2/27/11

Busy monarchs

I miss the garden we had before we moved. This is one of my favorite photos from it. There were monarch butterflies everywhere, besides these busy four!!


2/21/11

Waikawau Beach

Hubby finds the coolest places!






If you look closely, you can see the only access to the beach.



2/20/11

2/16/11

Kimbolton, frozen in time




The building is the 'community library' now but, from the ticket window in the photo below, it was a cinema at one time.

2/14/11

New Plymouth airport

Ever since I was at the Greenville/Spartanburg, SC 'jetport', I have been fascinated at how tiny airports really are. This is the whole of the New Plymouth airport lobby/waiting area. It has booths for 5 rental car agents.


The view out the front windows of the waiting area. The Tasman Sea is just beyond the rocks in the distance.


And this is the classy baggage claim. A worker loads the cases from the airplane onto carts pulled by a little tractor of sorts. Then he drives into this space through a  garage door, makes a half-u-turn and you pick your cases off the carts. Genius.

I took the first shot, then turned around for the 'baggage claim' area. Ya gotta love the little airports.

2/11/11

Sea Star


or starfish, if you prefer.

2/5/11

White algae at Back Beach

We don't usually get to Back Beach at low tide so this was a treat for me to be able to walk down a part of the beach I had not stepped foot on before. When the kids called me over to the rock in the middle of the first photo, I was astounded at what I saw.

Green algae was expected, but the white algae with it was totally amazing. I had never seen anything quite like it. It looked like something mystically swirling in the pools of water




Even dried, it looked pretty weird.