We recently made a trip to Dunedin to celebrate with a friend who, after battling an aggressive brain tumor, is now cancer-free. What a special reason to have a party! We enjoyed the drive through the mountains; the rata is blooming the most it has in about 20 years and was spectacular. That’s the red flowers you can see on the mountain sides in the next few pictures. Rata is a vine that climbs up a tree and eventually engulfs the tree, becoming a tree itself and killing its host. The bees love it, and the beekeepers are quite happy with this season; rata honey is apparently something special.
One afternoon while we were in Dunedin, three families went to the Botanical Garden for an hour or so. The children loved playing on the playground and walking the tracks, and I grabbed these pictures of my girls on a giant pinecone. I got a few other pictures, but they have too many children from other families in them to share here.
This was an overview of part of the gardens, as we headed down the hill to the playground.
On our way home, we stopped for a short time at Moeraki Boulders. The last time we stopped there it was raining, so we didn’t see much. It was fun to investigate today, even though the tide was so high.
We saw a couple of boulders that had split open. It was very interesting to see inside them!
This boulder seems to have only recently washed out of the cliff. It was nearly perfectly spherical, and still smooth. For reference, Mr. Sweetie, to the left, is just over five feet tall, and Gayle is just over six feet.
I always love seeing the Rakaia River when we cross the Gorge on our way through. It is so blue!
I’ll be sharing more pictures in the next two weeks from our trip–there were too many for one post!
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