For the beauty of the earth!

They were talking on the local news last night that there is evey kind of topography here in New Zealand and often times the differences are only a few minutes up the road.  They were talking about why this was such a great place to film the Lord of the Rings and the soon-to-be released the Hobbit.  It is truly Hobbit fever here.  Too bad I am not all that thrilled with the story but we will go to the movie when Nate is visitng here.  It is hard not to.  Anyway, I thought I would just share a few things about the vegetation that you see along the side of the road.  

This pretty yellow flower was growing close to the road.  It reminded me of forsythia that blooms in the early spring in the US.  I really enjoyed looking at it.  

Then the drive/tour guide told us that in the 1850 someone brought them into New Zealand from England so they could use it as a natural fence between properties.  It was great because it was so tight that the sheep were not able to leave the station where they belonged. But the one thing they did not count of was the way it would spread and just take over the land.

When a rancher decides that he is going to clear his property and plant it then he has to burn those pretty yellow flowers and plant otherwise they will just take over the fields and they will not be successful.  It does look nice!

This reddish grass is known by many names. It is chionochloa and is kind of like a taller monkey grass or a small pampas grass.  The locals call it snow grass or snow tussock.  It was all over the land as we got closer to the foothills of the Southern Alps.  It was very pretty and was just like an undulating ocean in the breeze.

By Mirror Lake we saw this big knob on a tree.  I am sure someone knows what these things are called but I don't.  I just thought they looked neat.