The Rats Up The River

Grace climbing

 Thomas celebrating his first swim over the deep hole

A Secret Spot

Grace and I went exploring and found this beautiful place. We had lunch there and enjoyed the peace and quiet for about, ah, 5 minutes!

Shall I Go Now?

Ominous

Storm looming over home last night.

Daisy Chain

Summer Fun In November

Mauao

A different view of Mt Maunganui waterfront and main beach. And Mauao the small mountain that people love to climb for their daily work out.

Grace

Bee Landing

Taken at 1/200 of a second. Those wings sure do a lot of work.

My Next House

Retirement special, low maintenance, one room does all.....

(From Arrowtown Chinese settlement)

Coffee With A Friend

Alien Eggs

Did they come ashore to lay their brood?

Flax Pods

Look At Me

Yellowhammer

Apparently widespread around NZ

Is This "The Cloud"?

Things To Do Places To Go

Even the dog was impressed

Forest Bell

Click on image for larger version

Cruise Ship Departing Tauranga

Celebrity Solstice taken from one of the walking tracks on Mauao

Bridge Jump

With a very cool back flip

CRAZY!

McLaren Falls

Set video to HD (pause then with the little wheel icon bottom right set to HD) and play full screen.

McLaren Falls Bridge Over Wairoa River

Old power station in green

Grace Race

Getting organised

 On the line. Grace far right

They are off in fine style

 Half way down brain fade and looking around!

Got second...wonder why?

But they had fun.

Driftwood

Grace

We found a rope swing

Background (backside) action

McLaren Falls Today

Water

Remember how good cool water (or even warm hose water) tasted when you were a thirsty kid?

Luca & Co

My buddy from Genoa Italy at the Miami Boat Show.

Why is he so happy?

Pool Upgrade

The old pool about to be downsized. Many great memories from the nights and days in the backyard enjoying the hot water bore with family and friends from around the world not to mention the grand kids over 20 plus years.

 New beginnings.

A smaller version in progress.

Robert Galbraith AKA JK Rowling

We have this on audio books. Great story well worth a read or listen.

Natures Colour Harmony

Pink, yellow and green. Sounds ghastly but nature has a way of making even outlandish colour combinations work beautifully. 

Swastika Logo On Ships Anchor

Recently I had the good fortune to be invited out for a short trip on the 1930's steam tug Willian C Daldy on Auckland harbour

The first thing that struck me was the white anchor and especially the Swastika Logo molded into one of the flutes.

I did a little research and discovered that this symbol/Logo was a good luck symbol in India well before it became one used extensively by the Nazis in the world wars.

In fact in this case it was the symbol used by the anchor manufacturer WL Byrers & Co Ltd of Sunderland England. You learn stuff like this every day of your life....love that.

See link below

Link

Mount Beach

Small swell coming in this evening at the beach, oh and a special cloud!

With A View

One of the nicer places in the world to sit and absorb the view. Summit of Mauao Tauranga New Zealand

The Edge

Green leaf edge and opposite shadow

Exports

Container ship departing Tauranga for places unknown.

Pilot boat alongside till open water. 

Taken from north side of Mauao on a grey October day.

The Kids

 Look what arrived in my inbox today.

Grace

Hamming it up a tad

And Thomas (TARZAN) Taken on their south island holiday I suspect

A Beautiful Spot

McLaren Falls Park Tauranga

Getting Answers

After a guy fell into the harbour and had to be fished out barely alive all the local Aussie officials were trying to figure out what the hell happened