All posts tagged: New Zealand

Napier’s Art Deco Weekend ’13

It’s that time of year again: Napier’s annual Art Deco Weekend was last weekend, and I went, and I had lots of fun and took 642 photos and edited them down to 469 keepers and then edited those down to 26 I want to show you today, and a few more I’ll show you for specific costume posts. It was interesting to go back to Art Deco Weekend a second time: to review my first impressions, and get another look. It was even more interesting to go back and read my write-up of last year’s weekend, and my impression of the event. I can’t say my overall view has changed much, but this year was inevitably a bit different. I described it to Rachel (my weekend partner) as both better and worse than last year – as a returnee, I didn’t get lost walking around, knew where to park and where the good restaurants were, and when all the events were. But this year also had less highlights: the op-shopping wasn’t as good, I missed …

Getaway to Golden Bay

Published by The Dreamstress

So, in case you were wondering why there were no posts at all for 5 days last week, it’s because I escaped on a ‘no internet, no worries’ weekend with a bunch of fantastic friends, including the wonderful Theresa who was over from Melbourne, Chiara who is finally back from the States, and other wonderful buddies who you may recognise from photoshoots and music videos. We took four and a half days, skipped over the channel to the South Island, and sunned ourselves in aptly named Golden Bay. (‘sunned’ meaning subjected ourselves to small amounts of outdoor time after liberal application of sunscreen – the only person who got even a tiny bit burnt was me. I forgot to put sunscreen on my part and my scalp got a bit pink and sore). It was supposed to be a ‘no internet’ weekend, but some people just didn’t get the ‘no technology’ memo: Still, there were plenty of long walks down country roads in the middle of nowhere: And lazy cup-of-tea mornings on porches overlooking the …

What I did on my summer vacation

Published by The Dreamstress

On Christmas day, sweltering in an unexpected heat wave, and waiting for news, Mr D’s cousin’s partner and I went for a walk along the tiny stream near the in-laws house, hoping to find a pool big enough to stand in to cool off. We found the perfect little pool, I was ankle-deep in heaven, I took a step forward, and discovered that the pool had another inhabitant, who also moved forward to protect its territory. There was a bit of an undiginified scramble out of the water but at least I managed to refrain from squealing. So what charged me? A New Zealand eel. There are two varieties of native eels in NZ – the longfin, found only in New Zealand, and the shortfin, which is also found in Australia and across the Pacific. Both are threatened due to loss of habitat and overfishing. The eels are pretty amazing creatures. They live to be over 100 years old, grow only a cm or two a year, and breed only once at the very end …