Random post-conf ramblings

A pair of sea-lions stopped to sunbake at Allens’ Beach. This is a truly impressive beach. It has wide, clean, hard-packed sand reminiscent of (surprise) Broome’s beaches.

The furry lump in the foreground is the lass of the sea-lion pair sunbaking near the high-tide mark. A bunch of Yankee tourists (drunk and sunburned) managed to bother the male enough for him to chase them, but he quickly gave up and found a nice piece of driftwood to scratch on before undertaking his own siesta.

Taieroa Head has its own set of “organ pipes” albeit not as spectacular as the set in the bush across the harbour.

The incredibly tough seaweed which grows right on the breaker line around here is still incredibly tough after it dies. I can squeeze this sample for all I’m worth and it won’t even creak. Yet it’s mostly air and weighs diddly squat.

I also wonder how it manages to grow so densely amidst such tumultuous waves and not ever get tangled up. If you could chemically supply the same property to human hair, you’d be a millionaire overnight.

It’s kind of un-nerving to have the sky go from bringht and sunny to overcast and gloomy within about 15 minutes, but this did indeed happen.

Driving back down the Otago Peninsula along the ridge road saw fog hastening across, both up and down the hill in different places. In WestOz, the same breeze which hastened the fog along would also disspiate it, but evidently Otago fog is made of sterner stuff.

I’ll be taking a coach to Christchurch tomorrow night, then flying Qantas (QF46 dep CHC 15:35(GMT+13) arr SYD 16:55(GMT+11), QF583 dep SYD 19:25 arr PER 21:10(GMT+08) at Domestic Terminal 2) home on Monday. If DIMIA will let me back in.