Fancy: Tickled
On the second weekend of my stay in New Zealand last October, I took a photo which still provides me with a little amusement. I’ve decided to share it with the world because, well, I’m just that generous. Yay me. Shall I share the back-story? I think I shall!
The Coromandel region was once known for more than just its surfing beaches. It was quite the booming gold mining region, back when people still did that sort of thing. I lie, there’s still a working gold mine. And a museum with a severed thumb preserved in, like, formaldehyde or something. When you’re a kid, that’s pretty cool. It’s also a geographically unfriendly sort of place, needing much taming from the early prospectors. Evidence of that remains, in the form of a hole in a rocky mountain.
It’s actually a lot more interesting than I make out, and features a lot of what I miss most about New Zealand - trees and water. I convinced the Matriarch to take me there on the second weekend of my stay (it took that long to recover from the Great East Cape Tour). Fairly typically of New Zealand, there’d been a flood at some point. I spotted this poor fellow lying sprawled on a rock.
What is it with the daughters of the Matriarch and photographing dead things?
Well, he captured my imagination immediately, and I captured his image a moment later. Why, you might ask, if you lack any imagination of your own, or if you’re one of the three people in the world who didn’t watch Lord of the Rings. Look at him! He looks like he’s got arms and legs! Look at him!
Ahem. Excuse me.
You see, as I looked at him a fanciful thought occurred to me. He could so easily have been an extra from the siege of Isengard, an Ent who got washed away during the flood, and ended up broken and battered, sprawled across a bunch of rocks in the middle of a freezing river. With all of that in mind, who wouldn’t want to photograph his corpse?
It’s not the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich, but it’s good enough for me.
Tagged: photos, Travel.