The English word and the Arabic word can be translated, directly, as each other.
In either language, however, this “simple” word has an enormous number of different meanings, nuances, layers…
Comments closedCategory: New Zealand
Believe it or not, the world capital of Steampunk is an “ordinary” coastal town, three hours south of Christchurch, on New Zealand’s South Island.
The Guinness Book of World Records has “proved” this, as explained here.
Comments closed
Not long ago – within my own 65 years, I think – the ground on which I stood at 12.30 pm on March 17, 2019 – would not have been visible, much less fetchingly clad in lichens, mosses, et al…
One Comment
They were ducks, not geese, they were not “in chevron flight”, and they were almost certainly not beginning a seasonal migration.
Nonetheless, a certain longtime-favourite Joni Mitchell song leapt into my head.
Comments closed
These Pacific Ocean waves are breaking between Lion’s Head Rock and the shore of Sandfly Bay, on New Zealand’s Otago Peninsula.
Comments closed
I took this post’s photo late on the afternoon of 14 July 2010, just below a small waterfall on Oahu Stream, near Kaikoura on New Zealand’s South Island.
Comments closed
Our hero/heroine was not delighted by his/her (temporary, brief) removal from the “motel” which s/he shares with an even more astonishing animal.
Respectively, reptile and insect, the Southern Alps gecko and the Mountain stone weta are two of many reasons that visitors to Wanaka ought ensure they visit Mou Waho; as well as scenic splendour, the island offers crucial sanctuary to vulnerable species.
Comments closed
The featured image shows a New Zealand bellbird, Anthornis melanura.
(photos copyright Doug Spencer, all taken on Mou Waho, 21 March 2019)
However, this post’s star is a less “glamorous” but altogether more curious bird – in both senses of “curious”.
Comments closed
New Zealand’s South Island has a number of large, deep, glacier-carved lakes.
Each is jaw-droppingly beautiful…but all are far from pristine.
Only long after ancient Rome’s “fall” did Aotearoa/New Zealand first “enjoy” human presence; available evidence suggests that Maori settlement began a little less than 750 years ago.
Comments closed