10 minutes from home

I frowned a little when I saw the topic for this week's Friday Shoot Out, thinking where will I get to in 10 minutes?  It will just look the same as here, just more farmland and trees. No use walking for 10 minutes, I'm constantly posting photos as I go for walks around the farm. 

So I've clocked up a few extra miles in the car this week going 10 minutes thisaway and 10 minutes thataway and then 10 minutes the other way.  I guess I'm lucky to have three choices.

Heading into town along the road I take to work each day, I had a pretty good idea exactly where I'd be after 10 minutes - a minute or two short of the school corner!  The road follows a creek and crosses several little bridges.  Ten minutes took me to the last bridge and last sight of the creek.  There's often ducks (wild and domestic) around here but no sign of them Saturday when I stopped.

 Looking down from the bridge:

On the other side, cabbage trees and flax thrive in the swampy ground:

This farm stands on a corner and the side road goes up over hills in the other direction from the mountains I so often feature in my posts.  This road is our alternative route to town when our road is flooded.  Takes quite a bit longer and is unpleasant to drive when there's a storm as the road winds along exposed ridges.  After driving for around seven minutes there is a No Exit side road that runs parallel with our road, but at a higher altitude.  As you can see the countryside is much more hilly than around here. This is the road ahead when my stopwatch told me to stop:

As you can see the countryside is much more hilly than around here.  The countryside changes so much in a few minutes!  In the next shot you should be able to just see the tower that I see so clearly from my place - which lies in the valley between the green hills in the foreground and the higher mountains in the background. 

Swinging around to the right, there are the Uppity Downities!

And around further still, more mountains.  There are no creeks or lakes up here to add variety to the scene. 

So that just leaves 'up the road' past our place.  I rarely take this road, only when going through to Dargaville on the west coast and that doesn't happen often.  Thank heavens!  This is not a fast drive.  The road is narrow with many blind corners, in many cases banks on one side, steep drops on the other.

I thought if I drove slowly I would come to this railway bridge in 10 minutes to add some variety:

 but I wasn't slow enough and had to carry on driving.  I was really surprised how far I went actually.  And as 10 minutes sounded, here is where I was. 

 

And that's it.  I had to go further up the road to turn around and go back home again!

Why not pop over here to see what others found 10 minutes from their homes.

I will away for the next week but will catch up on the team's posts when I return.