Baz,
Number 2 came out beautiful. I can see the motif you were going for and you've almost pulled it off. Perhaps next time close the aperture down a bit more so all the reeds are in focus. Take two exposures; one correctly exposed for the reeds/middle foreground, and, then take a short enough exposure so that detail in the sky is present. We will then go about layering them together into a seamless image.
P.S. Liz, keep away from HDR! It destroys your image data and produces fake images.
But, that's just my AUD$0.02
Regards,
Humayun