New Zealand 2011

24th October onwards

Rog & Vic at 'Degree'	One for the morris dancers	25th Oct. O'Connell St. Bistro - cheese @ £140 per kilo!	26th Oct. The Hundertwasser toilets at Kawakawa
The Hundertwasser toilets at Kawakawa	Gabriel. No! not that Gabriel.	Built in Bristol, doing time in Kawakawa	An unnamed diesel.
Fredrick the Diesel Engine - actually in motion - the Bay of Islands Railway only works weekends, this must have been on a maintenance trip. Sadly we missed it coming down the High Street.	Bay of Islands - Russell Pier	Pete on holiday at last	Rush hour in Russell - two skateboards - total gridlock!
Christ Church - the oldest church in NZ	Tamati Waka Nene memorial - he sided with the Pakeha (Europeans) against a fellow Maori enemy		I has eyes on your chips
NZ has plenty of 'oldest' places, this one the working petrol station	Sunset time

		27th Oct. Haruru Falls
			Postbox for Chris
Kerikeri Basin	Kemp House near Kerikeri - built 1822, oldest wooden building in NZ	A pukeko	The Stone Store (1836), KempHouse & a modern building ;-)
The old power house	How it worked	Why it was built
Rainbow falls		Kemp House 1822	The Stone Store 1836, NZ's oldest stone building
The keystone says 1833 though.	Another for Chris	The Stone Store again (that is, the store made of stone)	The railway running down Kawakawa main street
The Hundertwasser toilets again		Not many trains to spot	Kawiti Glow Worm Cave, well, not inside obviously
		Oh yes, this is the entrance to the caves	Change of career?
90 Mile Beach - guess how long it is!		Massive dunes & the beach is a bit of a race track at low tide
The beach from the southern end at Ahipara, the northern end is over the horizon			View from Ahipara Bay Motel
	Room, car & patio
Hybrid tree?	Sunset at Ahapira	28th Oct. Ferry from Kohukohu Narrows to Rawene across Hokianga Harbour	The view from Opononi to the harbour entrance
	View from a headland at Omapere looking across Hokianga Harbour entrance	The panorama view
The surf at the harbour entrance - difficult to see how ships ever got in & out.	Tane Mahuta - The largest living Kauri tree. 51m tall, 13.4m circumference. The picture doesn't do it justice	This tree, and its shorter but fatter cousin - see later, are around 2000 years old.	The Four Sisters - four kauri that seem to have grown together
The Four Sisters	The Kauri trees shed bark to deter climbers but other plants can seed up in their branches	Te Matua Ngahere - a mere 30m tall but he's the fat boy - 16.4m around the trunk.	29th Oct. Tauranga: The Elms Mission House - another oldest building, this time oldest in the Bay of Plenty
30th Oct. Mt. Maunganui (Tauranga) - still some cloud brushing the top	Rotorua - this place smells of sulphur due to things like this bubbling mud.		A clear water hot spring. Quite deep, shame all you can see is the reflections
A pretty bit in Kuirau Park	The main geysers & mud pools are in expensive tourists sites. All you see here are in this free public park next to the town centre	The holes can open up quite quickly killing off the trees (see the roots here)
	Another bubbling mud pool - 1	Another bubbling mud pool - 2	Another bubbling mud pool - 3
Huka Falls, near Lake Taupo
The current is too strong for any native fish to get upstream	Pity the salmon, and any foolish Kiwis in kayaks	It's too mad even for them.
Mt. Tongariro - Vic doubts that I've got a mountain here. Damn the weather!	Mt. Ngauruhoe - can't see the talking trees ;-)	Mt. Ruapehu - just too late for the ski season.	At last we get to drink the well travelled small bottle of wine
Oct 31st. We glimpsed a beautiful sight of Mt Ruapehu above the clouds. but as we got closer we ducked below the clouds & lost sight.	But we didn't make that mistake with Mt Ngauruhoe...	On the Desert Road we got a break in the clouds for Mt Ruapehu
This is the best it got. Sadly Mt Ngauruhoe refused to show itself again.		Taihape, where we had stayed the night before (we had doubled back earlier to see if we could see the mountains).	Apparently, it's the Gumboot Throwing Capital of the World.
Wellington - how aposite after the Gumboot Capital!	Wellington Cable Car (a pedant would say it's a funicular).	View from the Botanic Gardens
The Human Sundial			Yes, it's 16:20.
The Krupp Gun. Never fired here, a trophy from the Western Front.	The pigeons are very tame here but... 'If you bring that camera any closer my brothers will peck your shoes'.	2nd Nov. Our train to Auckland awaits	Hauled by this clanky thing
The Cake Tin & our fellow passengers in the reflection.	Palmerston North & an engine change	The 'new' one being an overpowered electric pulling just 4 coaches	The outdoor observation deck
You can even put the brakes on ;-)	Views from the deck...
		The best we got of Ruapehu - complete with camera shake - this is not a smooth train
		A 40 minute stop at Ohakune	First decent coffee since Wellington (no machine on the train)
	The unusual wheel arrangement on our loco	Going native - coffee to go & jandals	All aboard
	Out of season for the local shops
		And onwards towards Auckland	Auckland again, and a better view of the sea from the 20th floor of the Quadrant
3rd Nov. A box of mirrors in Auckland Art Gallery			A load of coat hangers...
But you try looking at it head on	4th Nov. On the way home - internet browsing in Dubai (beers already finished)	And propping up the bar on board the A380	Yet another meal, this one with an invisible wine glass ;-) And that's it from our NZ trip

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Pictures from New Zealand 2011