On The Road Again

Keeping your eyes open when travelling 'on the road' can be rewarding (not to mention safer!) as entertaining sights present themselves.
To illustrate:
Just near Beaumont in Central Otago I came across a delightfully un-PC road name:

Lawrence, as I cruised through, struck me as very 'churched' place, there being a significant number still for such a small place. The Anglicans have the road from Dunedin covered, although the Methodists have made an attempt to make their presence visible!
I was also struck by how widespread and beautifully vibrant the yellow flowers of broom and gorse were.
Although, of course, I'm used to thinking of those 2 plants as beings invasive weeds. I noticed them first on the slopes of the hills overlooking the airport as I arrived in Dunedin, and then began to see them wild as I headed into Central and then in hedgerows in Southland.
The New Zealand farmed countryside is often though of as drab - all browns and greens. But in Crookston, I saw these strident stripes of colour - I've no idea what they were, but they stood out!

And then approaching Manapouri,there was a fine crop in full flower:

I took a round-about route from Dunedin to Manapouri, by way of Lawrence to Rae's Junction, then down the Tapanui-Rae's Junction Highway to Gore and thence across to Manapouri. The reason was to visit and photograph some headstones at the Crookston Cemetery. On the short side-road out to the Cemetery, I was held up (briefly) by three small birds, who had decided just to sit down in the middle of the road. Discretion got the better of them and they let me pass, but on the way back they were still wandering about, so of course they feature here as well.
I just had to stop and take this picture as well - I still am not sure just what this entails (no pun intended!), and the mind boggles as to what the 'commissioning might involve.

Of course a trip of mine wouldn't be complete without a visit to a cemetery, which I did at Lumsden. Sometimes it can be depressingly sad. Stuck out on it's own, tucked under the hedge, is a solitary grave - isolated, neglected and lonely. And the headstone tells a sorry tale. I've no idea who these people were, but it seems unfortunate they are remembered only in this manner.

But then cemeteries can also provide entertainment - some names leave you chortling!

Mossburn doesn't have a lot recommend it, you'd have to say. So they grab whatever proximity to fame they can:

And it does have a church named for a French saint - are there any other churches in NZ named after her? I can't recall seeing any.

I had forgotten how hard the countryside is near Manapouri. The tussock looks terrific in the wind (& the day I travelled was windy!)
And the Takitimus are great slabs of scree slope now - erosion holding sway over large areas.
And then my much-travelled car delivered me to Manapouri, where the weather was clear at the township but stormy over the tops across the Lake.