Hi All
I've been away for two days (wish it was more), up the middle of the island, past our own broken-backed mountains, Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu. That's Tongariro (Mt Doom in LotR) off to the right. (1)
I went to stay with a dairy farmer friend who lives just in the shadow of what you might call Brokeback Hill, Maungatautari (loosely, supplejack mountain). (2)
They're spending millions putting a predator-proof fence around it so that the birds will survive. (Our birds suffered badly from all the introduced predators: cats, Australian possums, ferrets, stoats, weasels). It's wonderful inside, lots of birds, and NZ birdsong is amazing. (3, to come)
On Saturday we went on to Hamilton to see, inter alia, the statue of Richard O'Brien, who wrote The Rocky Horror Show and plays Riffraff in the film. It's set up on the site of the cinema where he saw science fiction double features in his youth. (4, to come)