Taumarunui

Yesterday, Linda and I took a drive over to Lanark and down into the Clyde valley. It's a very fertile area and there are several, and have been more, nursery gardens along the length of the young River Clyde, some of which have kept up with current trends for outlets not only selling plants but also garden furniture and furnishings! We do seem to be using our gardens as extra living space these days, and garden design is as big a business as interior design. We had lunch at the Silver Birch Garden Centre and had a look round the plants for sale. Being very restrained, I only bought a French lavender and a small Buddha statue. On we went to Sandyholm, the next big, probably bigger, Garden Centre to the Coffee Shop for a cup of tea and a scone! After a wander round Sandyholm it was time to return to Peebles so I could get to work at 6p.m. Nothing of note occurred last night so let's do another bit of the journey through North Island, New Zealand.

I drove on from the "Republic" and arrived after dark at Taumarunui. Just arriving at one end of the town's main street I felt there was a familiar feel to it! The shops were all lit up along one side of the wide street with parkland in darkness opposite. It reminded me of looking west along Princes Street, Edinburgh, back home in Scotland. The next day, seeing it in daylight didn't dispel the illusion! It did remind me of Edinburgh! Oh the buildings weren't the same but the layout was so similar, even to there being a railway line running along parallel to the street, behind the park! I almost expected to look up across the park and see a castle up on a hill!

And this photo could almost be looking east along Princes Street, to Calton Hill. There even IS a hill, though not with a monument!

Taumarunui, whose name I couldn't quite get to grips with, is in an area designated The King Country, and the large boulder, with top hat, in the park has a poem on a plaque....

As always, you can click-a-pic to enlarge it!

I like the first lines -

This is a country

Beyond the means of time to a stranger.

To know it you are born.

I feel this sums up why, even though I love to travel, I could never make my home anywhere else but in Britain, probably more so Scotland, as that's the country I was born into and grew up in, learning its culture and history from a very young age. The history, even recent, of somewhere else is indeed beyond the means of time to this stranger. I feel it too in a smaller way having moved from Edinburgh first to Yorkshire and now here. I haven't got the history here. MY past isn't here. Does that make sense? I don't feel it so much in Peebles these days as I have been here a long time now, but I felt it strongly in Yorkshire!

Anyway, more pics from Taumaranui now...

The town clock - not a large face but clear enough - and one on either side of the loco!

It's autumn for goodness sake and look at all the buds still to come out on this camelia!

There is quite a mix of trees in the parkland opposite the shops.

And is this what is called a strawberry tree? I don't kmow, but the fruits look like strawberries, and they were growing on a tree!

Moving on again, my journey took me by Whakamaru where the bridge over the river from the lake, is a power station. More black swans on the lake showing off white under feathers,

and a ring of red toadstools with white spots - fly agaric? poisonous anyway I should think - on the grass beside the lake.

Further along the lake are picnic spots and walking tracks, and it is possible to take your boat out onto the water!

Well, next time the photos will all be from Rotorua. There are so many I will have to pick and choose the best ones, but what to miss out? I'll decide next time!

Talk again soon.