On my way home along the south coast last night warm evening light was colouring the clearing clouds. In the distance bright light was breaking through. It was a welcome sight - it had been a dull grey day after a dramatic and intense storm. Then I saw a white spot on the horizon.
Lit up by the evening sun and looking as tiny as a child's toy was a cruise liner leaving Wellington. These huge vessels dwarf the wharf where they berth and thousands of visitors check out the city for a day before they head on to their next destination. This one, the Sea Princess, is number two of the 76 of these liners which will visit us before the end of the season in mid-May. They might be huge in the human scale, but in the scale of the natural world we humans and our constructions are tiny. Our impact is, unfortunately, not to scale.