Because of all of you, 2006 turned out to be a fun year. Thank you!! We appreciate the many visits and complements and challenges and laughs and friendships. Do please keep them coming in 2007. Soooo, see you all tomorrow?!?!?
About 20+ minutes steep walking, just slightly east to the town centre, is this monument. The pen-like object points to a plate underneath which is the symbolic geographical centre of New Zealand. It's the tiny white/blue spot on this map. The real geographical centre is a little further south. More info here.
I want to go again! I don't like the frozen ones when heaven is only a 15-minute drive away!! I'll be waiting in the car!!!
On the bench outside the Nelson Post Shop/City Council building, someone left a deep red rose under the No Smoking sign. I thought it was a very good message and a photogenic situation.
On the 17th, we did one of the Nelson Pre-Christmas must-do activity, berry picking. Because we are nuts about berries, and because last year we couldn't go at all, we went a bit overboard and picked 8kgs. We picked raspberries (my favorite of the ones available), boysenberries (Ben's favorite, too macho for me; I now call it the Hemingway Berries) and tayberries (a cross between these two). I think Nelson's soil and climate best suits boysenberries because they never fail, but this year raspberries were delectable as well.
As for my ultimate favorite, blueberries, they are available from supermarkets but we haven't found a place where we can go pick our own, so I have a small plant. On the 17th, it looked like this and we thought we should pick the good ones before the birds get them as they do every year. Around lunch time on the 18th, the ripe ones were all gone again! How on earth do the birds know exactly the right day to come and steal my blueberries!
Christmas is over, over here, folks! Only 363 more sleeps to the next one. Anyone else still finding Christmas colors everywhere? Found at Cold Store Gallery, Mapua.
Christmas carol on Cathedral steps on Christmas Eve, an annual Nelson event that we had never been to until this year; we were a bit late but it was fabulous and Nelson Summer Festival is all go. Have a wonderful holiday season, everybody. 
Our famous Harry's Bar, again. I've seen it before, so it's not a Harry's original. 
Tomorrow is his big night. Earlier I spotted him on reconnaissance in town but now I'll let him relax a bit. Here's Ben's not-so-paparazzi style and here's his result. Happy Holidays to all who celebrate Christmas.
Remember this? It was a sticker and we said it wouldn't last the Nelson summer. Ben told me quite a while ago that they did something to remedy it, so last week I went to investigate. Now two new leaves (I couldn't tell if it was an identical sticker to the previous one) are affixed to a thin piece of plaster-like white board, which is screwed to the cement block wall. From a distance it almost looks like the old sticker, but the green leaves are less vivid, because of the white instead of the gray background, and you see the screws all over the place.
I vote for painting the leaves: it's probably cheaper in the long run.
The anchor of this barge looks like a plug. When Meg and I saw this, we both said the same thing: "Who pull the plug?!"
This is a old bench at lake side of the Lake Rotoiti, Nelson Lakes National Park. Here is a wide angle shot.
At Harry's Bar, Hardy Street. They usually have witty but relatively unknown quotes. Nice bar, great food, 90 second from Ben's office.
This is a giant eel under the jetty posted the day before yesterday. It was about 60~80cm long. If I remember correctly the indigenous Maori eat smoked eel. 
At Lake Rotoiti, Nelson Lakes National Park, just a couple meters left of this.
But Lake Rotoiti is photogenic, I can't help it. And then someone comes along to show off, or are we invading his/her space? At Nelson Lakes National Park.
This is the result of erosion. This is used to be a large pine tree. On Rabbit Island.
Possums have become predators in New Zealand; they eat shoots of native trees and eggs of native birds. They also climb up poles and chew on the lines, (I wonder if they get electrocuted in the process) so we often see slippery metal sheetings covering any tall structures where we don't want possums climbing and chewing.
About halfway down the Porika 4WD track, near Lake Rotoroa, one of the Nelson lakes, there is an old gold mining area. You can look for gold at the New Creek gold fossicking area without license.
The sign says, "Beware of tiny nocturnal Kiwi birds wobbling across this 100km/hr stretch of road." Spotted on SH 63, just a little northwest of Nelson Lakes; in fact I never knew Nelson Lakes were Kiwi Zones.
And do you remember this? On our way from Nelson Lakes, we almost smashed with a silver car stopping on another 100km stretch to avoid a family of ducks crossing the road; no signs there, I'm telling you, they were country ducks.
I took this shot at Cable Bay beach near the entrance of walk way. Several series shots were introduced at sketchbook late last month (22nd to 27th) but I wanted to share this particular one here.
No, it is not an abandoned; I believe it's still is use, though I am not sure for what purpose.
Sometimes it pays to look up. As long as we've known, (sine 1992), this office has been the Air New Zealand Travel Centre, but it was something better before. I was always a Fuji user, but it still was like running into an old friend.
I'm just showing you an empty paddock; I found hazy the mountains attractive on this day.
I gasped when I saw the magazine cover in the supermarket last month, and debated with myself and with Ben whether to post it. The topic comes up in a big way every three years before election, but "specials" spring up to keep us on our toes.
Some unknown artist left this signature at middle of empty beach. (Here's another shot.) Meg was so grumpy about Theme Day she kept mumbling and shooting strange stuff, and then her battery died!
I didn't "get" this theme; some of Bob's examples were of people from the waist down, others were shot from a low angle; we disagreed on the interpretation of the theme for the entire month, but most of all both of us felt uncomfortable shooting people below the belt. So this is NDP's best shot. (But it does have the light-and-shadow like Bob!)
Well, yes, it's been done hundreds of times, but I really wanted to shoot this particular tree, so Ben had to turn the car around, near a curve, in the rain. Afterwards, I realized there were dozens more trees like this all over the Takaka Hill. Well, been there, done that. I can move on.
At the entrance of Tasman District Council Building in Richmond, there is a beautiful Maori Carving. The curver's name is Jon Mutu according to the plate beside the work. Sorry, I have not much information about this person.
I wish; it's just a rocky hill, cut up for our convenience; limestone is quarried across the street, so they needed a work area. Behind me is Port Tarakone, Golden Bay. Here's the reality.
Further down from Belgrove, this pub is situated on the corner of State Highway 6 and Motueka Valley Highway. The route is a lovely circuit connecting Nelson, Richmond, Tapawera (very rural -Motupiko on the map), Motueka, and back the coastal road to Nelson; we go at least four times a year to enjoy the changing colors of the seasons, and quite often in the summer because there are numerous picnic sites by the river on this route. This is the route you can find this cow.
This is on the other side of the road from the pub from yesterday. I have no idea whose windmill this is, or what it does, but just possibly it's producing small amounts of electricity for this farm, or somebody near by.
Little eating/resting place at on the side of State Highway 6, a little southeast of Nelson.
In Nelson, orchids are left outside most of the year. When the flower buds start to grow, you could bring the pots inside the house to hurry the growth; if you do this, they will flower from around May/June up to about this time of the year. If you leave the pots outside to let the buds grow naturally, they flower from around September to after Christmas. This year, for the first time, I did the former, so we're looking at the end of the orchid season. We had a good run this year, after I split the bulbs two years ago; I have something like eight pink cymbidiums in two sizes, and this year added a yellow one and a white one.
When you board the plane, a man stands by the tree on the right to direct you to the correct gate. This was taken a week after the scare in London in August.
It's not strictly Nelson, but in Blenheim I found this sign. Ducks are really wild, and that's why we have to shoot them; though kids can get equally wild, we pray they grow out of it.
Plate 1: NMIT LLC
