iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

I’ve been inactive a while. Apologies. (Life and work!) What would people like to see on this page? Or should I sell it? (I had a low ball offer.) Kia pai te rā! / Have a good day! 👋

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

Meri Kirihimete! / Merry Christmas! 🎄 Whether you celebrate or not, I wish you and your loved ones health and happiness. ❤️💚

A pōhutukawa or “New Zealand Christmas tree” in full bloom with beautiful red flowers.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 17/08/2025

Tokangawhā / Split Apple Rock Approx. 50 metres off the coast between Kaiteriteri and Mārahau, Māori legend says the rock was split by two gods arguing over ownership. Geologists say it was a naturally occurring joint in the granite which water, waves and ice weakened over time. 📸 Pablo Heimplatz

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

The UK’s Online Safety Act is genuinely draconian. The internet in one of the most powerful tools in history. Access to it should, frankly, be a right. In some places it is. The UK government, past and present, is hiding behind the disingenuous “won’t someone please think of the children” argument.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

Perhaps not the most popular of takes but I loved seeing the King open the Parliament of Canada. Prime Minister Carney and Canada are showing that patriotism, tradition, and constitutional heritage can be centrist principles and don’t have to be the preserve of the right. New Zealand next, please!

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, left, speaks with King Charles ahead of the King delivering the speech from the throne in the Senate in Ottawa. Between them is draped the flag of Canada.(Source: Associated Press)

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

Lake Rotoiti in the Tasman District in the northwest of South Island. Surrounded by beech forests, the lake has a maximum depth of 82 metres and is popular for tramping and trout fishing. It is, unsurprisingly, a popular photo destination. 📸 Tim Foster

A wooden pier stretched into a still, dark lake with mist touched mountains and low grey clouds in the background.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Canada’s closest ally shouldn’t be the US (especially now). It should the UK and the Commonwealth. I know it’s not very popular or trendy to think it, and there are all manner of political and economic implications and ramifications nowadays, but I wholly support #CANZUK. 🇨🇦🇦🇺🇳🇿🇬🇧🤝

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

Two lambs in a field in Rosewill. Sheep farming is a major industry and in its early days NZ built itself on the wool and lamb trades. With approximately 24 million, NZ has the highest density of sheep for any country in the world and were the world’s leading exporter of lamb. 📸 Tim Marshall

Two lambs inquisitively look into the camera as sun shine over a paddock.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

“𝘒𝘢𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘢 𝘪 𝘬𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘪: 𝙠𝙪𝙖 𝙖𝙧𝙖 𝙠𝙚, 𝘬𝘶𝘢 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘢 𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘢 𝘪 𝘮𝘦𝘢 𝘢𝘪.” “He is not here: for 𝐇𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐧, as He said.” Believer or not, wishing everyone a happy, healthy, and hopeful Easter! ✝️🙏🕊️ (Apologies for late post!)

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

Kia pai tō whakatā Aranga! Hope you have a good Easter! ✝️🐣

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

Rainbow Falls (Māori: Waianiwaniwa; lit. “Waters of the Rainbow), a single-drop waterfall on the Kerikeri River. The 27 metre waterfall is popular with tourists and located along a 3.5 km track. The river passes through kiwi habitat, regenerating native trees such as kauri and tōtara. 📸 Marc St

A wide but shallow waterfall careens over a cliff into a large, dark pool surrounded by greenery.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

The Church of the Good Shepherd on the shores of Lake Tekapo. The iconic Anglican church was built in 1935 to commemorate early settlers. One of the most photographed places in NZ, in recent years its grounds have been damaged & services interrupted by est. 600,000 annual tourists. 📸 Peter Hammer

A stone church with dark slate roof sits atop a hill heavily flowered with purple and pink spear-like lupins as the sunsets in a golden sky.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

So I recreated the account from X in this post 👇 on BlueSky and within 12hrs it’s been labelled “spam” and all posts hidden 🙃 I only made 2 posts and they were pictures from a game I play (which X account was about) Apparently that counts as “spam posting/interaction churn” (what even is that??) 🙄

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

25 March was the day the One Ring was destroyed in Lord of the Rings canon. The site of Hobbiton, a farm west of Hinuera, was chosen by Peter Jackson because it “looked like a slice of ancient England”. Originally temporary, it was eventually kept and, of course, can be visited. 📸 Nate Johnston

A hobbit hole at Hobbiton. Stone steps lead to a round wooden door that is ajar and sits nestled in the side of a green, flowered hill.

A house burrowed into a hill with a yellow door and picket fence with flowers planted all over.

A wooden wharf stretches into a tranquil pond with the Green Dragon pub, with its thatched roof, in the background.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Golden fields and mountains of Lindis Pass (Māori: Ōmakō). Crossed by State Highway 8, it is the highest point on the South Island's highway network. It is surrounded by snow tussock (Māori: wī kura) which grows up to 2 metres high. Some specimens are estimated to be centuries old. 📸 Eugene Quek

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

Why do people – sorry, but it’s mainly Americans – think this is an official Government of New Zealand account? One glance at my bio or what I post should spell it out, surely? 👀 So strange to log on and be tagged in unhinged rants from non-Kiwis… 🙃😅

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Reposted by New Zealand

Duskfallcrew @duskfallcrew.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

@aotearoa.bsky.social Koru outside the Manse on Stewart Island, Nikon D3500 (I THINK THATS MY MODEL?) - 2018. :3 Thought i'd share.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

Hooker Valley Track with Aoraki / Mount Cook in the distance. At only 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) long and gaining only about 100 m (330 ft) in height, the well formed track is the most popular walk for tourists in the Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park in central-west South Island. 📸 We Are Travellers

The wooden walkway of Hooker Valley Track winding through alpine tussock with Aoraki / Mount Cook snowcapped and towering in the distance.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

Taranaki Maunga, formerly Mount Taranaki/Egmont. North Island’s second highest peak at 2,518m was made a “legal person” by Parliament in 2025. It is the third geographic feature granted personhood in Aotearoa, officially recognising it as sacred to—and an ancestor of—local iwi. 📸 Sophie Turner

Taranaki Maunga, formerly Mount Taranaki or Mount Egmont, rises over the Pouakai Tarns amid the purple skies of sunrise.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

The Shotover River (Māori: Kimiākau) in Otago, South Island. The 75 km river is fast flowing, cutting a path through Skippers Canyon before joining the Kawarau River east of Queenstown. Once a rich source of gold, today it’s a tourist spot for whitewater rapids and jet boating. 📸 Werner Sevenster

The turquoise blue waters of the Shotover River running through a deep and heavily wooded ravine.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

The sun rises over Wharariki Beach near Pūponga, the northernmost settlement of South Island / Te Waipounamu. 📸 Boon Panthalany

Golden light scatters over rolling green hills as mist lingers.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Maungawhau / Mount Eden overlooking Auckland. Mount Eden—whose Māori name means “whau tree mountain”—is the remnant of a long dormant volcano, one of—and the highest—of many on the Auckland isthmus. It was also once the site of the main pā (fort) of Tāmaki Māori. Today is the rohe of Ngāti Whātua.

The crater of Maungawhau / Mount Eden overlooks the city of Auckland with its distinctive Sky Tower in the distance.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

I am amazed.🤯 I passed 2K followers – or as I prefer to call you all, friends (Māori: “hoa”)!🙂 I began posting lesser known tidbits from our wonderful home NZ in the hope some may find it a little interesting. The engagement regularly floors me and I thank you all for it. Kia ora! (“Be well!”) ❤️

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

On this day in 1842, Auckland held its first Anniversary Day Regatta. Auckland’s Anniversary Day commemorates Lieutenant-Governor William Hobson’s arrival in the Bay of Islands in 1840. Today it is best known for a regatta on Waitematā Harbour that is possibly the largest such event in the world.

This painting depicts Waitematā Harbour with two large ships, HMS Miranda (left) and HMS Fawn, with Māori waka and smaller sailboats in the foreground taking part in the regatta.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

Lupins at Lake Tekapo. In hues of purple, blue and pink, lupins belong to the bean family and are not native to NZ. Planted by some farmers to lock nitrogen into the soil of the merino sheep stations in the high country, they outcompete native species and clog riverbeds. Problematic. But pretty.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Lake Wānaka and its famous tree at sunset. Wānaka is NZ’s 4th largest lake covering 192 km². “That Wānaka Tree”—as it’s often named—is a willow tree that is around 80-years-old. Sadly, the tree is increasingly under threat from over zealous tourists and vandals who sawed branches off in 2020.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

19 January 1845 – Hōne Heke cuts down the British flagstaff… again The first Māori to sign the Treaty of Waitangi, Ngāpuhi chief Hōne Heke Pōkai soon became disenchanted with colonisation. He expressed his outrage by repeatedly attacking the flagstaff on the hill above Russell / Kororāreka.

Hōne Heke fells the flagstaff flying the British flag at Kororāreka, as imagined by Arthur McCormick’s painting of 1908.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Apologies for the radio silence everyone – having issues with kidney stones. Again. 🤕🤒 Be back at it soon enough! 🙂

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

𝗛𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗶 — The distinctive and traditional Māori greeting performed by two people pressing their noses together, usually including the touching of the foreheads. What is it? What does it symbolise? Where does it come from? Ready to find out? Hoake! (“Let’s go!”)

King Charles III of New Zealand exchanges hongi, a traditional Māori greeting performed by two people pressing their noses together, with a Māori woman.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Ngā mihi o te tau hou! / Happy new year! 🥳 🎆 Thank you all for absolutely making my 2024 with how successful this account has been! It genuinely delights me that so many strangers across the internet find interest in anything I have to say… 😅 I wish every one of you health & happiness for 2025! 🍻

media.tenor.com

a fireworks display with the words happy new year written on the bottom

ALT: a fireworks display with the words happy new year written on the bottom

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

30 December 1835 – Charles Darwin leaves New Zealand after nine-day visit Darwin’s visit to the Bay of Islands on HMS Beagle was brief and unspectacular from his point of view. The Beagle’s captain, Robert FitzRoy, would later serve as the second governor of New Zealand.

Charles Darwin leans against a wall in a cloak and hat, circa 1880.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 25/12/2024

Meri Kirihimete! / Merry Christmas! 🎄

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

“We don't have to save the world. The world is big enough to look after itself. What we have to be concerned about is whether or not the world we live in will be capable of sustaining us in it.” — Douglas Adams There is no second Earth, no second chance. Humanity needs to wake up.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

On this day in 1878, universal male suffrage was introduced. The Qualification of Electors Act extended the right to vote to all European men aged 21 or over, regardless of whether they owned or rented property. This was 12 years after Māori men obtained universal male suffrage in 1867.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

18 December 1642 — First known encounter between Māori and Europeans. Abel Tasman’s Dutch East India Company expedition had the first known European contact with Māori. It did not go well.

“A view of the Murderers' Bay, as you are at anchor here in 15 fathom” by Dutch artist and merchant, Isaack Gilsemans (1642).

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

On this day in 1977, the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act passed. Parliament passed the Act following an inquiry by a Royal Commission. In the 1970s there was heated debate around women’s access to contraceptives, abortion services, and women’s level of control over their own bodies.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

Kea parrot in Arthur’s Pass, South Island, New Zealand. (Image copyright Pablo Heimplatz)

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

On this day in 1931, the ‘Mother of Parliaments’, the British Parliament, enacted the Statute of Westminster, granting complete autonomy to its six Dominions. Australia and New Zealand held back from adopting this status and in 1947 New Zealand became the last of the Dominions to do so.

Front page of the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1947.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

Five years ago today, 47 tourists (38 of them passengers on the cruise ship 𝘖𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘦𝘢𝘴) and guides were on Whakaari (White Island) in Bay of Plenty when the active volcano erupted at 2:11 pm.

White Island / Whakaari erupting in 2019.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

There is little I hate more than telling someone you’re autistic and them deciding they can make you ‘normal’ by forcing you to do things you don’t enjoy… “Why won’t you come out with work?” “I’m autistic and noisy crowds overwhelm me.” “But you’ll have a great time!” “I really won’t.” “You will!”

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

I see the crypto spam bots have also made the move from X/Twitter… 🙄

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

Today in 1928 the First Bishop of Aotearoa was consecrated. Frederick Bennett—who had a Ngāti Whakaue mother and an Irish father—was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1897. He spent 13 years as superintendent of the Māori mission in Rotorua before moving to Hastings for mission work in Hawke’s Bay.

Frederick Augustus Bennett, pictured here in 1928, was the first Bishop of Aotearoa.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

1 December 1898 – The first movie shot in New Zealand 🎥 The first motion pictures to have been taken in NZ were by W H Bartlett for entrepreneur Alfred Whitehouse, who in 1895 had imported the colony’s first ‘kinetoscope’, a Thomas Edison invention that showed moving images to one viewer at a time.

1898 Auckland Industrial and Mining Exhibition (Alexander Turnbull Library)

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

Aoraki / Mount Cook and Lake Pukaki (Copyright Casey Horner) #NewZealand #Aotearoa #Photography 🇳🇿📸

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

On this day in 1949, the First National Government was elected. The First Labour Government led by Peter Fraser was defeated by Sidney Holland’s National Party after 14 years in power. The result heralded a long period of National dominance with the party holding power for 29 of the next 35 years.

Sidney George Holland, photographed by Gordon Burt, circa 1953.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

29 November 1893 – First woman mayor in British Empire is elected. By becoming mayor of the Auckland borough of Onehunga, Elizabeth Yates struck another blow for women’s rights in local-body polls held the day after the first general election in which women could vote.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

28 November 1893 — New Zealand women went to the polls for the first time, just 10 weeks after the governor, Lord Glasgow, signed the Electoral Act 1893 into law, making New Zealand the first country in which women had the right to vote in parliamentary elections.

Women vote for the first time at a polling station in the tiny South Otago settlement of Tahakopa on 28 November 1893.

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New Zealand @aotearoa.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Today in 1953, New Zealand’s first family planning clinic opened. For years the Family Planning Association tried to establish a clinic where women could access information & services relating to contraception & fertility.

Dr Helen Barlow (right) during a consultation with Joyce Megget when the Wellington clinic opened in 1959.

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