At the Beach with Dad and Holly

Sorry for the long gap between posts. Dad and I have been very busy doing all kinds of fun stuff, and I have continued to be positively busy at work. I have taken some days off while Dad is here, but am still working several days a week. Added to all of this, I have applied for a job in New Plymouth, which is exciting, but also took up a lot of time getting my application ready. So I definitely feel that I have had a full plate lately. Full of good things, but very full.

Last week, (I can't even hazard a guess what day, considering that it feels like years ago), Dad and I went to South Beach. It was a beautiful day, and although it was windy on the beach, it was much less so than usual, which I enjoyed. Dad has been very lucky weather-wise, with lots of sun and not too much wind.

Dad and Holly enjoying the beach. They have become great friends, which is no surprise, since they are both so easy to get along with.

This is a bluebottle jellyfish. They are little and pretty, but I have heard that they can sting if you touch them, and I have not tested that.

Dad found a tiny shell that looks like paua (NZ abalone), and this beautiful starfish. He was surprised to find that a starfish could have 9 legs, but then the next day, we saw a similar one in the museum that had 11!

Can you guess what this is? We thought that it looked like the world's largest pine cone, but we eventually ruled that out.

We think that it is the centre of the top of a palm tree, like the ones in this picture. We see palm trees like this all around NZ (which I love, because they look like fireworks exploding at the top). 

We think that the large centre at the top would look like this if all the branches were gone, because you can still see where all of those huge palm fronds connected. Pretty cool, hey?

This is a freshwater stream that connects to the ocean a ways down the beach. Last time I was there, it was less than half that size, which I think is interesting, because we're in what Kiwis call a drought. 

On the way back, we veered away from the beach and walked among the dunes and scrubby grass, which was also fun. Despite all evidence to the contrary, this picture was taken 20 yards from the ocean. Hard to imagine, but that's how NZ seems to work.

This seems to me to be the Kiwi version of tumbleweed. We saw hundreds of this stiff puffballs in the dunes. They blew easily in the wind, so it seems to be effective. And they are very pretty.

Stay tuned for more of our adventures, coming soon!