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New Zealand: Waitakere – Arataki Visitor Centre in Waitakere NZ
It’s surprising to find this peace and quiet in this amazing location outside the Arataki Visitor Centre in Waitakere so close to the bustling city of Auckland. These steps take you eventually up up up to the sky view. 
New Zealand: Waitakere – Life From Death
We liked it when this sign on an Arataki trail in Waitakere NZ teaches us how dead trees are a life system for other life forms: slaters, cockroaches, millipedes, wetas, spiders live on the decay.
New Zealand: Waitakere – Weta in New Zealand
Look closely and you can see a live Weta which lives at the Arataki Visitor Centre in Waitakere NZ. Wetas are so old that they have outlived the dinosaurs. They’ve hardly changed in 100 million years. They are nocturnal and are among the heaviest insects in the world. There are about 100 different varieties of Weta in New Zealand.
New Zealand: Waitakere – Inside the Arataki Visitor Centre
You just never know who you might meet when you travel. This wooden sculpture of a male is inside the Arataki Visitor Centre and Himione Heketarere is carved on the bottom.
New Zealand: Waitakere – Views from outside the Arataki Visitor Centre
From the Arataki Visitor Centre in Waitakere, you can see the Hauraki Gulf (Pacific), Rangitoto, and north past Auckland city centre. If you gaze south past Auckland Airport, you’ll glimpse the Bombay Hills and west will lead your eyes to Manukau Harbour (Tasman Ocean).
New Zealand: Waitakere – Hotel Weta
Outside the Arataki Visitor Centre in Waitakere NZ, you can often see a local bug, the Weta in this hotel especially built for them. The second image is what they look like. Wetas are over 100 million years old (they knew the dinosaurs!) and haven’t changed much in all that time.
US: Seattle, WA – Rainbow Colors in Chihuly’s Macchia Forest
When Dale Chihuly was developing his Macchia forest he had a goal to use all 300 glass colors available in the hotshop. He was able to push the scale of these shapes up to four feet in diameter.
Canada: Sault Ste Marie, Ontario – Black Beaver Falls
At the Agawa Canyon Park, the River Trail will take you to these high roaring Black Beaver Waterfalls. Wooden viewing platforms make it all easy and enjoyable.
Canada: Agawa Canyon, Sault Ste Marie, Ontario – Wearing Bridal Veil Falls on my Head
Often people take photos without realizing how things are lined up. Here the Bridal Veil Falls have been placed on my head as a bridal veil. No, I wasn’t getting married in Agawa Canyon Park.
Canada: Sault Ste Marie, Ontario – Bridal Veil Falls in Agawa Canyon
At the end of the Agawa Canyon train ride, there are easy trail walks. Here the Bridal Veil Falls make for nice photography with reflections in the lake.
