Chapter Six: 22 September, 2004
Hello! I thought you might like some more pictures!
The first one is on a beach along the penninsula of Coromandel. You
might
not be able to make out that the sand is very brown (earthy toned) along
this beach. Sometimes the ocean looks blue, sometimes it looks green,
sometimes it reminds me of home, especially at night and when it's got
that
distinct oceany smell (yuck). I collected a bunch of shells along this
beach
stretch to bring to the centre.
This next picture is me against the giant kauri tree. it's a huge hardwood
tree, and the walkways to get to it were scenic and lovely - except
that a
number of people had keyed their names / initials / whatever / onto
the
mossy handrails - not into the wood, but rather they had shaved away
the
moss to reveal the wood rail underneath. to all my friends who are wondering
- yes. ;)
Patrick took this picture so we could always remember our very first
road
trip alone together in new zealand. Ellerslie has a racetrack and hosts
car
auctions on sunday mornings. It's not too far from home.
Isn't this valley super gorgeous?????? It's very very steep, I was
a lil
nervous looking down into it from where we'd pulled over along the super
windy twisty turney road. The picture doesn't do it justice. There's
a cow
down there too somewhere, patrick's got a closer shot of it, I'll forward
you on to his website when he posts these pictures there. It won't have
my
super commentary with it though . . . Anyway, it was breathtaking, this
tiny
piece of Coromandel - absolutely stunning!
This picture is of the top of a giant fern. The Maori use it a lot
in their
art (the tiny budding curly bits) and Air NZ uses it as their logo as
well.
I didn't know that, I had to read it on a plaque somewhere. Patrick
was all,
"yeah, I knew that" . . . no one likes a know it all :P Anyway,
the ferns
get super huge, but they're super light, so even though we found giant
fern
branches that had obviously fallen from a great height, we weren't too
too
worried. (ok, i was, but there wasn't much I could do about it). the
Maori
used these ferns medicinally ( one was for labour pains ).
We got to the teeny tiny town at the end and found the teeniest tiniest
mini
golf course nestled in between to buildings along the main drag! I laughed
and laughed and laughed and asked patrick to take a picture. Then I
said,
you have to get a picture of the stand and the name! but he didn't,
and
neither did I. I did try to grab the camera but he said there was a
car in
the way. :P and no - we didn't play a round of teeny tiny mini golf.
:P we
had a lot of time to kill before the train ride we took, but we didn't
.
Patrick said, "PULL OVER!" so in a big heart rushy panic
I did just that,
pulled over and slammed on the brakes. It was all for this sign. He
asked me
if I thought it might be a joke, if it might be real, and he got out
to take
a picture of it. We haven't actually seen a real kiwi - but they're
nocturnal ground dwellers. Apparently dogs are the kiwis worst enemies
-
dogs and stoats - so if we got a dog, I'm pretty sure we'd be able to
find
one or two . . .
We didn't really take any pictures this past weekend even though we
went to
the super cool zoo. We were planning on going to rotorua this weekend,
but
with the season finale of the amazing race happening on saturday night,
it
looks like we'll most likely be staying close to home. please feel free
to
ring us up on your saturday afternoon / evening as that'll be our sunday
day
/ afternoon.
Lots of Love,
April (Mom)
xox