Contrast this scene, taken 3 weeks ago:
Orewa Beach, Auckland, New Zealand 1/13/10
with this one, taken this morning:
The view from my front door, Bethesda, MD 2/6/10
And tell me – where would you rather be? I love the contrast. I love being snowbound here with my family. I love the warm summer days of New Zealand and the friends there who feel like family. I won’t choose between the two. I am just blessed that I have a life in which I can experience these extremes, the best of both worlds.
New Zealand~ where do I begin? How much do you care to hear, want to see? There are things that can only be experienced first hand, feelings that words do not do justice to. How can I convey the thrill I felt at seeing the biggest rainbow of my life, arcing miles across the open landscape, end to end, brilliant and clear, unlike any I have ever seen. With the weather we had driving back from Hawkes Bay to Morrinsville, I knew there had to be one somewhere. The sky ahead looked like this:
Foreboding sky near Morrinsville, NZ
Glorious rainbow in the Waikato Valley.
I turned my head and there it was, behind me. We were anxious to get home, so figuring out how to capture in a photo a rainbow from end-to-end didn’t even cross my mind. I don’t need it anyway. It’s burned into my memory, never to be forgotten. Some experiences are best kept that way.
New Zealand is known as the land of the long white clouds, thanks to its early Polynesian settlers. The air there is so clear, the landscape so majestic and wide open, from mountain to valley and back to maountains again. And you are never far from water. Coming from the city, where views are obsructed and the air is not so pure, I am particularly drawn to the sky in this beautiful country. It changes more often than you change your clothes.
Long white cloud view from my hotel (The Spencer on Byron) balcony in Takapuna the day I arrived in New Zealand.
Pink dusk sky days later. Hauraki Gulf
And this - the morning mist rising above Te Mata Peak - "The Sleeping Giant"
That photo was taken at Raratu Lodge in Hawkes Bay, an idyllic setting in the hills above the Tuki Tuki River, not far from the historic art-deco town of Napier, on the eastern Pacific coast of the north island. I spent 2 nights there with the best hostess and tour guide in New Zealand, Wendy Cooper (more about her later – I’m talking skies now.)
Sunset at Raratu Lodge. See the thumbnail moon?
The beach at Napier, where the color of the ocean almost matches the sky.
Tomorrow I’ll still be snowed in and will continue my travelogue from a more “down-to-earth” point of view and introduce you to the woman that made all of this possible as well as my wonderful students.
Oh wow, that translucent neon aqua blue in the rainbow, that orange mingled in the clouds and the last one where you got the strips of color going…makes me want to get out the fabric and paint.