Category: New Zealand
-
Visions of virginal purity (2)
The beautiful Okains Bay on beautiful Banks Peninsula of New Zealand’s beautiful South Island. Sit down, drink in, close your eyes, dream. Photo of the week: Okains Bay, Banks Peninsula, South Island, New Zealand 2013
-
Visions of virginal purity (1)
Wide vistas of an immense, deserted beach. But then, in the far distance, we descry three tiny dark specks, people smaller than sand fleas, blown off by the wind. Farewell at Farewell Spit. Photo of the week: Farewell Spit, North shore, Golden Bay, South Island, New Zealand 2013
-
Sand sand sand
For once it’s me in the picture, and the credit for this photo has to go to my wife. Maybe she took it because I’m about to disappear and she’s afraid of seeing the last of me! We are not crossing a desert but a desolate sand beach on a day with very strong cold…
-
Rain forests
When I hear the word ‘rain forest’ I usually think of a ‘luxuriant tropical forest with heavy rainfall’, in accordance with the definition given by my Oxford dictionary. But there are also rain forests in temperate climates. These forests are luxuriant too, be it not hot and damp as the tropical ones, but cool and moist. The…
-
Fern trees
For millions of years New Zealand has been isolated from the rest of the world. That’s why nature could develop on these islands without much interference from outside. The result is that about 80% of the plants and trees in New Zealand are only found there and nowhere else on Earth. Interestingly, certain species can also…
-
Charming Creek
From 1928 onward, the Charming Creek Valley on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island became the scene of industrious coal-mining activity. A small railway track was built through the valley along the creek to transport the coal from the mine, which was about 10 kilometer inland, to the coast. After 30 years the…
-
Battlefield after the battle
Judging from the stumps that are left of them, the trees that once inhabited this little valley must have formed a nice and green copse. Something like the one nearby in the picture below. But alas, they were no match for the army of humans that came and felled each one of them with their chainsaws…
-
Treacherous Cook
At the foot of the Cook massif there is a big stone cube carrying dozens of brass-plates with the names of climbers that have fallen to their death on the treacherous slopes and glaciers of this high mountain peak. You’d better stay down and look up in awe at Cook from below, while contemplating the tragic…
-
Enchanting Alexandrina
I visited Alexandrina early in the morning. A slanting slope of yellow grass beneath; a field of little white clouds fanning out in the sky above; and in between, Alexandrina stretched out in all her serene beauty. From afar, through a dip in the mountain range, Cook craned his neck and cast a covetous eye upon…
-
See-through blouse
And even see-through underwear! All suspended on a clothesline. Meanwhile Aphrodite seems to be anxiously waiting till they’re dry. Photo of the week: Driftwood at Hokitika beach, New Zealand 2013
καιρός remembered 