Wanganui - UCOL Library - some more shots of the work place. We actually do get work done in between tea breaks.

Wanganui - UCOL Library workplace - one of the employees had a birthday and she shouted for tea that day and what a tea it was. Sorry if I make you hungry with the photos. Some little people came by to see what their gran was up to.

Napier - More of the inside of the ASB bank illustrating Maori design and other Art Deco buildings that caught my eye along with the leaded glass above store fronts and the ever exotic palm trees with old light fixtures.

Napier - The Sound Shell was the scene of big bands in the 1940s, roller skating derbies in the 1950's and now for public meetings or events. It is really beautiful right on the beach with huge Norfolk Pines. The Norfolk Pines were all raised up 2 metres after the earthquake and looked like they would die but survived miraculously. The ASB bank is interesting because it includes Maori design outside and inside.

Napier - Louis Hay was the architect of the Art Deco buildings I liked the best in Napier. His building is the brick one. The Art Deco buildings are characterized by zig zag designs taken from the skyscrappers in NY that were forced by legislation to be stepped back as they got taller so sunlight could penetrate to the streets below. The buildings all had features that emphasized streamlining - sleek metal, speed lines, lots of predominant upward design themes, and the loss of all the heavy Victorian and Edwardian heavy balustrades.

The flower display is actually from the Library at Wanganui UCOL. One of the employees there is so talented artistically. She can just go outside the building and find lovely materials in the plantings. Getting back to Napier because so much of it got destroyed in the earthquake of 1931 [there was also a fire immediately following the earthquake that claimed 162 people] their city was kind of frozen in time and it is the Art Deco capital of the world. Bertie is a Councilman for Napier and will take you on your private tour of the region in one of the old cars from 1931.

Napier - was established by a Brit who named all the streets after poets, playwrights and authors. The huge earthquake in Napier in 1931 which went on for 3 minutes at nearly 8 on the Richter scale [complete with the ground actually rolling] helped the city because it got rid of a huge lagoon and created new square miles for housing developments. Turns out that Australia, NZ and India are on one tectonic plate, and the Pacific is on another and that day the Pacific plate got underneath the NZ plate and lifted it 2 metres.

Whanganui and Napier - the first four images are in Wanganui. Two are from the fashion design show of finished garments. The flower is a double camellia that honest to gosh just was lying on the ground on the public side of a neighbour's bush so I brought it to work. It was almost as big as a dinner plate so no wonder it fell off. There is a sample of the fantastic student display from Printmaking beside the first of the Art Deco buildings in Napier.

Tranz Alpine - final shots. The mountains are getting lower and the sun is definitely setting as we leave the Southern Alps behind.

Tranz Alpine Train - the sun was already setting but the colours looked saturated with browns and greens so I kept on snapping away. Don't you just want to get out and explore where the river goes when it trails off into the distance? or find out what is behind that mountain over there?

Tranz Alpine - These are the Southern Alps whizzing by. A funny thing happened. We were going through lots of tunnels and I was on the open photographer's car and I loved the tunnels because they were warm. What I didn't realize was that after each one my face was covered in a progressively thicker layer of soot which I was totally oblivious to. Later when I had been in airport shuttles, at the YHA and interacting with lots of people I realized I must have been quite a sight. People must have wondered if I was ill or just an old fashioned coal miner.