Woody-eared jelly fungus, which used to have a racial name.

Small spider and other insects on a dog daisy. Click to zoom in for detail.

This centipede is a little over 7 inches long. They can grow longer, but not often seen. Beware his bite, it can numb you for several hours.

This is the rift caused in 1886 when Tarawera erupted along its full length.

Eruption of Tarawera, 10 June, 1886.

Sombre mountain, black, forbidding all around the placid lake.
Drifting wisps of snowy vapour where the geysers thud and shake.
Harsh abruptness of the mountain softened by the smoky haze.
Glowing terraces of pink and white agleam in noonday blaze.
This the scene of eerie wonder tourists came from far to view.
This the home of the Tuhourangi, once so many, now so few
Because they heeded not the warning of Tuhotu old and grim,
Because they said 'He is old and foolish, let us have no thought of him,
For we are young and youth must have its gaiety, joy and life.'
And so the white mans drink ran free and white mans vice and crime were rife.

Tamaohoi, spirit of the mountain, heard Tuhotu's call,
Heard and started to prepare to cause their ghastly death to fall.
He gave them warning, ah, but who could understand the ghostly sign?
I saw it, I Te Marama, saw plain the death canoe's outline,
The standing figures bowed of head, the spirits plumed as if for death.
I saw them in the twilight clearly, then all gone on a breezes breath.

These are the opening lines of a poem written by my oldest sister Tui when she was 12 years old. It goes on for many more lines, describing the eruption.

Mount Tarawera

               Mt Tarawera above Rotorua Lake. It erupted 10 June 1886.

I dont know what happened to the 3rd picture I tried to post. I tried twice, but it seems to have disappeared into the wild blue yonder.

Sealion and butterfly

One of Phil's photos

                                             Black swan takes flight.

1987 photos by my husband

                                         Pine cone and seedling.

    An old photo that my father took in 1939, of a ferry across a river on the  Hauraki plains. We used to cross with our car and caravan to go up the Coromandel coast for our holidays.

                         The Mangatawhiri water supply Dam in the Moumoukai Valley.

   The Wairoa Dam, another water supply dam for Auckland in the Hunua hills.
              The lake continues for some distance to the right of the photo.

          Cossey's Dam, one of 5 supplying water from the Hunua Hills to Auckland.

                                         This orchid is Dendrobium.

                Our largest native orchid, Pterostylis, Maori name Tutukiwi.
                                  The flower is green with white stripes.

            The black streaks down the mountain are mud flows, or lahars.

      This is the plane in which we were flown round the erupting mountain.