the wonderful west coast

Well Virginia - I will admit it does rain a lot of the time on the West Coast - but it's friendly rain and helps the bush with its lushness and beautiful colours and the stones like it too and so do the waterfalls..... It wasn't raining here as you can see - Bruce Bay - wow Bruce - a bay named after you and a beautiful spot as well.
And here on the coast are these special rock piles - we have no idea why but someone may have started it and others followed -

some more rock pancake stacks. Appropriate for Grant and Bruce but I don''t remember stacking them - they just ate each one in turn as I made them - in fact faster than I could make them.

We stayed the night in Franz Josef - remember this was our wedding anni - had a lovely room opening out into the bush where we sat outside and drank champagne and squashed the sandflies as they landed - easier to deal with than mozzies...

Then we went to dinner at The Beaches - nice food - interesting combos and the waitress did try hard. Maybe a new keen chef trying to pop rather too many flavours on the one plate but it was most enjoyable. Nothing as over the top of the overkill of beetroot Bev and I had in Havelock North last year.

In the morning we went to the glacier at Franz Josef - the weather was great but it started to close in when we were leaving. Middle Earth can roll in quite fast.

Crossing a little ford - I think Ian was hovering with the camera in the hope that I might fall in?

One of the beautiful waterfalls you might see on the West Coast - this one was around the glacier area.
Here is the glacier in its glory - if you haven't been to NZ then you must visit the West Coast when you do - rain, green, not too many people and it even looks tidier than it used to. And the scenery - well...... I am not a red dirt girl - my soul needs this environment for recharging.
Don't forget to click on the pics to see more detail.

We are pretty busy here - Studios and Art Quilting Studio have arrived and quite a few new books - Ian is hoping to get stuff on the web tomorrow and Quilting Arts is due on Friday - you never know when these mags are going to arrive these days. I am hoping to get into my studio tomorrow to put things away and get to my machine - just need to finish the last pieces using my flower stitcher. Rae and Jacinta are busy sending parcels of goodies for restocking. It's been exciting opening up the parcels - Rae is adding crinkle silk to her range - the first few are rather scrumptious and I am going to take one to use with velvet on the embellisher but not before I finish my book stuff. It should be ready to go to the printers on Monday I hope.