Where have I been?

Wellington for the National Digital Forum. Two days of fabulous speakers, both local and international on all things digital for people working in libraries, museums, archives and galleries. It was held at Te Papa which is a wonderful museum worthy of far more time than the 20 minutes I managed to squeeze in. So here are some more "not your usual conference photos'.

The first time I've ever seen a recycle bin in a hotel room

Lovely bones - Phar Lap and a blue whale

The Colossal Squid! I logged on to SquidCam when they were defrosting it (sounds icky but was a wonderful geek moment)

Coat racks - obviously not just a Christchurch thing

and finally a wonderful pub that we passed on our way back to the hotel

A house passed me today

On my way back from Sth Taranaki.

Note to self: take seriously the bloke leaning out of a ute waiving a stop sign, even if you can't see anything worth stopping for.

New specs!

According to the expert I am exactly as blind as I have been for the past 2 years so I could have just stuck with my current specs - then he showed me these.


Blue arms...

That click off ...
(a little scary the first few times you do this because...well...you know...glasses are supposed to stay together)

and then you click on your new colour...






and you have a whole new look!

What geek girl in her right mind wouldn't buy them?!?

Spot the difference

You have seen this view from our tea room before but there is a significant difference. Can you spot it?

The Wind Wand is missing. It took 12 guys, a very large crane and a helicopter 3 hours to take it down and fly it off for cleaning and a new paint job. It's 7 years since it's last clean and weather permitting it will be back, all sparkly and fresh at the end of next week.

Rhodofest

Officially it's the Taranaki Rhododendron & Garden Festival and I finally got to some of the gardens on the weekend, well 2 actually plus the carvers who are part of the Fringe Garden Festival. Yup, 51 official gardens are not enough, there are also 72 fringe gardens, studios and the tractor trail. Te Kupinga Stone Sculpture Society create stunning carvings out of the local andesite - art meets power tools!

Then I went to the Japanese Tea House. It is a beautiful little tea house built of traditional materials in a backyard with a fabulous view of the mountain. It was a bit cloudy but if you look carefully it is there.

Then on sunday I went to Tupare which is an historic home just 10mins from town but it feels miles away. You come in at the top o the ridge and the gardens go all the way down to the river.

Most wonderfully there is a field at the bottom full of daisys and buttercups! Just like going to the zoo to see the pidgeons, my favourite flowers were the ones growing wild.

It's cracker night!

It's Guy Fawkes night and every second backyard in New Plymouth is lighting up with fireworks. Cracker night stopped in Aus ages ago because of the fire risk (Nov being the beginning of the bushfire season) and it's illegal to sell fireworks everywhere except the ACT. Here you can go into your local variety store and buy a whole range of things to light up for the 3 days prior to Nov 5th.

So...there have been sparkly lights of a non-alien nature in the sky all night since sunset - nice!

What's worth getting up early for?

Well not early by some standards but it was a Saturday. Anyway... a Steam Train!! It brought a load of people up from Wellington for the weekend to visit the gardens during Rhodofest and left from outside Puke Ariki at 8.30 to take them round the mountain for the day.

And just in case you were wondering, no there isn't a station just level pedestrian crossings so it was all a bit rustic for those getting on. It's actually a freight line so the trains don't usually stop which added to the novelty.