6/21/2020

Dugald MacKenzie Rose Gardens

When we stopped at this garden in Palmerston North several years ago, I
had no idea how special it was.


Opened in 1968, the garden has three sections: the formal rose beds, the trial grounds and the plant variety rights collection. The garden contains over 5000 roses in named beds.  The garden was named after Dugald MacKenzie the Superintendent of Parks and Reserves from 1946 to 1966. He contributed significantly to the gardens development.

The garden is also home of the New Zealand Rose Society International Rose Trial Grounds.

Click here to read more.










6/10/2020

Ladies' Rest


Ladie's Rest in Whanganui, built in 1930 for women travelers to
change from traveling clothes to 'city wear.' 
It's still in use.

6/02/2020

Paparangi where?

Hubby and I went for a ride over our long weekend (Queen's Birthday, which is actually in April) down to Whanganui and then an adventure of backroads, our favorite kind. We took Kaurapaoa Road to the boonies back of beyond and drove a few hours through tree farms in various stages. There were a few sheep and beef farms along the way, but not much else along the mostly-dirt road through the hillsides.

We took this photo of Mt Taranaki across the pine trees that will eventually be harvested for paper. FYI, pine trees grow seven times faster here in NZ than any where else, but the quality is less than perfect.


When I got home, I was anxious to see where exactly it was taken, so I went to my favorite locator page Whereisthepicture.com and it said Paparangi.

 There is no information about this area that I could find,  Wikipedia's map showed it was in the Manawatu-Whanganui area (where we drove), but my small argument with Wikipedia that it was a different 'Paparangi' than the one outside of Wellington was rejected--because there were no links to verify its location!  So I guess it's just a designation for the lumber company.

Anyway, if you want to see where we went on google maps, put in Kaurapaoa Road (not Brunswick) and follow along on satellite view.  We followed Rangitatau E Road back to civilization.