Last Sunday morning at dawn I was down at the park watching the sun come up over the Hairini bridge.
Here's looking south from the park promontory towards the Welcome Bay hills over the golden oioi (Maori for 'to shake gently') wetlands (about 1.2 m - 4 feet - tall) and the Waimapu River:
Sixteen of this beautiful park's trees are the largest of their kind in the North Island of New Zealand.
There's the history of the park here.
And there's information about the lovely orange jointed rush oioi (Apodasmia (formally Leptocarpus) similis) here.
I can't get enough of this landscape. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteGorgeous. I love that last picture best.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful, I think the last photo of the light showing through the trees is my favorite.
ReplyDeleteI love the light through the trees.....and I just noticed that's what the person before me said too. Honest though, I clicked on comment thinking that! hehe
ReplyDeleteUntil I counted you as a blogging friend, I had never heard of or seen anything called Yatton Park, Tauranga. And it's in New Zealand, you say?
ReplyDeleteDon't mind me. Typical Yank provinciality.
what beautiful country in its autumn colours! love the golden oioi wetlands... oioi being the reeds i take it?
ReplyDeleteNZ is beautiful
Yes Val, oioi is the golden 'jointed wire rush'. Which reminds me of this handy rhyme to help remember the different between three similar plants:
DeleteSedges have edges,
rushes are round,
Grasses have nodes all the way to the ground.
Glad you liked this park-y post, everyone!
ReplyDeleteRobert - there are some people in Tauranga who have not visited this park, and most New Zealanders won't have heard of it.
So, you are forgiven your ignorance. Most Americans don't know where New Zealand is, at least you do! (You DO, don't you!? - quick, look us up NOW! That's us down there in the bottom right hand corner under the printer's name. )
So you do work for NZ Tourism after all Katherine! Such loveliness one might even forget to oioi in the wetlands.
ReplyDeleteIt is a lovely park YP. Especially at dawn.
DeleteI was exceedingly lucky as a kid. The home I grew up in backed onto Yatton Park (off Harrier St). It was my backyard growing up. These pictures are gorgeous and bring back nostalgic memories.
ReplyDeleteAl, how nice to have you visit here. I know Harrier Street of course. I am envious! That must have been lovely for you to be living there. I once looked at a house that was for sale - a place relatively newly built on the back of a Harrier St section - and so a biscuit's toss from the first trees of the park. Unfortunately it only had three bedrooms and I had three kids. Although they all loved the house and all said they would sleep in an upper cupboard if I bought it!
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