Skip to main content

New Zealand in pixels

It is quite a task to curate and select what to share with others when you think there was just this overwhelming abundance of sensory delights.

So I will try to do justice and share vistas nature created both large scale and small, wild and domesticated life, then some of man's creations some edible and some not to add to the kaleidoscope that was the islands of New Zealand.

Tropical Bottlebrush also called New Zealand's Christmas tree as these bloom in summer when NZ celebrates its Xmas.  Quite spectacular and seen in all parts - this specimen was in front of the government buildings in capital city of Wellington.

Taking Terns at the sunny rock

Zollywood fans rejoice - none in our family was particularly keen to see any of the Hobbits so we stuck to what was freely visible aka humans
Lot of places have LOTR messaging so that you do the right thing and buy some of the magic in a bottle or a shirt or something...
Local 'May I help you' comes in the form of wonderful public private partnership run tourism offices called I SITE - this one in Matamata made to look like a Hobbit abode.


Rotorua or land of the thermal geysers was particularly styled in Tudor ..



Wonderful evening on lake Rotorua..north island..


you can farm anything ... we saw goats, deer (which is big since Venison fetches better $ per pound) sheep (of course) and ostrich as the go to meat to breed..

yes there are also their fair share of Stalactites and Mites in caves nearby..

More later..






Comments

  1. What is a hobbit? An IT pro with a hobby?

    ReplyDelete
  2. funny...I wonder if they developed Middleware (the movies make a -weird- reference to middle earth I am told)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Back in DC

This time for a tech conference in the realm of what else? AI. But applied to an oft neglected space called Knowledge Management. The latter is a community of practice that focuses on analyzing, organizing and making available reams of data that have been gathered over time by various functions within an organization for anyone in the company to utilize. This function or process is ripe for applying AI agents (or agentic AI framework) and optimize for better outcomes. It was informative. More rewarding was getting acquainted with folks who practice this craft as well as learning of what they see in the corporate or public sectors. Since the venue was Washington DC it also afforded me the chance to take evening strolls albeit the weather was trying. With wind chill in the single digit it still is a glamorous place to perambulate through history absorbing what this country has been through since its founding days. I was able to visit the place Lincoln was killed along with his monument t...

Costa Rica

 Our first foray into Central America. That elongated isthmus that forms the geographic boundary between two vast continents of North and South America. Specifically landing for NYE 2026 in San Jose, Costa Rica. Capital city for this region that does not have its own army, instead relying on its big bro the Estados Unidos to the north is a metropolis of approx. 500K people. Largely wilderness and with both a Pacific and Carribean/Atlantic coast the country is rich in bio diversity. In Spanish it means the rich coast so named by Columbus landing in early 16th century and being mesmerized by the local tribes sporting gold jewelry.   Our stay included visiting the foothills of a large strato volcano called Arenal and enjoying the naturally heated thermal baths for a while.  Lunching amidst lush forest and watching indigenous species of avian noise makers fly overhead. Toucans, some sort of pea hens, multiple song bird species completed the spectacle. Iguanas and a lonel...

A few good books

 On an informal mission to read one book a week as long as the eyes allow for such ambition. Fiction or non is not important as long as it entertains and /or educates. To that end the past few weeks have brought a bounty in the form of some wonderful and then not so engaging literature. Among the notables are - Non fiction category: 1. Good arguments by Bo Seo (how to handle a dispute or debate the most efficient way possible) 2. Genesis by Eric Schmidt (and former US Secy of State Henry Kissinger, who recently passed) - how AI might affect our lives as we know it 3. One in a billion - Zarna Garg (an autobiographical look at an Indian born American woman with a bindi narrated in a standup format - yes it is at times cliched but still funny) Fiction: 1. Personal by Lee Child (a vigilante story with Jack Reacher the giant, nomad protagonist of Child's novels goes hunting for a sniper) 2. Ramayana unraveled by Ami Ganatra (she might disagree about it being a work of fiction but oh wel...