Photos of Plants From Near And Far: Kaikoura

Agraculture in king in New Zealands volcanic soil deposits and amazing climate. During the train ride from Kaikora to Picton the train rain along the coast and somewhere mid way were vast beautiful salt flats that are drained and harvested once a year and the refilled.

Marlboro Wine region on the way to Picton has some of New Zealand most popular and well respected vineyards.

Typical beach house in this thriving town where the town costs roads, water, electricity, can be challenging for some communities Kaikoura has a year round tourist trade.

I don't know what this plant is do you? Perhaps in the heather family?

I have never before seen a hedge of Pelargonium (zonal geraniums). The B&B that I stayed at had a Grapefruit tree and Lemon tree.

Beach grass in winter abutts the railroad tracks then the beach. The Tranz Coastal train follows the coast and path of least resistance having fewer mountains to navigate around.

Another typical beach house note the size. I met a wonderful woman who shared a bit about her community and life with me. I would guess that Karen was in her 50's worked full time and had two children. She loved her country and felt very fortunate to be able to afford to live in Kaikoura. On weekends her family most often went trekking or the typical chores that make up most folks lives. Her most expensive bill is electricity, followed by gasoline. She did say that although public transportation to Christchurch (the city closest to Kaikoura) was the most economical way to travel but she found like most of us that it is too inconvenient. The rise in the cost of gas has however made her stop and think to schedule and combine errands on one trip rather than making multiple trips. I found the cost of some food items surprisingly high and things like Round Up were extremely high in comparison to the US.

The kiwi plant which was named after the kiwi bird is one of many reasons NZ is hyper vigilant about what comes into there country as well as what leaves there country. It wasn't too long ago that the sticker on your kiwi fruit read New Zealand but after one vine was smuggled out of the country and now grows in California and Chile, New Zealand lost and important agricultural export that should have been an economic success story for the country. When you go through customs in NZ these days you also go through a agricultural screening as well that includes scent dogs, physical search, separate screening machines.

The seaweed seemed even more beautiful against the black pebble beach.

This was the morning mist rising from the Pacific Ocean at sun rise. The beaches on the west coast Tasman Sea are black sand and the Pacific east coast are black pebble.

Downtown Kaikoura This community is world famous or the whale watching excursions that travel out into the open sea in small boats. The unique combination of deep sea trenches and the upwelling of currents provides the sea life in this area with an amazing range of natural foodstuffs and this has brought the whales, dolphins, seals and other marine lie into this region. A popular thing for folks to do is to go out on one on the small boats to swim with the dolphins. Sadly the winds were to high the day that I hoped to go out whale watching.

Downtown Kaikoura

The western edge of the Canterbury plains sheep, sheep, everywhere sheep.

All of the moisture from the clouds has been dropped in the west as a result this is a hot dry very windy region.

Single lane bridges abound throughout the West. The wild rising and rushing rivers make permanent impossible so these flexible bridges are more practical.