Cable Bay Walkway Entrance

After work, 6:45pm 22nd November, as far as I went on that day...

Arty

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.

LOTR fans may know this area as "Chetwood Forest".

Richmond: TDC Entrance

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.

Here is the closeup of plate.

A Mideval Ruin?

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.

Just Another Bay

Wainui Inlet, Golden Bay. And to my right, the scene looks like this.

Rain

From the Harwood Lookout, near Takaka.

SH6: Rohatu Hotel

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.

SH6 : Belgrove - Opposit The Pub

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.

SH6 : Belgrove Pub

Little eating/resting place at on the side of State Highway 6, a little southeast of Nelson.

End of the Orchid Season

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.

Jump!

The guy with the yellow kite was performing lots of acrobatics at Tahunanui Beach. Few more in my sketchbook here and here. These were shot on film. (Please click photo to enlarge, it is slightly better colour in that way.)

Nelson Airport Security

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.

New Zealand love small airlines. Nelson-based Air Nelson was bought up by Air New Zealand a while back, so we had Origin Pacific, which operated for around eight years before it went bust a couple of months ago. Now we're going to have Kiwi Pacific starting, again in Nelson.

Don't get me wrong, we are all for the small operators. You get to fly over Cook Straight to Wellington on a 7-seater Cessna during rain, (read: bad). What I don't understand is, Kiwis are, besides New Zealanders, New Zealand dollar, and Chinese gooseberry, the tiny nocturnal flightless bird. So, Kiwis on planes? Kiwis are the mascot of New Zealand Air Force, and there was another Hamilton-based airline called Kiwi International (I think) which lived for around six years. It's got to be the rich Kiwis' sense of humor I'm not getting, right?

Wildlife Crossing!?

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.

Caged Rocks - Beyond Controversy

Plate 1: NMIT LLC

In the last decade of 20th Century, caged rocks were a prominent feature of more than a few educational establishment in the South Island of New Zealand. (Plate 1: Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology Library Learning Centre.) These structures, with no apparent function, were designed by blokes, as it is evident the effects of gravity over time were never considered.

Ben heard these are allegedly someone's sculpture/outdoor art. Yeah, right.

Unique Mailbox

Auto refinisher's mailbox.

Kiwi Water Tank

Water tanks are often positioned right behind the house, but as long as it is attached to a big roof, it works. This one was by what I believe used to be a farm building, possibly an apple orchard storage, but is now Motueka Sculptor Tim Wraight's Sealevel Studio. One day I hope to do a series of photos of his work, but last weekend, we found this tui bird instead.

Usually the tanks are black, green or light lime green, but we saw a fancy accommodation under construction with three tanks painted the same color as the buildings. This is in response to Alice's post of August 29.

Spring Transformation

Central School, Nile Street, this week. Compare with this.

"Reef Knot" - Another Controvercial Scupture

This is probably the first piece of public art you will see as you enter Nelson; it is at the same Millers Acre complex as the Vessel. The work is also by Grant Palliser.

The controversy was brought to the fore by boaties, who claimed the knot in the work was not the named knot. It was the first time I noticed Letters to the Editor in The Nelson Mail were accompanied by graphics.

Cormorant

This is from the one of the bridges on Maitai River, look left, right, straight ahead, behind, left, right, straight ahead, behind.

Speaking of birds, I mentioned tuis in my November 7 post; yesterday we saw a small one on a flax plant, so Meg shot a couple (of pics) here.

Big Hand

Church, Give Way sign, a big hand. Make of it what you will. Also by Grant Palliser.

Rocks on Sticks

Here is a sculpture on the walkway along Maitai River.

From Nelson Public Art and Sculpture Walks map: "High Flyers", created by Grant Palliser as a city millennium commission and erected in 2002, responds to the energy of the rapids in this stretch of the Maitai River. The five kinetic stainless steel poles reflect the tones of this environment and the aluminum 'boulders' echo the river stones, symbolizing opportunities, goals and achievements in the 'river of life'.

And that's /ˌælyəˈmɪniəm/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[al-yuh-min-ee-uhm], not /əˈlumənəm/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[uh-loo-muh-nuhm] in Kiwi Land.

Here's a close up taken back in September, and have a look at Rita's Dallas sculpture. Meg used to scream whenever she detected copyrights violation, but today she's "amused at the creative serendipity". I think she's been trying to use this word in every other sentence since yesterday.

No, Pooch, No

Found in the mural on the car park side of the "Home of the Nelson Building Society Giants" building in Stoke. Nelson Giants is a pretty good team in the New Zealand basketball league and we had many players in the Tall Blacks at the World Cup in Indianapolis a few years ago, where we were fourth coming out of nowhere. Sadly, in the Cup this year in Japan the Tall Blacks didn't do so well.

Oh Red One...

I went to shoot the signs in front of this used car place, but I thought there might be a few of you who'd like this better. (Ben, you're drooling again.) Here are some more shop pics.

Ben informs me today is our 100th. Thank you for your comments and friendships.

Outside a Cafe Window

This was taken last summer. I took this from inside the Park Cafe at Marahau, at the start of the Abel Tasman National Park walk. It is a monochrome 35mm film scanned directly. The flax flowers are waiting for native birds to come; we often find tuis on these flaxes.

12 years ago today, we came to New Zealand, for me to study English and for Meg to have a leisurely life, for eight months. I can't imagine living anywhere else now, and Meg continues to have a leisurely life.

Kaikoura Range

Snowy mountain and pebbled beach. Here at Kaikoura, this is my favourite view.
This is the end of series from our little trip late last month.

Kaikoura Community Theater Inc

This old theatre stands right front of the beach in Kaikoura.

Ohau Point Seal Colony, Marlborough

From the lookout at State Highway 1 between Blenheim and Kaikoura.

Salt Works, Marlborough

We're going east for the next few days. Past Blenheim towards Kaikoura on Highway 1 is the salt works. This salt works produces natural sea salt in those ponds, and each pond (different stages) has different colors. Another shot.

There is a new New Zealand DP from beautiful Kapiti Coast. Please have a look.

Peter Jackson Interview

This is not Nelson, nor Daily and really not Photo, but I thought some of you might be interested in a Peter Jackson interview on National Radio aired last Monday. It lasts 45 minutes.

On-demand link will stay live until early Monday 6 November, (roughly early Monday in Asia, Sunday evening in Europe, and sometime around Sunday lunch time in the Americas.) For podcast, please scroll down a bit to"Feature Guest - Peter Jackson"; I'm not sure how long this link will stay.

Queens' Garden, Bridge Street Entrance

Melbourne John's Williamstown Botanical Gardens gate (Thursday 26 October) inspired me to shoot own Queen's Garden's gate. Wouldn't you know, the gate is open, workmen nowhere to be seen, and a mini whatchamacallit sitting right in front!

At the side of the gate, I also found this.

Theme Day: Something About to Disappear

I swore off long narrations, but for this theme, I can't help it. So here goes.

Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology is a polytechnic, kind of a community college/vocational-technical school offering tertiary education, short and long courses. In recent years many polytechnics tried to become universities, offering Bachelor degrees, but they still try to serve the community to some degree.

In the last few years, many polytechnics held free computer courses (often self-directed, come-when-you-can, on-line courses), and NMIT moved its off campus and plonked it in the middle of the shopping areas in Nelson, Richmond and Blenheim. Among other benefits of this course was my many grandmother friends learning to use the Internet and Email, so they can communicate with their children and grandchildren, many of who live overseas.

However, because there was no mechanism to measure individual progress, AND because the polytechnics received funding from the government based on the number of student enrolled, the opposition National party saw this as an example of how the Labour government was wasting money.

Our own constituent MP Nick Smith (that's like the congressman from YOUR OWN district), together with National's education spokesperson Bill English, walked in, signed up, and had pictures taken by the local newspaper to demonstrate the flaw in the system. I'm neither Labour nor National, but Nelson doesn't need the constituent MP to castigate something working well for the community for his own political stunts.

So, funding is cut starting next year, Richmond and Blenheim centres will open for shorter hours; Nelson's Community Computer Centre will close, but similar on-campus free course is hopefully in the plan. Oh, our good friend Warwick was the first and long-serving coordinator for this Centre, and he poured his heart and soul into the programme; he hasn't got a potty-mouth, but I'll refrain from "printing" his comments.

I took this photo a few days after Nick Smith was in the paper this winter and here's an article clearing NMIT of any wrongdoing.

Today is Theme Day. Other DP Blogs have also shown Something About to Disappear from their cities. Please click on the numbers below to view them.

1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10 -11 -12 -13 -14 -15 -16 -17 -18 -19 -20 -21 -22 -23 -24 -25 -26 -27 -28 -29 -30 -31 -32 -33 -34 -35 -36 -37 -38 -39 -40 -41 -42 -43 -44 -45 -46 -47 -48 -49 -50 -51 -52 -53 -54 -55 -56 -57