Saturday 13 June 2015

Te Puna Quarry park - Observing Nature




On another one of my travels last week I visited the Te Puna Quarry Park which is about 15 mins out of Tauranga and what a lovely place it is. This time of year for us is winter so I didn't expect much in the way of colour - and yet I was very surprised. Above is one of two Monarch butterflies I spotted on a native NZ Hebe plant.




Near the entrance this wonderful Autumn coloured picnic area complete with seats, tables and sculptures.




At some point I discovered a bush walk and on the way past the stream I saw this rather large Nursery web spider hovering underneath it's web on another native plant. Normally they are only active at night and thankfully it isn't poisonous in any way.




I found these colourful flowers in the nearby Louis Braille Sensory Garden and with some of the textures I can understand why. The pansies above still provide some colour at a time when most things here are slowing down and resting.




And cyclamens plus Gazania dasies are perfect - the latter tend to flower all year round at various times and love poor soil.

Hope you enjoyed this snippet of where I've been this week - have a great weekend - more Saturday Critters here :-)

12 comments:

Pauline said...

I haven't seen a Monarch butterfly around here for months! Lucky you to find one. You can keep the spider, though. The park looks lovely.

Thomas Lee/Lee Lip Pang said...

would be nice lazing under the tree

eileeninmd said...

Beautiful flowers and butterfly. Lovely post! Thank you for linking up and sharing your post. Have a happy weekend!

Lina Gustina said...

Love your butterfly shot. Very lovely flowers too.
Beautiful place indeed.
Thanks for dropping by.

Rhonda Albom said...

Quite a lot of color for this time of year. Beautiful shots, especially the butterfly.

TexWisGirl said...

beautiful place! lovely blooms and butterfly, too.

Debbie said...

pansies are a wonderful flower, for a splash of fall color. the ones i plant here in new jersey, die off in winter and then rebloom in spring!!

this looks like a beautiful place, how fun to get such an amazing picture of a monarch in the wild!!!

EG CameraGirl said...

It doesn't seem like it could really be winter there. ;)

Al said...

What a pretty park - that butterfly shot is spectacular!

NatureFootstep said...

I love happy surprises :) And beautiful it is :)

Amy said...

depends on where you are in NZ, the lower parts of the country get snow, we would have to travel about 3 hours to get that, here it just gets frosty and icy but still sunny day most of the time :-)

Unknown said...

beautiful I especially like your butterfly shot

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