The Shaky Isles of New Zealand

We had an earthquake tonight... a huge one, recorded as 7.8, with a 6.1 aftershock felt 19 minutes later, centred down south in Fiordland, but it sure made facebook hum with comments for a while! There was a tsunami warning out - but luckily this has been cancelled.

Read all about it here and here

New Zealand is often referred to as "The Shaky Isles" ... we have fault lines through the country, and have had some significant shakes over the years.  As well as our earthquakes and geothermal areas, we also have active volcanoes.... and there are some great photos of Mt Ruapehu erupting in 1996 here .

 I guess we are still very much a developing country!!!


Phoebe's dad sent me this video recently.... we share an affection for Irish music... more notably The Pogues, but who can resist a spot of Irish dancing, particularly when it makes Simon Cowell laugh. I expect they would have registered on the Richter scale too!

 

PS thinking about the cygnet yesterday, we found this today

Here is the world's first bionic Goose. The two-week old gosling was found with a broken leg, but vets did not have the heart to put it down.

Amazing... might have to investigate!!!