rotorua

I am a full time artist and teacher. 
 This is the type of job that fills me with peace and joy.

Before I go on any holiday I write a list of creative goals I want to achieve. 
If I cover all of my goals I feel satisfied.   
The holiday has been worthwhile.
 I am an active relaxer.

I  am always energised by different locations and often surprised by how  they affect my outlook and output.

The list for my latest Ohiwa Harbour nine day holiday was  involved.
Creating an illustration a day for my visual diary.   
Creating a series of photographs that I could post to my blog and face book and  hopefully win honours awards at Rotorua Camera Club.
 
Write 2 haiku per day. (short 3 lined poem about nature), to enter into competitions and online journals.

 Write three pages long hand a day, first thing in the morning of  feelings and musings in accordance with Julia Cameron's The Artists Way book.
 Read this if you want to be more creative and above all do the exercises. 
 After ten weeks you will see life changing results. 

Write a page in my diary a day about what was  physically happening.
 This is to help with my creative and travel writing.

Practise my piano  keyboard every day once after writing and just before going to bed. 
This accelerates learning.
 If  I practise on the piano every day and night I find myself humming frequently. 
This has to be good for mental health.
Learning a new piece of music keeps your brain active. 

  
Do some exercise every day, usually a walk along the beach.
Have fun every day.
Rest and relax and meditate every day. 
 Go to a nice cafe in either Whakatane or Ohope. 
Go on mini road trips. 

It was my 58th birthday on 11th April so I wanted to make sure I  could gather many resources to inspire me when I came back to work in Rotorua.

 Remember winter is coming ( its freezing and frequently drizzly in Rotorua) unlike Ohiwa Harbour. 
 To hold onto joy we need to keep on creating.

As an art teacher you are giving out a lot of energy most of  the time so you need to fill your creative bank up with the powerful magic of nature. 
You often learn new things which you can pass onto your pupils. 

It's not enough for me to experience these holidays in a blur; I want them to have a lasting effect on my work.
Otherwise memories can become lost in the intensity of activity when you return to work. 

Ohiwa Harbour is consistently one of the best places in New Zealand I have discovered, that is reasonably close to Rotorua

 The people who live there seem happier and more relaxed than in

Rotorua.

Who wouldn't be relaxed if they had scenes like these to gaze on every day.

The weather  helps conjure images that are ethereal and idyllic.

 The place is sparsely populated.

                               Yet it is never lonely.
                          I love the peacefulness of it.  

Walking up to the top of the Pa site at the back of Ohiwa Beach Holiday Park; where we have been staying every year for the past twenty years, gives you a panoramic 360 degree view.

 The weather and sunsets form massive skies that can be enhanced with a wide angle lens, polorising  filter and a steady hand.

The walk up is steep and keeps the heart pumping.

Back on the beach every day is different. 
I like to go in the golden hour just before dusk. 
Some people call it the blue hour.
The shadows are elongated and the hues are intense and do not become blown out.

I like to play with them in photoshop and also to take the same view with different settings to enhance the mood, whether it be broody and intense.

  Dreamy light  and lavender filled hues and reflections on the sand. 

A wide angled lens gives you a huge horizon and makes the cloud formations  fuller.

This Island is called Whale island. 

 I  have been here on a boat trip. 

They have some very noisy saddleback birds who are impossible to photograph because they dart around so quickly. 

You just obtain an orange and black flash of colour. 

The trip over on the boat from Whakatane is  great on a nice day and bumpy over the bar even when it is reasonably calm.

 Sometimes you can see dolphins and whales. 

I like to follow birds with my camera on burst, trying to capture the perfect fossicking Oyster Catcher shot.  
They never let you come too close 
They are always sticking their bright orange beaks deep into the sand for food as they squeak when they see you coming.

People say they are endangered but there are plenty at Ohiwa. 

I would have taken around 20 of these photos so I picked out the ones that I liked the best and manipulated them in photoshop. 

I like to make multiple exposures of my husband on the beach with Photoshop.

 These are multi-layers with shallow depth of fields.

Trying to evoke the sensations for the audience of an evening on the beach. 

The beach and the sand becomes something else imaginative and almost indistinguishable because of the multi-layers.

Shells are always making interesting patterns on the beach. 

Generally I am intrigued by pattern and texture in nature.

 These are made by shifting the focus  with a 24 to 105 lens. 
So that the image becomes deliberately blurry. 
 Then processing in Photoshop.

 Flipping horizontally after duplicating an image then sandwiching them back together to create an alien or mirror image.
 Almost like a kaliedascope.

Placing multiple layers over each other and applying effects in Photoshop can give your shots an ethereal misty feeling. 

 Going to the beach on sunset and staying until after dark while taking lots of images, no matter what the weather, always produces results that differ every time. 

Walking on the beach is great for the health. 
 Going to a West coat beach in NZ  is different from an East Coach beach at sunset. 
You should try both. 




 Creative Quote of the day. 
“In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.”
― Rachel Carson 


Adults   Creativity Classes ...
No  prior experience necessary. I have ways to make you feel creative easily and painlessly. 

Monday Tuesday and Wednesday Mornings.
9.30 am to 11.30 am 
 Phone 073463435 
or text 0273513887
 Email janet @ jkeen.net  
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Rotorua.


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