NZ holiday snaps: Random pics

This looks like Miami, Los Angeles or some tropical island, perhaps. In fact it's in Napier, a city all but wiped out by an earthquake 80 years ago. They rebuilt the city in the style of the day: art deco. I'll post a bunch of pictures from Napier soon.


I took several eps of Nina and the Neurons out to New Zealand to see if one of my younger nephews would enjoy the show. [Alas, now of the five eps I've written were available when I fly out.] My nephew fell in love with it, as proven by this picture of him staring at perky Nina on a TV screen.


This is a small creek, headed for one of the most northerly beaches on the South Island. Very close to the charmingly named Farewell Spit, which was unfortunately underneath a high tide the day I went for a look.


Proof - if proof were needed - that putting traffic cones on statues is a worldwide activity. Here some scamps have added not one but two cones to a statue in Auckland, just off Mayoral Drive. There's a closer view below.




This billboard caught my eye in Taupo, think it's for water heaters or somesuch. What tickled me was the salesman's enthusiasm, the eager response from the woman, and the sour face on her boyfriend/husband. A closer view below.




Last but not least, here's a native NZ bird called the Kakopo. It was at the Pukaha Mount Bruce National Wildlife Center, home of the recently hatched white Kiwi, Manukura. Sadly, you couldn't see Manukura the day I visited. Sigh.