The Friday Photo

We hadn’t been short of incredible weather or views during our time in New Zealand, but the drive from Wanaka over to the West Coast was in a class of its own.

We’d only been on the road fifteen minutes when we found ourselves pulling off again, to take photos and just gape at the beauty of Lake Hawea on a day like this.

So many glorious shades of blue and green, laid out for all to see under the hot Central Otago sun.

Wandering along the rocky beach beside Lake Waikaremoana on this wet and blustery day, it was surprising how many photo opportunities could be found with just a break in the clouds, a piece of driftwood and a willing participant…

The coastline between Oamaru and Dunedin is a rugged, wind-swept sort of a place. It’s beautiful in the way that many of the South Island’s eastern beaches are, all pounding waves and spray-filled air, but it’s not typically somewhere that many tourists would stop.

Except, of course, for a long strip of sand near the little township of Moeraki.

On that particular strip of sand lies literally dozens of spherical boulders, ranging from fairly small to over two metres across. They look as if a bunch of giants scooped them up from wherever they found them and threw them down the beach, cracking many of them in the process.

The scientific version is far less interesting – something to do with cemented mudstone being exposed by erosion.

I think I like my version better.

Blue skies, lily ponds, towering palm trees – at first glance you probably wouldn’t immediately pick this photo to be from New Zealand, and yet, of course, it is.

Napier, on the far east coast of the North Island, is a fascinating place that doesn’t get as much attention as it should. It’s a bit out of the way, off the main tourist routes that run down the middle of the island. Almost levelled by an earthquake in 1931, the subsequent rebuild has left Napier with a vast Art Deco legacy – it’s considered to be one of the best-preserved art deco towns in the world.

It’s not just the buildings that make Napier a great place to hang out, though. A long stretch of beach and so-called Mediterranean climate make the town a very agreeable place to live – and hey, anywhere with palm trees growing in the central city is always going to get my vote.

It has been a little over two years since an earthquake destroyed many parts of my home city. I hadn’t been back since it happened. Too much damage, too much destruction, too much pain. I was one of the lucky ones – I was able to make a choice about my involvement – and my choice was to watch and give money from afar.

A few weeks ago I finally returned. The Christchurch earthquake has long since fallen from the global headlines. There’s always a new war, a new dictator, a new catastrophe to report on. Out of sight, out of mind, and all that. When I spoke to them, most people outside New Zealand assumed that everything was back to normal in that little corner of the country.

It’s not. Roads are still buckled and broken. Entire suburbs lie dark and empty at night, condemned as too unsafe to ever live in and just waiting for the wrecking ball to descend. Several blocks of the inner city still remain cordoned off, the only way to access them via a bus tour that warns of the potential of injury or death before you get on board.

I used to regularly walk along the street where this photo was taken, browsing through the shop windows. It’s almost unrecognisable now, tangled piles of concrete and steel taking the place of storefronts and pedestrians.

The clean-up continues in Christchurch. It’s going to for a very long time.