My friend J and I visited the subtropical Whangārei Quarry Gardens:

In 1944 Hardie Brothers established a stone quarry … Severe flooding in 1974 curtailed the operation and the … land lay fallow for 20 years, used mainly as a rubbish dump, full of abandoned vehicles, concrete slabs, gorse, pampas grass, and other weeds. … In 1997 [a] group of enthusiasts … began clearing the overgrown site.

@Miraz I love this. There are a lot of old rock quarries in California and they’re all barren, sometimes with winter-time ponds.

@writingslowly That’s so cool.

@rpmik It represents many thousands of hours of volunteer labour. I’m so glad there are people who chose to do that work.