Wellington

Dave recently attended a conference in Wellington, and he took some shots of the hilly, beautiful city. I still haven't been there. He's been to three or four conferences there, and loves to stay an extra day to spend time in Te Papa, the national museum there, which has lots of art that he enjoys.

Spring

I'm a bit slow to post this photo, but wanted you to see some spring flowers. The photo was taken on September 9 a few blocks from our house. I think by now most of the daffodils have closed up shop. But there are still lots of trees blooming.

More on Quarrantine Island

After I did the post on Quarrantine Island a few days ago, I mentioned to the head of my department that I had visited the island. Turns out he has been involved for many years with the group that turned the island into a retreat center. He told me something I hadn't understood before. When someone on a ship entering Otago Harbour had scarlet fever, measles or something else contagious, EVERYONE on the ship was quarrantined until it was clear that the disease wasn't spreading. That two story building in the photos, the married couples housing, was for married couples who weren't sick. There were two other buildings like that one for people who were well. Those buildings were torn down, as was the hospital, which was where they put the people who were sick.

penguins

We have two kinds of penguins around Dunedin: blue penguins and yellow-eyed penguins. Our houseguest last week got some great photos of both, and she gave me permission to use them. The first photo is of a blue penguin, and the rest are yellow-eyed. The last item is a video she took of a yellow-eyed penguin swimming. I've never seen one swimming, so I loved it. We've seen lots of blue penguins swimming, and they look like a cross between a duck and a fish, darting through the water.

"Australia to thank . . ."

New Zealand just had the warmest August on record, and records have been kept for 155 years. Dunedin's average temperature last month was 48.2 degrees F, a little more than 2 degrees more than average. Remember, it's winter here. Some cities had average temperatures that were 4 to 6 degrees warmer than average. The newspaper article about this weather said that strong westerly winds coming off Australia had caused the warm weather. Here's the headline for the article: "Australia to thank for NZ's warmest August on record." For some reason, I thought this was an extremely odd headline, as if Australia had anything to do with westerly winds. Or as if Australia was responsible for its own weather. Or as if these warm temperatures have nothing to do with global warming.