Updata

I have follow-up information on some past posts.

Remember the mystery ditch weed?  Today while the train was stopped at a signal in the middle of the domain, I noticed another example.  Turns out they grow into big bushy shrubs about ten feet tall, and have bluish-purple flowers.  That gave me the clues I needed and I was able to identify it as Wooly Nightshade, a noxious pest weed.  It crowds out other plants, and its berries are toxic.  It's all over the country after escaping from decorative gardens.

And remember how the sun is hotter here?  Kind of like snowy climates' Wind Chill Factor, here they have Burn Time.  It tells you, given the time of year and the cloud cover, how many minutes it will take for a fair-skinned person of European descent to get a sunburn.  Today was a beautiful day in Auckland... and the burn time was only ten minutes!  And given that I'm not just fair-skinned but more like pink-white... I now carry my sunscreen everywhere with me.