Once upon a time I visited the Bay of Islands and wrote a post on it (click here). I recently had the pleasure of going back there and getting out into the bay on the Cream Trip, which is a full day boat tour run by Fullers that takes in locations which historically were farms from which cream was collected. It also goes to (and through!) the Hole in the Rock and aims to see local Bottlenose Dolphins. Enjoy the views!
An invasive species to NZ but here is a cute Rainbow Skink. This cheeky little chap was posing while sunning himself on some concrete outside the house one day…thank goodness for 100x zoom and a steady hand!
I can just imagine him thinking “Has he seen me? Perhaps if I stand really still he’ll go away.”
Here is a photo…what do you call them?
The Kiwis call them Jandals (a shortening of Japanese Sandals)
The British call them Flip Flops (I assume because of the sound they make while walking in them)
The Australians call them Thongs (which in Britain is a type of skimpy underwear, why do they get called this Down Under?)
Isn’t language peculiar at times? 😄
I like to do an occasional jigsaw and recently picked a couple up from the local Salvation Army store…one claimed to be the World’s Most Difficult and the other was just branded Impossibles.
Starting with the World’s Most Difficult, this puzzle was 529 pieces which had the same picture (a cartoon airport scene) on both sides, but with one image rotated by 90 degrees. The pieces were also cut square so you couldn’t tell which was vertical and horizontal. Sound hard? You might think so but when you have two pieces that have essentially the same image on them, you know that if one doesn’t fit in the location, it must be upside down and transposed along the diagonal. The upshot being that you really have a jigsaw that is just 265 pieces and is about as easy as it gets. Bit of an over-engineered item really.
Now for the Impossibles. Called “Fourteen Carrots”, this has 750 pieces PLUS 5 extra pieces. The puzzle also has no straight edge! Sounds tough? It must’ve taken me about three days of daylight hours (I become quite obsessive when doing such things, to be honest!)…not only was it tough when you have no idea if some pieces even have a linking piece, but the pattern of gems was even rather repetitive. Nice to feel a small sense of achievement anyway, especially after having had my patience tried on multiple occasions! 🙂
