Summer is celebrated in New Plymouth's Pukekura Park with the Festival of Lights. Colourful lights are distributed to illuminate the plants, lakes and fountains, and the daytime natural beauty becomes a vibrant and somewhat alien vision at night. Looking across the main lake towards Poets Bridge and Mt Taranaki, the lights are reflected in the still water and the ducks are quietly getting on with life...
The view from the bridge in the other direction is even more surreal...
Crowds visit to enjoy the spectacle and associated events and performances. I find it quite spell-binding and bizarrely enjoyable, but am pleased too to return to the quieter beauty of nature au naturel.