
From left: Julie Flintoff, Gaye & Graeme Bloomfield, Stella Bloomfield, Brian Flintoff at Tahuna Beach with their amazing sun sand sculpture. Photo: Sinead Ogilvie, Nelson Weekly.
Local Monaco residents Julie & Brian Flintoff love the Nelson summer sun.
Last weekend they stepped up and did their bit in the fight to bring back the crown as the Sunshine Capital of New Zealand to Nelson, a title lost last year to rival sun city Whakatane.
When they heard from Bowater Hyundai last week that there was a compeition on to win a brand new Hyundai Santa Fe they began planning an epic sand sculpture. Their design is based around the old Maori legend of Maui snaring the sun. In this case it is all of us snaring the sun, and "encouraging" it to stick around so we can win back the crown.
Brian Flintoff is a professional, and experienced, jade and bone carver. He is quite comfortable working in the "3-D", but working in sand is an entirely new artistic endeavour. Not phased by this he gathered in the family and headed off to Tahunanui Beach last Saturday morning. They had a plan in mind but didn't quite know how it would all come together.
We discovered that they had built their scuplture when it appeared on the front page of the Nelson Weekly today. We think they did a fantastic job, but they now need our collective help to win the car.