New Zealand: Shakespeare Cliff Scenic and Historic Reserve

Look at the native bush and the naturally sculpted rocks we saw on March 7th at the Shakespeare Cliff Scenic and Historic Reserve in Cooks Bay on the Coromandel Peninsula. If you’d like a better look at the closest and most prominent rock formation, click the excerpt below.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

New Zealand: basking in the sun

It wasn’t I who was basking in the sun on pastel-colored rocks at the Matakaea Reserve on February 27th but a bunch of New Zealand fur seals (Arctocephalus forsteri), including this one. To enlarge the seal, click its image below.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

New Zealand: Oh, those rocks

Anyone who had grown up in the southwestern quadrant of New Zealand’s South Island and had never traveled elsewhere could be forgiven for assuming that every other region in the world has patterned rocks lying around in abundance. If only it were so, say we from most other places. Above is another view from February 21st of Lake Wakatipu, this time emphasizing the rocks strewn along its shore. Below is a downward-looking closeup of a few.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

New Zealand: Moeraki Boulders

I was sorry not to get to see the Moeraki Boulders during our first New Zealand trip, so I made sure to go there on the second trip. Once I finally arrived on February 27th, I didn’t find the boulders as impressive as they were cracked up to be, but cracked most of them certainly were.

Downright dilapidated, in some cases:

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

New Zealand: the colors on the cliffs at Tunnel Beach

Close looks in the opposite direction from the one in yesterday’s view revealed colors in the mosses, minerals, and lichens near the base of the cliffs at Tunnel Beach on February 26th.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

New Zealand: Cable Bay

In the Cable Bay section of Doubtless Bay on February 13th I focused on the rocks and shells along the beach. In particular, I was intrigued by clusters of small black mussels that looked to me as if they could be pieces of obsidian.

I take the genus to be Xenostrobus, but if anyone knows for sure, please chime in. Here’s a closer look at a group of these mussels.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

New Zealand: more than a glacier at the glacier

The Franz Josef Glacier is in a part of New Zealand that gets between 2 and 10 meters of rain a year. When we visited on February 20th, I got the impression that glacial meltwater had combined with runoff from rainfalls to keep several local waterfalls well supplied. Above you see one of them in its full height. To get a sense of how high that was, compare the sizes of the trees.

Below is a detail of a more-accessible waterfall’s base.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman